Here we are, finding ourselves in the middle of March, while it seems to have been but a few weeks back that we were ringing in the New Year. One thing for certain that we "semi" seniors can attest to is the escolation of the passing of time with progression of age. Seems as if a weekend lasted forever back when we were younger, while Friday afternoon seems to turn right into Monday morning, now-days. We would also suppose that the younger folks have little interest in this such-said subject while the folks our age and up really don't care to be reminded. However, lit is definitely a precious figt and we should truly treasure "nearly" every day of it.

March is also a good time to get a lot of maintenance chores tended to in the yard, garden, flower beds and orchard. Preparation for the coming growing season will save you a lot of headaches later on. We visited on the advantages of soil sampling for the yard, garden, beds and orchard last week and there is still plenty of time to get that done. If you've never utilized this handy chore, have no fear. It's no great science project and the sample kit comes with a set of instructions. Late March is also a good time to make fertilizer applications for your turf grass, landscape plants and orchard trees as they will all be emerging or breaking bud in the coming weeks. There is also still plenty of time to get that maintenance pruning done on your shrubs, landscape plants and orchard. The dormant season is the absolute optimum period for pruning most woody plants, but I still refer to an ol' horticulturist buddy of mine from Uvalde as to when the best time to prune. Dr. Loy Shreve always answered " Well, there are fifty-two days of the year one should not prune!" The workshop participants would ask as to when that might be and Dr. Shreve would reply " That's how many Sundays there are in a year!"

I think Shaw and yours truly might be getting ready to bait our lines during the next dark phase of the moon and I'd like to do a bit of stink - bait fishing in the mean time. Until then, the Mayor and yours truly should be fixing a lil' pot of lamb stew for lady Z and Ms. Lillian to enjoy St. Ptrick's Day anywhere out around ----Harkeyville!!!