All things considered, our fair valley of the Pecan was pretty busy this past weekend. Everything started off pretty good for the weekend with most areas around the County getting some moisture during the latter part of the week.

Daddy’s gauge measured just a smidgen over .5”, while Jr. reported about ¾” up the lane from China Creek over toward Fairview. Lige Ann reported .4” on the upper reaches of Simpson Creek out on the Stewardson, with Lawton reporting the same for the Hardware Store in Cherokee.

The Garvin Station showed a half inch on Johnny Brown Lane out towards 5-Mile Hill, while the gauge at the Rimes in Algerita was up to an inch. Rainbolt was even smiling.

It is somewhat short of amusing at how many folks will stop watering lawns & gardens after a light rain, when I was usually told that it’s actually a good time to turn on the irrigation watering. You get a more uniform distribution of your water application and it helps a smaller amount go a lot farther toward keeping the soil moisture at adequate levels.

While we’re speaking of lawns, gardens, & ornamentals, this is a time of the season to consider some alternative practices.

Even though the 1st day of summer came in officially this past weekend, we have had our fair share of warmer than usual temperature for around a month or so, already. If you didn’t get your May fertilization applied, now might be a good time. Take care not to put on a granular while the foliage is still wet as it could result in leaf burn from fertilizer contact. It would also be a good time to raise your mower blade up a notch, as the grass needs more leaf surface for shading stems & stolons from the summer sun.

Again, we might suggest to try and get your watering done in the mornings, as late afternoon or evening watering leaves wet or damp foliage overnight that is prime micro-climate for disease development.

Thorough, deep watering on a weekly basis is a lot better than “piddle” watering every other day or so. A watering hose in the hands of the yard & garden master is about the most dangerous implement there is where the plants are concerned.

There were certainly several hundred extra folks around Town this past weekend with the Parade and Rodeo as well as the “Guys & Dolls” Invitational Golf tournament down at the San Saba Course. Most of the merchants were pretty well packed with the extra influx of shoppers even with the sultry summer temperatures. Add a few Family and School Class reunions and the result was a town full of folks.

Son, Will was in from Waco visiting with Grandparents in town & out at Sloan. He took some time to tend to some roof-gutter cleaning over at the Harkey House as well as some Cedar shearing out at Nana’s. Grilling some steaks over at Daddy’s for Fri. night pretty well set the stage for the rest of the weekend.

Speaking of cooking, I went over to the Shaw House and helped Jarvis grill some seventy-odd burgers for a bunch of hungry Parade participants Sat. noon. Not being sure of the exact number of folks fed, they surely consumed copious quantities of Burgers with all the trimmings that the ladies laid out. The Blonde Brownies & Lemon Squares that traditionally top the table are always favorites.

Still having plenty of afternoon daylight left, yrs. Truly made it over to Llano to help Roland Rode & Dexter Sagebiel fry fish for 5 hrs. for the Llano National Bank’s 25th anniversary. Rayburn Houston is about the best Corn-mealer I’ve seen in some time and Josh helped Roland with the fry-o-laters. They did up a bunch of Hushpuppies and taters, too.

Randy Sanderson and crew grilled a few hundred lbs. of Cooper’s sausage and the Bank crew took care of serving and door prizes. They had a long line of folks plumb out to the street for about 3 hours.

Willmann’s staff & crew did a bang-up job with the event with lots of folks having a very pleasant Sat. afternoon. The Bank gave each of the cooks a complimentary cattle herding staff as well as some fancy engraved “Dairy Dipper” tool for ice cream, the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

All in all, it turned out to be a fairly active weekend for cook-outs, so I’d suppose that the Mayor and this humble scribe might take a break this weekend prior to the 4th, out around——————Harkeyville!!!!!!!!!!