Most of the folks around our parts seemed to be only beginning to enjoy Fall & October, whilst finding ourselves already half through November and planning our Turkey Day dinners. We enjoyed good, general rains over most parts of the County during the 1st part of October that went a long way toward filling the creeks, rivers, & ponds around the area, as well as a couple of light showers during the early part of November. Most of the pastures sort of resemble newly emerged small grain fields with short, green forage trying to get going. With little follow-up on rainfall and a couple of light frosts, the forage growth is sort of at a standstill. It tried to rain Tuesday morning, but not enough to record at this writing. Our localrainfall pretty well resembles our Aggie football; sort of “hit or miss.” Activity has really picked up around our part of the Hill Country the past few weeks, what with the advent of hordes of hunters, the San Saba Pecan Jam festival, Peddler’s Day, and the fervor of football. The Golden Armadillos are still in the hunt with a convincing bi-district win overStockdale. I would imagine that a lot of folks will be traveling through Austin to Bastrop Friday evening to support our boys in the Regional tilt with East Bernard. As it started out from the bed of an ill football player some 80 odd years back, “Boys, dig in there like a bunch of Armadillos!”The local Pecan season has been in progress for the past few weeks with mixed review. Record prices are causing lots of conversation, but the crop is pretty light around our Fair Valley. The local harvesters are staying pretty busy at present, but it’s taking a good many more rounds to gather a load. The quality of kernel fill is also rather spotted. The localretail outlets have been able to keep their bins fairly full and thevisitors are still coming in. We would imagine that their condiment sales might be up a bit this season, due to the increase in price of the Pecans. The Barber Ranch bunch was in from Channing last week for their Annual Hereford Bull sale out at the Harkeyville Auction. Dale & Mary came in with the bulls on Saturday and worked the next 3 days figuring out the sale line up and details with prospective buyers. The sale was held onWednesday with bull buyers from all over Texas as well as several other states clamoring over the prize bulls along with some 20 odd crossbred heifers sired from Barber Ranch stock. Terri Lynn and Jason were both in to help their folks with the sale, as well as several of their neighboring ranchers. I won’t quote the prices nor averages as I don’t have those figures, but it would suffice to say that cattle prices were up quite a bit at last Wednes-day’s Bull & Heifer sale. We also dined rather well during the week with a fish-fry one evening, Prime Rib dinner on Tuesday, and Betty Ann fed the whole crew & buyers chicken fried steaks for lunch before the sale.The Jordan Family sports a fine facility for such functions and does a bang-up job of putting on a sale. The San Saba Elementary hosted our American Legion Post for a fine Veteran’s Day service last Friday morning. The Cafeteria fixed a bountiful breakfast for us at 7:00 and the student glee club sang us a medley of Patriotic songs. They did a fine job and received a rousing ovation from the Veterans and spouses. They make it such an enjoyable event each year and are to be highly commended for honoring us on such a memorable Holiday. Lady Z even went to the trouble of baking me a Butter Pecan Cake in honor of the Day and we’re still enjoying it. That said, I should be getting on with keeping things in line with the Mayor & me outaround————Harkeyville!!!!!