If you might have happened to have been in Town sometime Saturday, you would have been reminded of the activity around the Square & Downtown area during the Good ol’ Days of the fifties & early 60’s. There surely was lots of folks hustling & bustling all over our fair Valley of the Pecan. Will was in visiting with Grandparents, opening weekend & accompanied me down around the Square as well a visiting the Hunter & customer appreciation day festivities at Hamrick’s & Stafford’s. We visited with Steve Faught for a while, looking at some of his hunting paraphernalia, rifles, guns, & optics. He usually handles a line of shooting supplies that are useful as well as affordable. I was able to trade him out of a 2.5 X, Weaver scope that is my favorite for .22 Mags or small caliber rifles. We wandered all around the Square and Will got to see quite a number of folks that he hadn’t visited with in some time. He tried to get some Tamales from Mary Flores as she had her table set up on the South side across from Shahan’s but she had sold out pretty early. Mary makes tasty Tamales as well as some different sorts of Salsas. Maybe I can remember to make a deal with her on some for Christmas eve.

Being near the noon hour, we went on over to Hamrick’s to take in all the sights, listen to the good music, as well as sip a soda with a good grilled sausage wrap. The hamburger line was too long. Will got to visit with Peggy & Richard as they were waiting in line for a Burger. Peggy’s brother, Bobby was in from Alto and had bagged a nice buck up at Spring Creek that morning. Barker also added that one of his hunters on the Home Place had killed a good 11 pt. Buck that no one had seen prior. He thought he was pretty lucky as the hunter had placed his blind & feeder in that spot only the afternoon prior to opening morning. I was able to get out to their camp on fri. afternoon and visit with Mabra and McKee, both of whom have been hunting down in this area probably some 30-odd years. Dan went over to the Rabbit Run, Brantley’s ol’ junk pile, and helped me load some building materials for Will to construct some sort of a blind out in Nana’s trap behind the Barn. Anyhow, the music, food, and festivities were a real treat. Weldon Buck has become ‘bout as an accomplished vocalist as Bode Barker. The whole affair has really outgrown the early ones that McBride & yrs. Truly used to fry fish for Hamrick’s hunters and some “preferred” customers. I do recall that Jackie Casebeer, James Reavis, and Fuzzy Martin could smell the fish frying from all the way down at Harry’s.

Shaw & I haven’t had too many reports of any big Bucks being taken as the opening weekend weather was fairly mild and the moon was not in the right stage. Several folks have mentioned that the heavy mast crop has fairly well left piles of corn untouched under the game feeders. We have seen quite a number of small bucks on some of our scouting forays around the County roads and all the deer herd seems to be in excellent body condition. We did hear that Jimack Timmons took a pretty nice 8-pt. out on his Rough Creek place. One of the family members reported that it was supposed to have been saved for his grand daughter. Oh, well.

We just received our Fall-Spring Catalog from Womack Nursery Co. , De Leon, this past week and looks like they have lots of neat plants and trees in stock for the yard, garden, and orchard this season. Perusing the pages, I noticed that he’s added a number of new varieties of grapes, as well as some selections of Wild Plum that I had been helping with sending him some seed in years past. He has already sold out of Cheyenne Pecan trees, but has some of the new varieties Nocono, Lakota, & Waco as well as some of the established varieties. Olan Tisdale & I still like the Sioux & Hopi makes an excellent yard tree. Apache & Caddo are a couple of others that have been overlooked in the past but are gaining popularity. Pawnee, Daddy’s favorite, is listed as the most requested by Womack. The Nursery also stocks a good supply of orchard tools & supplies that are hard to find elsewhere. The have a good list of Shade trees, Wildlife Cover, Flowering trees & shrubs as well. Now would be a good time to plan on what you might be needing for the yard, garden, or orchard if you plan on planting any. You can get a number & or address down at the County Agent’s office.

While speaking of the County Extension Office, it would be well to remember that the San Saba County Pecan Show is about 3 weeks from now. It it easier to take the nuts for the show samples off the tree as they open or get them off the ground each morning and keep them stored in a box or paper bag until you get enough to select a good sample. Each show sample should be at least 40 nuts of each variety and I usually put 42 in case one might split or crack. Producers and home owners need to make an extra effort this year to send in some samples as our crop is short around here and our County Pecan Show has been the oldest & best in Texas for many years.

Looks like we’ve finally got past the voting part of the election, however, there is no telling as to how long it will take to get a clear decision as to who might be “legally” elected. Here again I’m reminded of one of Will Rogers’ quotes on elections: “Political elections———are a good deal like marriages, there’s no accounting for anyone’s taste.” I’m glad to report that Lady Z, as well as the Mayor & me have no problems with that out around————————Harkeyville!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!