It has sprung

Ah, the first day of spring. How the snow does fall and the north wind does blow! Yesterday was Winter's last breath, we hope, and the shining sun promises that today will be brighter and warmer.

The wet season has left the window for plowing open just a crack. Mr. Husband finally got to prep the field to be sprigged with Tiftan 85, a grass that is supposed to be hardy and full of protein. We've decided to get away from growing careless weeds.

I was sad to read about the recent death of Sweetwater's Dr. Densmore. He was such a kind person, and Jim Drake's blog will give a sense of how the community saw him. Such a sweet, sweet man.

The annual Kevin Hutson Rotan sale is coming up, Apr. 17, at the rodeo grounds. There's already some things to look at out there. Surely they're still taking consignments. Call them up if you've got some items to put in the sale.

I can't say I appreciated "Reader's Digest The Best, Worst and Deadliest Roads in America: The Rankings" being touted on the local news at face value. Best roads, New Mexico is ahead of us? Hah! I'm basing my findings on what I've seen. We drove clean through the United States from here to Canada (well, North Dakota) and we actually laughed at outdated and substandard guardrails and fencing. Deadly roads are based on per million miles driven? Guess what, Texas is big and we have more lane miles.

Also, it is no reflection on the roads when the criteria is being based on actions of the driver.

I may be a tiny, tiny bit biased because we're a TxDOT family. You can draw your own conclusions from statistics posted at the Federal Highway Administration portal, which is where RD got their basic info.

Now I'm going to plug Don King, owner, editor and publisher of The Roscoe Times. He did a fine memorial to Densmore on the front page of the March 19 issue. It seems that King has hit his stride with the paper and it is quickly becoming a popular bi-weekly source of regional and local information. If you would like to subscribe, e-mail amwemes@yahoo.com, write to Roscoe Times, P.O. Box 43, Roscoe, TX 79545, or leave a message at 325-235-0203. These contacts are also good if you have news you would like to share with the Roscoe community.

Oh, and I can report it is truly spring, not just because the calendar says so, but because I saw a buzzard on Friday. It's so nice nice to have the helpful carrion-eater back, he does such a wonderful job of cleaning up the roads. Gruesome, but true.

Happy Spring, and tulips to everyone!

Round Up kick-off

The Rattlesnake Round-Up is gearing up and the big kick-off is today and tonight with the parade and Queen contest. The park is filling up fast. It's looking like this is going to be the biggest round-up yet.

I wanted to mention that Java Jax will have live entertainment this Friday and Saturday. Dinner starts at 7 p.m. with the show beginning at 8 p.m. Butch Hancock will be the feature performer both nights, with special guest Angela Virgen on Fri. & Lance Richburg on Sat. Check it out at 325 Oak St., downtown Sweetwater. BYOB, smoke-free environment.

Rites of passage

We have a new driver in the family! It was made official this week after my daughter passed her driving test in Roby. I cried as I handed my money to Ms. Bright, the test administrator. My girl was proud, but she let me drive home. She said she was too stressed out from the test.

I had my own initiation this week, into middle age. I was buying some snappy new shoes and started talking about phones to the salesgirl, whom I thought was around my age (I keep thinking I'm 18, 24, around there somewhere). She said she remembered the old phones at her grandmas. I said, oh, yeah, the big black rotary phone. She said, no, it was peach-colored, and you had to stick your fingers in the slot and turn it. There was my clue that I was out of the conversation. Obviously, her grandma and mine had years between them. And if someone doesn't know what a rotary phone is called, well, jeez. I didn't realize what it would mean to know so much. I feel very experienced (euphemism for nearly 50).

I'm about to let you know how ignorant, once again, I am about the voting process. They started running the election tallies on tv Tuesday night, and we noticed the proposition numbers were coming up. I didn't see the propositions on my ballot, I thought we would be voting on them when we vote for governor Nov. 2. Surely they weren't only on the republican ballot? Maybe they were on the back? I don't know. I may never understand politics. But I'll keep trying!

I saw in the Feb. 26 issue of the Sweetwater Reporter that Matt Counts, son of late Fisher County Sheriff Mickey Counts, was promoted to Sergeant by Sweetwater Chief of Police Jim Kelley. Mike Counts, brother to Matt, is a Sergeant in Snyder.

T. Baker Smith has been busy surveying up and down FM 1614 and FM 611. I'm supposing this is for the Kinder-Morgan CO2 pipeline. In the Clay Johnson letter I received in 2006, it said the line would run through several counties to include Scurry, Fisher and Stonewall. They've been putting sticks on the south side of 1614, about 50 feet inside property lines.

I want to remind everyone that Hobbs Holler is on Facebook and Twitter, two networks that are fun to browse and peck around on (waste time).

I've been feeling guilty about this, so just in case some of you grammatically correct readers want to knock me around for constantly ending sentences with prepositions, Grammar Girl helps me justify my usage. With or without justification, though, I am a proponent of grammatical freedom. I figure that if I've conveyed my thought to you through words, then any means is justifiable.

Okay, okay, okay. Have a nice day, talk to you soon.

Applecore, Baltimore

- Prickly Pear cactus -

The photo won't give you a clue about the title, it's just one that I took at Rough Creek Saturday afternoon. I like the red hue of the cactus. That was one sweet day.

We got a call Saturday morning at 6:41 a.m. from a number in Baltimore, Maryland. That's early even by telemarketer standards. I answered, but there was no one on the line.

I looked the number up on the web and found that many people had been getting calls from the same source. It ended up being the time and temperature number for the state of Maryland. I e-mailed them and apparently it is some kind of glitch and they've had many people contact them. They were hoping to report it to the phone company today and resolve the problem. Apparently, some folks got as many as 11 calls at 3:00 a.m. I'm lucky to have gotten just the one.

In a note of passing, Tim Counts died Sunday week. He was the brother of Sheriff Mickey Counts, who died in December. Jimmy D. Parker, Jr., Kenneth Gordon Allen and Judy Rushing Clifton also recently died. In Sweetwater, well-known business man and former mayor Jere Lawrence died Feb. 18.

Voting will take place tomorrow, so get ready to hit the polls. I actually voted early at the court house, first time. I had no idea how to do it. I wandered around asking a stranger where to go. I finally found the polling booth in the county clerks office. They were very helpful and lined me out. It only took a few minutes and I got to have a small adventure. On the way out, I told the woman, whom I had first asked, where the voting place was in case she was asked again. She was very nice, sitting on the bench in the atrium with a broken leg. She said she wasn't even from this county.

The Hobbs School is the voting place for local constituents. I know some people think voting doesn't count, but it's kind of like the lottery: if you don't play, you can't win. I'm still working on understanding the voting process. If you want to vote local, you have to vote democratic because there are no republicans running, and frankly, there never are. I think it's funny, because I don't know anyone in farm country who likes democrats on the hill, you know, that one in Washington. They think they're liberal.

I guess there's a big difference between country democrats and city democrats.

I'm thinking of doing a run of Hobbs Holler in print. There would be a lot more info, stories, photos, etc. if I decide to do so. Let me know if any of ya'll would be interested. Before anything else, I need a mailing list.

Keep snug, April showers aren't that far away!