The Sheriff’s Office received 119 calls for service this week. As this report is being written there are 33 inmates with eight being female in the Archer County Jail.

Paul and Nila Dowlearn-Owners of Wichita Valley Nursery. Paul’s recent books, “The Lazy Man’s Garden” and “Touch the Earth” are available at the Nursery, 5314 S.W. Pkwy, Wichita Fall, Texas.

Things sure do change as time goes by in life. We have friends that move on, jobs that take us to new places and we all eventually lose loved ones. To be honest, while they are sometimes difficult to face, life is full of adjustments.

Thank you to Donna Haile for her donations in memory of Virginia Cox and Aquilla Brake. “Every catastrophe begins with a little problem that doesn’t get fixed.” So says Pauline Green, president of the United States, in Follett’s nerve-racking drama of international tension.

Texas universities have produced many interesting political figures. Perhaps one of the most unusual journeys was that of University of Texas graduate Fernando Belaunde. Belaunde earned a Texas architectural license, became a noted architect, and was twice elected president of Peru, surviving a military coup in the process.

Chrysanthemums have always been the big seller for fall color. So many years that our wholesale growers have learned to manage these to the peak of perfection for that stunning round ball of blooms. Chrysanthemums are perennial so your investment can return for years to come. While they can survive a light freeze and some frost a good hard freeze will put them down. Good for Halloween but maybe not Thanksgiving.

The Sheriff’s Office received 123 calls for service this week. As this report is being written there are 28 inmates with six being female in the Archer County Jail.

Thank you to Gay Hendrixson for her donation in memory of Donald Hale. Also, thank you to Jane Huffman for her donations in memory of Betsy Gibson and Aquilla Brake.

War hero and president are how Zachary Taylor is usually remembered, if at all. Though obscure today, he was at one time one of the most famous figures in the country. A Texas resident for a time, “Old Rough and Ready,” as his troops affectionately called him, stirred the nation’s imagination.

Halloween is upon us. Now that it is too late, I’ve had some people asking when to plant and how to grow pumpkins. A pumpkin is a member of the group of plants we call squashes. Gourds, melons, and squash all come from the same plant family; cucurbitae. Squash, and there are many types, are one of the “three sisters” (corn, beans, squash) grown in succession in Native American garden traditions. The beans, through bacteria in the root systems, would provide extra nitrogen in the soil for the other two which are known to be “heavy feeders.” The corn was planted first, the beans would climb the corn stalk as a trellis and the squash were planted last. Squash like hot weather. It is believed that pumpkins were the squash most often used in those days. A large pumpkin can feed quite a few people.