We have enjoyed the best of East Texas weather since last Saturday and the balance of the week should hold the pleasing fall weather with sunshine. According to the forecast, beginning Sunday, liquid sunshine is back for our area but with only 10 percent chance to start.

This is an early alert! The Christmas tree growers with the choose-and-cut option have excellent trees this year, according to all reports.

Check with your favorite grower and they are usually open the day or weekend after Thanksgiving.

Ryan Farms in Dixie, La., has their sweet potatoes boxed and ready for you to come buy.

The favorite "tater" will be available until around Christmas time and would make a great Christmas gift.

"You'll see how rich you are when you add up everything that you have that money can't buy and death can't take away."

Pine Tree and Hallsville's seventh grade football teams played last Tuesday at Pine Tree.

Our grandson, Jake Greer, was tossed a pass on the first play of the game, caught it and took it to the end zone for a touchdown.

Hallsville won 30-12. It was a game made for grandparents as it started at 4:15 p.m. and a nice way to close their season.

It is time to sign up for the 2010 Harrison County Master Gardeners program. The closing date is around the middle of December, but do it now or you could wind up like a lot of folks that didn't vote on the Props last Tuesday.

It was too far to go to the polls and you could have voted early and at a convenient place but you didn't.

Kylie Layton, Waskom Jr. FFA member, already has her thank you letters sent to those who purchased or added money to her lamb project at the recent Harvest Festival Sale in Longview.

"Thank you" is a phrase that can open many doors and cause many smiles.

According to research done in Canada, "Older people who expressed a strong motivation to be perfect were 51 percent more likely to die during a six and a half year study than people who had considerably lower self expectations."

A perfectionist I am not. I wonder if I can get those extra years somehow.

I have had the opportunity to be in the auction business over 44 years yet I have never had a sale as interesting as the one we are having for Barbara and Billy Bachman on Newton Loop, off Farm-to-Market Road 2199.

The Bachmans are selling the nearly 50 acres fenced with 3 ponds, nice brick home with a large barn containing 6 horse stalls.

It will be a two day sale Friday and Saturday, Nov. 20 and 21.

You can view the auction items Sunday, Nov. 15, 1 to 3 p.m. Billy was a professional cowboy from 1936 to 1953.

For more information on the auction, call 903-687-2222.

This is just a hint for your landscape if you decide to plant a tree or shrub.

Do not add compost to the planting hole as this practice, although common, is neither recommended nor helpful to the plant.

If you have the bull with the cow herd and a cow gets bred now, you will have a summer calf and that is next to nothing.

Hold the bull away from the herd until the end of the second week in December and you will have calves in mid-September and should do well.

"Always put off until tomorrow what you shouldn't do at all."

Harrison County Cattlemen's Association annual meeting will be Nov. 12 at 6 p.m. in the extension service meeting room on the south side of the square in Marshall.

They need to know how many are coming so you can be well fed. Call 903-935-8413 and let them know you will be there.

Bill Higginbotham will present the program on Feral Hog Control.

Billy always presents a great program and there will be an award or two to pass out.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, there will be an auction of the vehicles and other items seized by Harrison County Sheriff's Department.

A list of the auction items will be available soon.

Americans always catch on but sometimes it just takes a while.

In a recent survey done by a Chicago firm for grocery stores and meat markets, they found that consumers have found that by purchasing choice and prime grade steaks they could cook steaks at home as good as restaurants can.

I would add most of the time better as lots of so-called steak places serve select grade and it does not grill well because of the lack of marbling.