Prep work at the playground site has started this week!

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge will offer free spring break activities for the family, Monday, March 10 – Friday, March 14. Texas Master Naturalist Gerry Shehan will lead guided nature walks on Harris Creek Trail, 10:00 a.m., Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, weather permitting. To participate, meet Shehan at the Visitor Center. Nature videos will be shown at 11:00 a.m. daily, in the Visitor Center Meeting Room. Then, drop in for nature craft activities any time between 2:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., also in the Meeting Room, Visitor Center. Open air tram tours along Wildlife Drive will go at 1:00 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., weather permitting. To make a your reservation, call 903-786-2826.

Being in my sixties doesn’t bother me as much as having my two sons in their forties. I’ve asked the boys to always wear a cap or hat around me so that I never know if they experience early balding or salt in their pepper hair. Oh wait---I probably won’t be able to see it anyway.

Most readers of this column would probably agree that the winter we are now hoping to escape from has been a real doozy.

Historians believe that the cherry tomato originated in Peru and Northern Chile. Today’s commercial cherry tomato was developed in several labs in Israel in 1973.

1916 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. José Doroteo Arango Arámbula (5 June 1878 – 20 July 1923) – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or his nickname Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals. As commander of the División del Norte (Division of the North), he was the veritable caudillo of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, which, given its size, mineral wealth, and proximity to the United States of America, provided him with extensive resources. Villa and his supporters seized hacienda land for distribution to peasants and soldiers. He robbed and commandeered trains and, like the other revolutionary generals, printed fiat money to pay for his cause. Villa's men and supporters became known as Villistas during the revolution from 1910 to roughly 1920. Villa's dominance in northern Mexico was broken in 1915 through a series of defeats he suffered at Celaya and Agua Prieta at the hands of Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles. After Villa's famous raid on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, U.S. Army General John J. Pershing tried unsuccessfully to capture Villa in a nine-month pursuit that ended when the United States entered into World War I and Pershing was called back. Villa retired in 1920 and was given a large estate, which he turned into a "military colony" for his former soldiers. In 1923, he decided to reinvolve himself in Mexican politics and as a result was assassinated, most likely on the orders of Obregón.