Subtle signs hint winter soon will lose its grip

By Darla Buckhannon

Happy birthday to Betty Darnell, Misty Davis, Shea Candace Dumey, Sidney Burkes, Tyler Graham, John Gramlisch, Shea Smith, Samantha Hendrix, David Petitt, Craig Glenzy, Mark Ballard, Brenda Coomer, Darin Teague, Marcella Westrich, Debbie Davie, Kevin McCallum, Debbie Gaines, Sandy Spane, Chase Eskew, Rebecca Sams, Franklin Welter, Jackie Heeb, Jane Childs, Haley and Kaitlin Glastetter, Bill Hamm, Ron Whitaker, Kyle Applewhite, Eric Hanselman, Leslie Bowers, Stella Jackson, Billy Gene Goodman, Bill Hanlon, Abby Hahn and Mason Lynn.

Happy anniversary to Davey and Misty Davis and Ralph and Fimble Enderle.

Tomorrow is Presidents' Day -- a holiday for state and federal offices. The Senior Center also will be closed.

During Lent, the Elks will hold a fried-fish and chicken dinner every Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. through March 30. Easter is early this year -- April 1.

The dark-eyed juncos, also known as snowbirds, are still foraging on the ground, but here and there are hints that spring is just around the corner. After all, the groundhog's prediction of six weeks of winter is about up and the official first day of spring is just a month away. The northern cardinals have begun singing early in the morning, and some of the goldfinches have a hint of their summer color. Some of my tulips already are coming up, so I had to add another layer of straw to protect their tender shoots.

Another sign spring soon will arrive is the countdown to the opening of the Chaffee Drive-in! The date is Monday, March 5, weather permitting. Laura Estes tells us caramel and salted-caramel sundaes and shakes will be new this year. Check them out on Facebook for updates and perhaps a couple give aways. Mother Nature has not cooperated the last couple of seasons so we are hoping this year will be different. My sister Ruth's birthday is March 11, and she reminds me that many a birthday party was canceled due to snow.

With the temperatures below freezing, I am always amazed as to how many ladies don't wear coats and oftentimes wear sandals. In Dallas, as soon as the weather dips to the 40s, the fur coats come out of the closets!

A couple of readers commented on the mentioning of starling murmuration in last week's column. Those of us who feed birds always cringe when we see a starling gobbling up our birdseed and suet. And gobble they do. I've already put Richard on notice that no starlings will be building nests in the owl box this year. I want him to remove it and cut down the tall stump on which it sits to make room for the planting of a new tree.

One of the Mookees escaped from the loft the other day while Richard was repairing the door. It flew to a tree near the alley and seemed to be quite taken with the houses across the alley. It perched there for some time, and when we returned from our Friday errands, the bird was perched on top of the loft. Richard tried some proven techniques to coax it down after trying to net it with no luck. It finally flew down when the other birds showed up at the seed trough.

Income-tax form-ation

Abraham Lincoln's birthday was last week, and I happened to catch the end of the movie "Lincoln" while on my treadmill. I learned he died April 15 (1865) and was wondering if perhaps there was a connection with his passing and the federal income-tax deadline. The Revenue Tax of 1861 was signed into law by Lincoln, starting as a flat rate of 3 percent of annual income over $800. It was repealed in 1871. In 1909, Congress passed the 16th Amendment, which created the federal income tax. Tax day was March 1 in 1918, then changed to March 15 five years later. In 1955, the due date was moved to April 15, supposedly to ease the workload for IRS employees. Some believe it's so the government can keep your money longer before issuing refunds. This year, the good news is taxes are due April 17. The 15th is a Sunday, and Emancipation Day is the 16th, an important holiday in Washington, D.C.

As always

Remember to tell those special people in your life that you love them -- those three words mean so much.

Email your news to darbuck2@airmail.net or call (573) 887-6430 or (214) 207-7839.

And then ...

Then there was the square donut.