By Donna Traywick

Mt. Olivet News

The Mt. Olivet community has made it through another week without a disaster. I hope!

The poor Bradford pears are so confused. They don’t know whether to bloom out or to hibernate. Usually around mid-March the whole community from Roger Hartman’s house on Hwy. 315 to the top of the hill to the Hubert McMinn house is abloom with white Bradford pear blooms.

There are the big tree with the huge thorns, and in the fall tiny little pear-shaped fruit appears. This year the blooms are not as prolific.

On Saturday, March 2, I spoke with Mrs. Pauline McCullar about the situation with her peach orchard. On that particular day she said so far they are in good shape, but she was anticipating the hard freeze that we experiences on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

She thinks that she has lost only about 10 percent of her crop that had already bloomed out. The other buds appear to be tight. If so, she said they will make it.

Mrs. Pauline and her late husband Tommy McCullar started the peach orchard on the old Richard Franklin place in the Mt. Olivet community. Mr. Tommy always told her that if the weather stayed good past April 9 the peaches would be in good shape.

Why April 9? That date was his birthday.

Last April 7-8 we had a hard freeze that destroyed the entire crop. Mrs. Pauline has the only peach orchard in Panola County. In fact, the nearest one to us is in Pontotoc. The owner of that orchard is experiencing the same problems with weather as Mrs. Pauline. She relies heavily on the Farmers’ Almanac (remember it?) and on Accu-Weather to determine the precaution she has to take with her trees.

She was anticipating last weekend to be the last big freeze. If this is true, she thinks she can save this year’s crop.

The good people in the K-K Circle mobile home park off Hwy. 315 are slowly picking up the pieces after the devastating flood two weekends ago. I toured the park with Mrs. Kathy Sibley, resident and owner. One home had a full grown tree washed under it, and another’s septic tank was washed out of the ground.

Mrs. Sibley was disappointed at the slow action of some of the government agencies that help in devastations such as this. The residents of the park were most complimentary of the first responders who took immediate charge of the evacuation.

Debbie Tidwell and Lisa Hartman were among the many people helping with the evacuation. Both of them received little snips and bites from frightened dogs that did not want to get into a boat.

Hopefully this coming week the residents of the park will receive the help they need so badly.

Terza! Cold Springs! Where are you? Call me with your news items! Home phone is 563-1742 and mobile 901-828-8824. You can text me also.