This appeared in the September 23, 2015, Meteor. After requests for reprints, I have deleted or added bits below.

Texas A&M Forest Service is accepting applications for grants to help eligible Texas property owners with the cost of prescribed burning on their land. The grants will reimburse landowners to offset the cost of having a prescribed burn conducted on their property by certified and insured prescribed burn managers. Last year, these grant programs provided more than $322,000 to landowners for a total of 11,667 acres treated.

BY THE EDITORS AT ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION LEAD STORY -- WAIT, WHAT? ACleveland, Georgia, is home to Babyland General Hospital, the Mirror reported, but don’t go there with a broken finger or to deliver a human infant. The faux hospital is actually a toy store where fans of Cabbage Patch dolls can witness a “birth” as a nurse calls out “dilation” updates: “five leaves apart, seven leaves apart, nine leaves apart” -- even announcing the necessity for a “leaves-iotomy” (like an episiotomy).

Heavy rains through Texas last week caused flooding, particularly in the Dallas area, prompting Gov. Greg Abbott to issue a disaster declaration for 23 affected counties. Texans who were affected by the rain, which dumped more than 10 inches in Dallas, are encouraged to file insurance claims with their providers and to complete the voluntary Self Reporting Damage Survey issued by the Texas Department of Emergency Management by visiting damage. tdem.texas.gov. The survey helps the state identify damage across Texas to gain an understanding of what areas were affected during the recent severe weather. Counties included in the disaster declaration are Camp, Culberson, Dallas, Duval, Ellis, El Paso, Henderson, Hopkins, Hudspeth, Kaufman, Kerr, Live Oak, Marion, Montague, Navarro, Pecos, Rains, Smith, Tarrant, Upshur, Van Zandt, Webb and Wood.

This essay has been in my mind a couple of years. I finally started it Saturday, though I could have delayed and maybe done better. I think I saw my first facts associated with this at the local library, but if I had waited any longer, I have never done it. I chose to go with what I had at hand, meaning our two books of Madison County history and the internet.

While gas prices nationwide dropped below $4 per gallon average last week, the state boasts the lowest prices in the country at an average of $3.49 — 50 cents below the national average, according to AAA Texas.

Muriel Burns Wood (1914-2003) wrote several essays for Volume 1 of our local history. She was buried in Leon County’ Hopewell Cemetery but much of her affections lay in Madison County. She was born in Burnsville, Madison County, and lived in Normangee off and on in her life.