We are back up after a brief stay. We have had another bit of cold weather although the afternoons have been warming up. I believe it was last Sunday morning when we had ice on the old Dynasty. Not much, but it was there for all the world to see.....and feel. It is a bit disheartening to see how slow the recovery is for the bouganvillas....although there has been a bit of blooming....not much but some. The powder puff is ever-so-slowly restoring itself and each day seems to reveal another couple of inches up the dead-looking limbs coming out with new, vigourous leaves.
The flamboyan (aka Royal Ponciana) at the entrance to the Quinta is coming out nicely, but the others are still looking like Hiroshima in 1946. Then, while whining about that, it must be noted that the old mesquite tree which forms a measuring corner for the property came out in a flourish of new leaves...literally glistenning in the morning dew. It is proverbial, folkloric law in South Texas and northern Mexico that when the mesquite tree leafs in the late Winter or early Spring that all chance of freeze and frost has ended. And, as indicated, the tree had not leafed until after that point last week when the thermometer registered 31f / -1c during the early morning hours.
As an aside, we were notified that the people who had bought a little studio apartment-type house between us and the Hacienda de Santa Engracia have placed their acquisition back up for sale. It is a nice little place, though oddly designed. It is on the paved Interejidal highway, has good utility service (water, electricity), and heavy air-conditioning capacity. The grounds and gardens are a bit Spartan but nice and the lot is quite large. The new owners turn out not to be quite as adaptive to life in Green Acres and would rather return their attention back to home in the Monterrey metroplex.
There is also some serious talk about re-initiating the development, also between the Quinta and the Hacienda de Santa Engracia, which was to have been something quite exclusive and elegant. It is centered around the old mill chimney of the Hacienda, on a sizeable knoll. I believe there were a couple of mansion-like homes built up there, but never finished....as well as an "in-the-style-of" convenience store and shopping.....place....(don't know what to call the design). The style is something like a cross between an up-scale mall in Missouri with a Spanish Colonial motif and some of the big developments around major Mexican cities that have huge houses that look like funeral homes or one of those 26,000 member Protestant mega-churches that could hold the Winter and Summer Olympic Games indoors and simultaneously.
More later,
The Old Gringo
