In the next couple of days our planning and preparation will be complete for another run down to our little place on the mountainside in the Tamaulipecan outback. We shall continue to putter and improve, repair and refine the Adobe Hut. We were pleased to note that the last guests were....stunned by our little place.
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| This is a picture of our one-eyed cat, Lucky. It was taken to prove to Diana that El Gringo Viejo never, never, never lets the cat on top of the bed during Diana's absence from the house. Perhaps the best way to say should have been, "....allowed to set foot on the bed". |
It seemed to them to be such an oddity of elegance set into disorder. But, they also pointed out that the comfort allowed by a place that is essentially an 1892 - epoch mud house (a little over-stated ) also allowed the chance to see a little deeper into the disorder by which we are surrounded. There is considerable beauty, even in the ejido's residential area.
The grounds, and the Hacienda de La Vega, and the natural setting of the Quinta are mystically beautiful. They can be appreciated without having to rationalise or "understand". But the ejido residential area needs a bit of "understanding"....or perhaps even a bit of functional psychosis syndrome. For some reason, neither the disorder nor the order I have established bother me much if any at all. It is one of the advantages of being a geezer, perhaps. It is a source of a bit of consternation, however, when we review the homestead of El Zorro and see that some Air Force guy can have a really spit-shined and ordered place, while mine ( And me an Army guy ) always looks like a Confederate military camp.
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| El Gringo Viejo showing a guest the blossom buds of the paint-splatter croton. |
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| El Gringo Viejo shows the guest where the "graping" of the avocadoes is forming. |
Since we have been receiving some rains in the area...like up around Eagle Pass / Piedras Negras on the Rio Grande ... up to 17 inches in 24 hours last Saturday, which is not a record, by the way...( sorry, AlGore )...and our little area with, now, about 12 inches in the past week or so, we are looking for real pro-LEAF-eration so to speak. Alvaro decided to prune our paint splatter croton....much to my chagrin....but he was right. It will probably triple in size in the next month, and it will need to be "guided" upon the path of truth and righteousness, and away from invading the interior part of the "long west-facing corridor". The croton has developed a good working relationship with the adjacent avocado tree. The avocado is resetting a second batch of fruiting tips.
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| Calandria |
Confession is good for the soul, so it should be pointed out that this tree is actually a "pagua" and not an "aquacate". It is something like the parrots....which in this area are never referred to as "parrots" (pericos - pei REE koes). Parrots come to us in five or six different configuration (species) and each is called by his/her appropriate species colloquial name. Almost no one points up and says "Look at the parrots". They will say, "Look at the cotorro"....or "Look at the calandrias"....which is a bit confusing because "calandria" (light, open, one or two horse buggy, sporty in its day) is also the word for "oriole". It was so named because it flies...usually in groups...very fast, almost like trotter-rigs in the horse-racing business. They seem almost driven by a speeding mania when they are flying, and they fly very fast....almost 40 miles per hour at very low elevation...like just on top of the tree line in a citrus orchard. And they are loud.
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| Hoya, or Wax Plant. A story unto itself. We shall do an entry about this specific plant soon. It has a travelled and long history. Soon. Big hummingbird attractor. |
Now, we'll take the mornings of the three or four weeks to come, and begin minor pruning, a little painting, and some re-stacking of our loose-rock fences. The fences need almost no work, save for a couple of areas where the dog BeBe decides to jump over, semi-successfully every now and then. We are also cold-bloodedly turning over the lower 45% of the property to primeval state. It is simply too undependable to try to grow anything, even a garden without the certainty of the old standard flow and delivery allocation from our ejido water system. The issue has improved over the last few weeks, but the fact that we went for about 4 months at one hour longer provision of water(four hours) at 1/2 the pressure of normal delivery makes it too precarious to branch out. It is best to use the water provided for the house and the upper gardens and plantings.
We are also planning on running a line from the Hacienda de La Vega that is connected to their ancient spring and well, about 3/4's of a mile from our place. Most of the distance is already connected to new piping to the edge of the Hacienda de La Vega. So, there will be a plateful of stuff facing the poor, old Gringo Viejo.
It will be a matter of priority and great importance to try to make it down to the little place where I can send smoke signals while down at the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre. So we invite questions and comments. Thanks for your continued interest
El Gringo Viejo
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