Things that Don't Really Matter....but

       For many years we had carried in our family lore and understanding a notion that my grandfather had lost brothers in the War Between the States.   So that you all can feel like family members (This has already been sent to family yesterday) this is included so that the reader can know the writer a bit better.    An excerpt from the transmissions from yesterday are included below:

      Do not tell anyone, but while sneaking behind Yankee lines, I found a Pennsylvania bunch...the 96th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, Company D....just forming up for drill and presentation. It looks like they are getting ready to join up with Polk and McClellan down in Virginia. Their musicians are at the fore, waiting to strike up, and their rank and file look pretty good, except for the Corporal of the 4th Platoon, who is fully one pace back from presentation position. Checking our secret sources on the ground, it seems like he is some dolt named Charles Newton from someplace called Montrose, in northeastern Pennsylvania.
       Check in platoon groupings, one by one, as you move back from the company band, and you will see the Corporals presenting....and as you encounter the fourth Corporal, you will see him presenting properly, but standing about 3 feet back from the correct position. That truly is your Uncle Charles.

Enjoy....

p.s.   The Rebels killed him in May of 1863.....but it was the fault of the cowardice of the 5th Maine Regiment, who fled the field and did not support the Pennsylvania 96thRPVI/Dc advance as ordered.

DCN

     This picture taken in late 1861 shows what is probably the the final drills before moving out as a unit to join the fray.    While this company unit was organized in Schuylkill County, my great-uncle Charles was from Susquehanna County just to the north.    This regiment had service from about 5,000 different men during the hostilities.....and of that number over 500 were killed in action, 700 were wounded, 400 were taken prisoner, and 600 deserted and did not return  (all round numbers).   Great-uncle Charles was wounded on 3 May 1863 and died in Fredericksburg, Virginia in either a private home or private clinic/medical facility on or around the 18th of May, 1863.
     Another brother (actually a 1st cousin) was killed in action after Gettysburg....about a month later.    So the lore about them being lost at Gettysburg was wrong, but right in a way.   One was lost as Lee began his advance towards Pennsylvania and the other was lost during the pressing of Confederate forces during their retreat back to Virginia.    As one might imagine these losses caused severe emotional impact upon my great-grandfather....from which he never actually recovered. 

      As an aside, and for new or occasional readers, my mother's side was very Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina in their background.  For some strange reason I am shaped like my father's mother's people...tall, lanky (nice word for skinny), w/ long, thin feet....while my sympathies in the issues under dispute during that horrid war would have been and are with the Confederacy.    I guess that makes me a purebred American mongrel.

As usual, accept my gratitude for your time and attention.   Emails have been and are welcomed at any time.   All is well at the Quinta, Alvaro says that he is only feeding the cats seven time a day now.
The Old Gringo   

Weather Alert

This is a brief advisory of no particular urgency.   During the night between Tuesday and Wednesday the backside of the the Sierra Madre Oriental received considerable snow at the latitude of the Quinta.    If one clicks on to Google Earth and moves towards Cd. Victoria, Tamaulipas....browse slightly to the west-northwest.....near the peak of Pen~a Nevada....stay at a fairly high elevation...about 35 to 70 miles west and northwest generally of Cd. Victoria and the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre.

     The west-facing (dry-side) slopes of the Sierra de Cautivo and surrounding areas can be seen to be heavily impacted by what appears to be snows of up to 12 - 20 inches overnight.   Most areas received much less.    The "El Cautivo" is a cordillero which composes a signicant section of the overall Sierra Madre Oriental range.

     These snows seem to be mainly in the 8,000 to 10,000 foot level with a few exceptions.

Back in Texas

     We were out for long time.    A great deal happened and very little happened.     During the first few days, I managed to allow myself to be tripped by Prince....my main pure-bred mongrel alfa-beta male dog.  I landed forward, made a 5 inch long, 3/8th's of an inch deep slice in my interior left forearm, cracked a rib, bonked my head, broke my right big toe at the tip, and had numerous very minor cuts and bruises.   Prince had tripped me from behind, which is kind of a morbid game he plays, especially when he is playing with the occasional visitors from the adjacent Hacienda de la Vega.

      These visitors...a male dog (part coyote) I call RinTinTin, and Mara the female Rhodesian Lion Hound....had come in company of the owner and we were checking out things on the lower part of my property.   This checking out concerned some suspicious activity on the adjoining property....it turned out to be nothing more than some workers preparing for a mowing project to be started the next day.  (Finally.   The owner has not raised a finger on the place since the floods of last summer.    Grasses and scrub had engulfed the entire place...five to seven feet high.)

     In any regard, the dogs meet seldomly and after a bit of preambulation begin to play like puppies.   The problem is that, this time, Prince included me in the game of tag.

     I had to have a tetanus shot (hate shots) and a bit of help to sleep through nagging pain (joy for a hypochondriac) but it did cloud about 2 days of memory.    My recuperation was quite rapid, leaving only a few bruises and aches here and there.

      Then there was a flood of bumblebee hummingbirds.   They came to the duranta plant that we have along the corridor.   The little one-foot high thing that we planted a couple of years ago is now about 16 feet high and full of the cascading assemblies of purple blossoms that are a joy to a gardener.   It turns out that they are also excellent for attracting these tiny members of the race of hummingbirds.    Even the males of this sub-species are only about 2 1/2  inches in total length and they are frequently thought to be moths, upon first sighting.  For  about a week we had mid-morning and late afternoon swarms of these rare birds.....thought to hide in the recesses of the Sierra Madre nearby.....and then over the past week-end they seemed to stop arriving.

      It was interesting that the other sub-species of hummingbird males did not attempt to drive off the new arrivals as is normal during feeding times.    Even without the bumblebee hummingbirds we can normally have as many as 20 feeding off of the shrimp plants and powderpuff at a given moment.

      During the past three or four weeks we have had very brisk mornings.  Temperatures have been as low as 33F on up to 55F every morning.   Usually it would be in the mid to upper 40's.  Daytime highs stayed stubbornly below 80F for the duration.   That last figure represents quite a departure from normal....and we even had one week where the temperature did not go above 60F.    Burned a lot of firewood that week.

     Briefly stated.....the overall climate in Tamaulipas continues to improve with the presence of the military.   My point of view is jaundiced because I am there.   The  American press and their various lackeys, etc. is better informed because they are not there....preferring to listen to "information sources"....and are more than willing to take elements of the truth and twist those elements into what finally becomes a lie.

      The press....for instance....can take a person who is essentially deranged, who shoots 19 people....killing six.....and declare that Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin drove him to do the deed.   This, in spite of the fact that he was mainly influenced by communist dogma,  and who, like Barak O'bama, Jeramiah Wright, Roger Ailes, Jesse Jackson, and most all radical leftists, holds a viscous  hatred for Jews.   Forgotten also by the press is the gunman's love of Satanic influence and ritual (odd for someone who says he is an atheist).

Beware of the American Press....beware of any press...in these times.  

In the Belly of the Beast

     This comes to all from near the Estacion de Santa Engracia a few miles north of Cd. Victoria, Tamaulipas.    I arrived here last Monday travelling in a small caravan with my neighbours who had been doing some (considerable) Christmas  shopping in McAllen on the week-end before the Feast of the Nativity.

      Suffice to say that the warnings from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the United States Department of State,  were a bit......shall we say.....over-inflated.     The traffick was heavy....there were no incidents.....and the biggest news on the television and radio down here has returned to drunks running into bridge-supports and Pedro beating up Maria after one or the other or both returned from a night of celebration at the local cantina.   One Pedro did manage to kill his Maria in Monterrey....but it did not count because she had a protective order out on him....therefore nothing happened to her.....Right?   Chalk up another great success story for passing a law...relying upon government...and then walking away to tell everyone that all poor children will be fed and we can read the law once we pass it.     Ah....democracy.

       You all will have another up-date next Monday or so.    It is amazing how lazy one becomes here.....I shall try to be more detailed in the next transmission. 

Heading Back for Christmas

     The next few days means shopping for goodies for the Quinta....dog and cat food.....paint, varnish, and other repair and maintenance supplies.   Sprays for bugs and other undesirable critters are high on the list that the Quinta is asking the Old Gringo for.     Our neighbour informed us that the last few nights have been chilly.   Morning low temperatures have been between 30F and 36F.      By the time I show up, the oranges will be bright yellow/gold due to these temperatures.   Some think that this bracing cool, crisp overnight is what makes the Santa Engracia area's Valencia orange crop the best in the market.

      There has been some anxiety about the quality of this year's harvest because of the over-abundance of rain during the Summer.   Usually this will make the fruit "aquada" or watery tasting....but early samples have been given high marks for thickness, as well as that peculiar mixture of sourness and special sweetness that one searches out when rating quality of citrus juice.

      We have stored up a good supply of firewood, and I shall have to be very good about not over-availing myself of the convenience.    Suffice it to say that the Old Gringo is dreadfully opposed to being cold.

      While I prepare to return to our little place it is necessary that I leave with an admonition.   Please be wary of any news you hear out of Mexico.   For the while that I have been in Texas, the news I have heard has been, depending upon the article and source, between 35% and 90% inaccurate.    The are categories of sources and types of news that need to be sorted out like the genealogy of ally-cats......but they do need to be sorted out.

Misleading and/or incorrect stories come in all sizes and styles:

        (1)     Purposeful, usually from leftist sources...LATimes, NYTimes, Washingiton Post,   almost all MSM outlets, Associated Press, McClatchy News Service,  who hate  Felipe Calderon Hinojosa because he is a centre-right Partido de Accion Nacional member (PAN) which makes him like a Republican, and therefore hated and despised as an enemy of  "progressives" .   Articles from these sources always include the sentence (or facsimile), "Over 30,000 people have lost their lives in the violence since Felipe Calderon initiated hostilities four years ago upon assuming the presidency".
       (2)           And sad to say....FOX News makes incredibly simplistic analysis of the situation in Mexico.   O'Reilly, Beck, Geraldo, Hannity, Greta, Fox and Friends....I watch them all...but when they do anything about Mexico, it is a combination of totally out of date, inaccurate, misleading, and negative.
      (3)        Overnight radio....including Charly Jones's Texas Overnight KRLD 1080 AM who goes out of his way to either not research his topics or invent from whole cloth his reports.   He presumes that since he has been to or heard of Xel Ha that he is an expert about all things Mexico...he is not.
                         Lamentably, the fellows at Midnight Trucking Report...WFAA 820 AM...who also make outlandish statements which reveal the fact that they know nothing about Mexico and understand less....must be included in my petty critique.
                        The above two...and the FOX crowd....are particularly painful for me because I am in accord, concurrence, or agreement with them about 96% of the time otherwise.

15 December 2010
     As an up-date to all of the above, there was a dedication of a new international bridge yesterday.   For some reason or another it connects the area arond Donna, Texas to the city of Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas.   The President of Mexico and the Governor of the State of Tamaulipas, along with various poobahs of importance were there.   The President was busy inaugurating several recently finished projects in Tamaulipas yesterday...from the frontier all the way down to the Tampico-Madero-Altamira area of southernmost Tamaulipas.
     A reporter from Channel 5 - KRGV - TV in Weslaco covered the story.   He spoke in low tones like an announcer covering a PGA event with Arnold Palmer putting on the 18th.    Terms such as "We ventured over, being watched by heavily armed people in military-like uniforms and over 15 "obviously security agents"....although they were dressed in business suits.  The President and the Governor of the State made speeches and then left after cutting the ribbons along with Congressman Ruben Hinojosa.   The President left for points unknown (? the President's itinerary was well-known and publicized two days before arrival)....but at least the people of Rio Bravo had almost an hour of peace.   The President had his safety guaranteed, but now the violence will return for the regular people of Rio Bravo and its surroundings."
     What is sad and humorous, simultaneously, is that the President spoke of the heaviness he felt in having to send men into harm's way in order to restore order for all Mexicans and their neighbours.    He celebrated the building of the bridge and its opening because it made for more commerce, less poverty, more industry, and more close relations with Texas and the United States.   The Governor, who leaves office tomorrow, repeatedly thanked the President  for his firmness in defending Tamaulipas and the northeast of Mexico against the "beasts and vermin"...comments which were heartily applauded by the "regular people"  and the poobahs all.   It should be noted that the President is a member of the conservative  National Action Party (PAN) and the Governor is a member of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).   The actual "news" in a journalistic sense is that throughout the entire area....as has been reported in this blog....people are talking about...aware of....celebrating.....being optimistic within reason....that we have had almost one month of massive military victories and almost no response worthy of the term by the organized delinquency.   Even in Michoacan the incredibly deranged and violent Familia group has been heavily degraded and has proposed a "truce" with Calderon wherein they would join efforts to eleminate the Zeta gang.    Or as some Jewish kid wrote a long time ago...."Hello Muddah - Hello Faddah...."    
An Invitation:
      If there is any question about anything concerning the issues we are facing in Mexico with which the reader would like my private opinion, advice, or recommendation, please feel free to communicate via email at any time.   I shall be more than glad to assess and opine, and the reader will also understand where my point of view is based.    I will also give any inquiry serious...neither unreasonably optimistic nor pessimistic.....thought and response.

   Clique below for a little "Happy Solstice" treat.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE&feature=player_embedded
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=2458664271924&source=jl999
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=2530463741924&source=jl999
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=2530466901924&source=jl999


MERRY CHRISTMAS.....FELIZ NAVIDAD...!!!!!!! And a very prosperous, rewarding year to come!!!.

Dry, Cold, and Hopin' for the Bloomin'

Some of Summer 2009 harvest

     Right now, oddly enough, my thoughts are about taking avocado, mango, and guayaba fertilizer to the Quinta.   This is the time to have the plant food in hand, because it needs to be applied during the depths of Winter.   It will also be time to put down some zinc on our wild pecan trees that line the Rio Corona, and the couple that have prospered a bit since the clearing of our lot, 10 years ago.



     The pecan trees are "nativos"  and not grafted to an improved or designer type "Texas Indian" race of pecans.    Because of this the nuts are small and hard, but the meat is very oily and has an exceptional flavour.   So, it is worth the trouble to help them along.   The other fruit trees are ornamental mainly, but their production is actually magnificent.   The quality is better than perfect to the palate of an old farm-born rustic like your humble servant.

This is how Avocadoes "flower"

      Last year, because of a very cold Winter and an extremely wet summer we had no set of blossoms for the Royal Poncianas (flamboyanes), or for the avocados and guayabas.   So, this year, we are really hoping for a "Royal Flush".....of fruit set and blossoms.

     My children will be furious with me perhaps, but sometimes people might think that those of us who own property in a foreign country and abide, while in  that country, with that country's laws and customs.....are anti-American or "escaping" from our  Americanism.   In my case, this is certainly not the case in the least.     I considered myself to be one of those people the media elite sneer about and ridicule....one of those people who attend Tea Party rallys and makes sure there is no litter, trash, or garbage left behind.  

     My dealings in Mexico come from working there for many years as a business owner in tourism....and from following my parents, my grandmother, and my great-grandfather into the venturesome trap that Mexico always sets for the unsuspecting.   My investment in the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre is just that....an investment.   It is close to Texas (225 miles away), and it is in a very pleasant, secure, and dull area which is surrounded by intense agricultural pursuits and by profound geographics.    It  was done to provide a bit of a business and to provide a decent retirement situation, and as a place for my children, friends, and grandchildren.....after Obama throws my carcass onto the dung-heap.

Of, course, everybody knows
avocado trees are made for providing
shade for Smokey the Cat

      Also, I ceaselessly dig into the background of my children, through a tedious peeling back of generation after generation of Garza and Newton presence in the New World....and to some extent in the Old World.   SO!  Going back to the original point, this next inclusion speaks more to the origin of what kind of eccentric would feel comfortable in this  rural Mexican environment.....even in spite of ....or  because of, the nature of that environment.

     This is the note I  wrote my tezquintles ("pups" in Nahuatl) which speaks to their blood line and home regions on their father's paternal grandmother's side.

Hello, Children!



     This is a really great geo-cultural survey .....on one screed....of the Hudson Valley....Several of the places, especially in Lower Hudson and Middle Hudson Valley areas are where a lot of your dead people live. The first ones went into the area before it was New York...but rather New Amsterdam....1620 - 1640. You have people there who are doctors, nurses, Paint & Body Works, Auto dealers, farmers, Hardware Store owners, and so forth....I have found many of them, still in the area or within 75 miles radius. Since they would be something like 16th cousins to you, I determined that it would be best not to crash their next family reunion. It is interesting to note however, that they have been there, literally, for over 20 generations. They, like your Southern Cousins, became melded into an American "Race". These people of the Land of the Headless Horseman were produced with Germanic (Saxon, Prussian, and Hessian) 50%, English (Normanic, Anglo-Saxon, Celtic) 43.75%, and Indian (Quinnapiac, Iroquois, and Mohegan) 06.25%.  This is an estimate, because my DNA machine is down for maintenance right now....but it is a fair estimate.



       The web-site is about this year's Autumn-type events all along the Hudson, so it can be lengthy....but it is worth returning to a few times....You can see yourselves at times.

http://www.hudsonrivervalleyramble.com/Libraries/PDF_s/HVRamble_web.sflb.ashx





    I do not know for the life of me if this web site is going to open, but we'll give it a try ...and you will know me a bit better.   As usual, I remain



Grateful for your time and attention,



The Old Gringo