A View of the Recently Completed Planting of a Lime Orchard

     Next to the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre one encounters the Hacienda de La Vega, a nearly 300 acre stretch along the El Coralillo section of the Rio Corona.  The entire surface of the La Vega spread, save for ten or twelve acres, was re-cleared of the old, worn out, repeatedly freeze damage Valencia oranges and prepared for the planting of a very special sour-sweet lime that has become heavily sought by purveyors in places like Mexico City, Europe, Japan, and especially in the United States of America.

     Our neighbour, the owner of what you see before you has put a considerable pretty penny in the re-clearing, research, sapling purchase, and planting of this new venture.   There is nothing haphazard about the layout or preparations.  Buyers are have already been circulating around this prime growing area, looking for those who have already decided to go the route of the fancy limes.

     One thing that the Santa Engracia area has going for it is its unique mix of very wet, very dry, very hot, to pretty darned chilly climate.   Being right on the Tropic of Cancer, near the coastal lowlands, and adjacent to mountains ranging from 5,000 to 13,000 feet bring upon the citrus, and especially these limes, certain very positive responses.   Freezes are very rare, and even at that, these particular limes are very recuperative.   Limes usually do better than oranges and grapefruit with cold stress, and these particular ones, to restate, are even more resilient than the norm.

     In keeping with the way business runs and must run during these times in Mexico, the family prefers to remain a bit hermitic concerning various of the fine points and other administrative matters about this investment.  For my part, I am glad to see my friend go into the venture while still young enough to enjoy the fruits of his and his wife's labours. (Is that a pun?)

More later,

El Gringo Viejo

So Much Swirl - My Head is Spinning.... The Russians Are Coming !!!!

     All this matter about the Russians meddling in the American political processes, as if (a) were true, and then if true, (b) it had a ruinous effect upon the outcome of the elections immediately past are truly a very minor tempest in a faux and tiny tea-pot.  The Russians meddle in everything.  Very few Russians are born with souls, and those so delivered by the stork seldom use their souls.

     Any group of people who, in their majority, could clamour for a return to Stalin's time need to be disregarded except for the need to always be prepared for some senseless aggression.  Actually, it seems as though the Russians are caught in a downward spiral that doesn't even work very well.  With a declining population and a sometimes sober Army and Air Force, the population of 200 million can eke out a 1.325 trillion dollar annual economy.

     Those figures might impress Democrats in America, but when it is considered that Mexico has essentially the same Gross National Product, but with a total population of 120 million....one can easily surmise that Russia does little or nothing for the seven months of the year that the country is generally frozen.  Novisibursk, Siberia....the administrative capital....declares that they have to do the census in August because it is the only time they can determine if the drunks normally covered up with snow and mud in the streets (there are no gutters) are alive or dead is in the Summertime.

     Even without the assistance of being a communist government dedicated to death...as in the 1,000,000 military personnel they lost during the siege of Berlin in 1945....the Romanoffs managed to lose their entire fleet of warships (40 cruiser and destroyer class ships) and 70% of their officers and 65% of their enlisted (including conscripts) personnel in the Army.   The Japanese simply destroyed the Russians in about one year.   It is worth noting that the unspoken Roosevelt Understanding was taken seriously by the Crown in Tokyo when the Peace Accord was signed and sealed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
     Japan, although victorious, had also been exhausted of its military and industrial capacity.   But, they had gained the impression from the Americans that it would be understandable should the superior group in the region, the Japanese would be better prepared to take care of the lands and peoples of the Western Pacific, Southeast Asia, and China. Those populations also needed to be disciplined, shepherded, and protected from themselves.     To the enlightened Progressives such as Theodore Roosevelt and later Woodrow Wilson and later Franklin Roosevelt it seemed reasonable to deign that distant part of the Earth to rule by those best qualified to rule it.   Of course, as in all the acts and plans of the Progressives, their notions were folly.

     And while all of this was going on, Russia was succumbing to a half-century of horror that would make the Romanoffs appear to be sympathetic characters in the theatre of history.   And, by comparison, they truly were.

     All of this is neither here nor there in the matter (or non-matter) of Russian "meddling" in the election that caused the Coronation of America's First Woman President to be put on hold for another two or three hundred years.

The greater questions should be:

     (1)     Why did Debbie Wasserman Shultz manipulate and repeatedly lie about procedures blocking candidates other than the final Democrat nominee from reasonable equity of treatment according to the rules of the Democrat National Committee?

       (2)       Why did Donna Brazile feel compelled to pass the final nominee debate questions both during the Democrat debates and during the final three debates between the Republican and the Democrat candidates.   She had gained access to those questions from willing accomplices within the Obsolete Press and dutifully passed them along as do all corrupt, marxist political operatives.   To them, as always, truth is defined as 'information that aids in the establishment of socialism'.  Any information that contradicts that "truth" or which in any way retards the advance of socialism is to regarded as a "lie".

      (3)       Why did some lower level, very young Democrat National Committee member wind up murdered, while walking away from work, then being found dead, still in possession of his personal documents, an expensive watch, a wallet with considerable cash, and with credit cards.  Rumours began and then were quashed by the Obsolete Press that had indicated that this young man had become disenchanted with the DNC, the Democrat official candidate, and the crudeness and squabbling that seemed ever-present at the DNC offices.
     Mr. Assange, the world's favourite divulger suggested that the passing of documents up to his level is sometimes very dangerous, even lethal in certain cases.   He also declared that the Russians had nothing to do with his leaks of easily obtained electronic mail from the very leaky Secretary of State's off-campus communications systems and from her campaign as well as from the very feebly defended Democrat National Committee's systems of communication and communication storage.

     (4)      What is clear is that the same people who sent operatives from the State Department and White House with private and State Department money and in-kind funding to orchestrate a campaign against Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel....directly and without apology....are somehow now claiming that "foreign elements" were meddling in the 2016 Presidential campaign.   The hypocrisy has the roar of Niagara and the usual stench of corruption always present with "community organiser" shakedown specialists and off-shore money vacuuming machines involved in the old pay-for-play fund-raising games.
   
     It all ends up the same way.   Some Conservative, Dinesh D'Souza, who might have offended Barry Soetoro goes to prison for several months....to general criminal population....for committing an error in the making of a openly acknowledged campaign contribution to a friend.   The amount was 20,000 USD.  But the famous Solyndra purposefully lost over 500,000,000 dollars, money that feigned to be invested for "green energy" projects, but which in large part was essentially gifted to Democrat operatives posing as green energy entrepreneurs.   Further, much of that money, intentionally and indirectly, flowed back into the Democrat Party at various and sundry levels, including local, States, and national Democrat entities.   None of the principals paid any financial or criminal price.   It was like "Fast and Furious" all over again....and again.....and again.   IRS scandal, anyone?

    This Russian Gambit, supported still by the Lackey Zomboes of the Obsolete Press will be used once again to explain how all of this supposition that Barry the Foreign Exchange Student had even an ounce of corruption or mendacity.   But, after all is said and done, and they say in New York and Washington, "at the end of the day", what possible difference at this point could any of this make?

More later about gasoline prices in Mexico and other interesting stuff.
El Gringo Viejo

OLD TRAINS & BAD WRECKS (rare photos)

We include a few scenes of the Democrat campaign just past.

     (1)     With all of the explanations for the failure of the Democrat Party's election failures having been made.....then being allowed to morph into increasingly improbable, even laughable constructs about how their certain victory was stolen by evil agencies...we began to have a sense of being absolutely certain that the Democrat Party is the world's greatest Train Wreck. 

     The FBI Director, either fearing for his or his family being physical person being harmed, or having some embarrassing peccadillo in his past revealed by the Clinton forces, failed to recommend the  prosecution of Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Attorney General.....a dolt by the name of Loretta Lynch.   Mayor Giuliani assured us some time back, in each case, that the above named luminaries were and are straight shooters and respected officers.

     Mayor Giuliani's "New York Values" seems to have allowed him to have also been significantly self-uninformed.  It was clear that the Attorney General met with Billy Jeff Clinton, surreptitiously  in order to inform him that she had been assured that the cake was baked and that Mrs. Clinton would not have to suffer the ignominy of being measured by any rule of law.  All the correct political class agreed that such a move to indict or convict or any variation of such icky stuff, is after all, correctly reserved for "the little people".

     BUT!  all of this in neither here nor there.   The actual point is that Barack Hussein Obama is posturing against the Russian president, or whatever title the Banty thug has now, demanding that Putin desist from meddling in American elections.  He has also ordered Putin to stop conducting electronic espionage and data collection.  Or else....there will be a line drawn in the sand and referrals made to the FBI....And the United Nations!!!!

    AND....BUT again!!   It was the White House with Michelle and Valerie in charge who lined up Democrat operatives en masse and shipped them to Israel to back up the opposition to Bibi Netanyahu's candidacy for re-election as Prime Minister of Israel during the last Israeli Knesset elections.  As usual, leftists are caught doing that which they blame upon others,  Those whom they wish to falsely accuse can almost always be sure that the things being described as a stain against the character of the conservative and/or Republican is almost certainly active measures being practiced by the marxist and "progressive" Democrats.

      (2)   During the past by-elections in Mexico, the State of Tamaulipas elected various local and State-wide officials.  The Partido de Accion Nacional made huge headway in a State that normally has voted for the "Party of the Institutional Revolution" (leftist contradictive gibberish) and its forerunners for the past century.  During the past by-elections in Mexico, the State of Tamaulipas elected various local and State-wide officials.  The Partido de Accion Nacional made huge headway in a State that normally has voted for the "Party of the Institutional Revolution", or the old one-party "official" Central government party,

       Happily, we can report the following:    The Governor (our guy), Garcia Cabeza de Vaca hit the ground running.  Audits were completed, projects of greatest need in transportation and school repairs were defined. Offensives to find trade missions in the private sector, both to buy and to sell, were identified.  Private sector industry, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, etc. were plugged into activities....almost all private-to-private interchange.....and the rural, mainly State highways (known as Farm-to-Market and Ranch-to- Market highways in Texas) were assessed and found wanting for repair.

     The rural highways have seen remarkable redressing and repairs, as well as out-and-out improvements from the ground up in places where repeated pot-holing had been occurring over the years.  State Police patrols, co-ordinating with the Army and Naval Infantry have actually been out and about serving warrants, arresting known trouble-makers, and generally doing police stuff.  There has been little of that during the past many months.

     We are hopeful, and somewhat certain, that our new governor will prove to be that "magic potion'' pulling Tamaulipas ahead, to the benefit of rich and poor and everyone in between.

More later,
El Gringo Viejo

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Back from the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre

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     We returned to Texas yesterday, after having received clients at our little place.  Our clients were quite pleasant, knowledgable about much, and seemed to enjoy the 4 day and 3 night respite.

     They had motorcycled from Florida's east coast area to our place in five days, in horribly cold and blustery weather.   By the time they arrived at our place a little to the northwest of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas....they were ready to catch their breathe, so to speak.

       Leading up to their arrival, we had had a spate of high winds (30 mph with frequent gusts up to 80 mph), and steadily declining temperatures, finally falling into the low to mid 40s.  We had several large limbs fall and bushels of various types of  chaff.

     Luckily our clients arrived a day after the bad weather.   While the evening was still cold enough to have a fire in the fireplace during supper and afterward, weather improved and warmed up for a pleasant stay, until the last afternoon and night.

     After standing in during the high winds and cold, our electricity stopped.  Such events have become increasingly rare throughout Mexico during the past several years so we were obviously distressed for our clients, especially.  Our overall service was maintained with our gas stove and with the adobe construction keeping the slight chill at bay.

     The clients, couple who were well studied and highly literate...(the sen~or is a neurologist and his lady an editor or something of the like)...never missed a beat or complained or moaned.  Actually none of our clients have ever been so disposed, thankfully, for so long as we have ever received guests.

     It is worth commenting that when they left, as they had arrived, they were mounted on their antique, 4 cylinder, glittering chrome and black lacquer BMW cycle.   They had helmet cams, maps, and all manner of provision and supply.  We were sad to see them go.   Very intelligent and elegant people.

More tomorrow.

El Gringo Viejo

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Thoughts About Cuba

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THOUGHTS ABOUT CUBA

David Christian Newton

     My contact with the Cuban people was frequent in the Yucatan where various of the higher level bureaucrats were allowed to vacation in Merida, Cozumel, and in the archeological sites.   During the period from the mid-1970s up to the early 1990s we owned and operated a very nice excursion company, conducting "the grand tour" to almost every corner of Mexico.

   During those times, we travelled somewhat frequently to the Yucatan Peninsula, both to research and "engineer" excursion accommodations adn events, and to actually escort and direct the excursions.  We would always have direct or indirect contact with Cuban people, mostly on "group reward tours".  They were always "chaperoned".

   The "chaperones" were goons of the Cuban National Security. The Cubans could not believe the difference in the level of general prosperity in Mexico. The women would go by 'ladies' specialties" store and gooney-gaze at the elegant and frilly underwear and nightgowns displayed in abundance....the ubiquitous shoe-stores with all classes, prices, styles, and types of shoes....the men were drop-jawed at the hardware stores....and then, of course, the autos.  They were amazed at the number and styles of autos; old ones, new ones, and I could overhear them saying things like, "Look, all the tires are the same brand."

     I personally overheard the "chaperones" telling the people that all they were seeing was stuffing put there "especially for this visit" (of this or that Cuban group) in order to fool the Cuban tourists that Mexico was a land of plenty....and that when they would leave to return to Cuba, a normalcy would return to something worse than what the Cubans had.  While Mexico and Cuba would express union and "solidarity" concerning the ever-onward march to Social Justice and Social Democracy, the Cuba ghouls of governance thought the Mexicans were lackeys to the Gringos.  The Mexicans, on the other hand, spent millions and billions of pesos keeping track of Cuban agents, and maintaining a considerable army, navy, and air force, most of which was (and is) concentrated at or near the easternmost parts of Mexico.  

   It was a norm, as well, for upper-level Cuban commie apparatchiks and family members to go to Merida, Vera Cruz, Puebla, and Mexico City for such things as simple as appendectomies and eye lifts....and certainly for such things as by-pass operations etc. They too would be "chaperoned".

    There was the incident where some ladies were commenting while looking into a store display window.  They were repeating what their ''chaperone" had said about the stores being "stuffing", and I advised them quietly that such is not the case. "Como Ustedes lo vean, es como es.  Con La Pascua y las Fiestas Naviden~as, es mas todavia. (As you see it, is as it is. At Eastertide and during the Christmastide it is still more.)

    The ladies, without looking at me, asked if I would sell my Levi blue-jeans, "discreetly"....because they recognised me due to the fact that we were using the same hotel.  I advised (also not turning to address them face to face),  them that their "escort" and his goons would be checking their luggage for any and all "inappropriate" gifts and purchases.  To that observation they deflated a bit, and said, "Of course, they always do, they always have."   The converstational posture was necessary so as to avoid the chance that they could be accused of "collaborating".  

 All the sports teams were "chaperoned", and there were many occasions when the teams and their "chaperones" (sometimes as many of them as players and managers and support staff) would all defect in Mexico. My introduction to the goons was note under my door at the Hotel Castellanos in downtown Merida which stated, "Do not speak to Cuban. We does not say please. Do not speak to Cuban." It was not signed.

    To further respond to the lunacy that spews forth from the "democratic left" and from the willfully gullible and/or uniformed, we must add a bit of appropriate addenda.

     When the Bishop of Rome, and state leaders from around the world, and organisations such as "Pastors for Peace", and the United Nations, etc. etc. etc. howl at the moon over the "brutality of the American Blockade" causing death and suffering of the children and people of Cuba, please remember to do one thing.  Take a globe, rotate it slowly....Red China, Japan, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Lower Slobovia, India, Guatemala, and approximately 200 other nations have trade relations with the Cuban "Democratic Republic".   The reason there is a blockade of any kind is because Cuba has nothing much to sell to the world, and precious little ability to buy anything the world has to sell to Cuba.

     The grandeur of the Cuban medical system ..... free to all ....was a myth, is a myth, and will certainly be revealed soon in its totality, even to those who do not wish to believe the truth.  It was the same in the Soviet Union.  While many Cuban doctors are excellent practitioners and surgeons, those went to Mexico, Spain, and the United States long ago.  Most Cuban doctors are woefully ill-prepared and nowhere near the level of the common Mexican saw-bones.....the "nurses" are not like what you will find in France or Japan.....the facilities are nightmarish.

     One might remember when another piece of human debris, Hugo Chavez, left his country for medical care.....it was to Cuba, where he was attended by Spanish doctors, flown in from Madrid.   He returned to Venezuela to continue a not so slow decline on his way to wherever his soul is burning now.
     It is a travesty how the Obsolete and International Press has consistently misled and/0r outright lied about the Cuban social, economic, medical, agricultural, and tourist industries.  It can all be described as dilapidated, corrupt, filthy, brutal, unfinished, in ruins, and essentially hopelessly engaged in some form of rot.
     We could go on and on....but we shan't.   We hope the best for the Cuban people who....during the corruption of Gen. Fulgencio Batista were the fourth ranking population in the Americas in terms of literacy, income per capita, medical and social facilities, etc.  To-day it vies with Haiti for Cellardwellar Honours.

El Gringo Viejo

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DEAR DONALD.....!!!!!!

stop tweeting and/or publicly communicating with press or any other form of maggots;   you cannot touch the tar-baby without soiling your hands and clothes!!!

STOP DOING THE TWITTER THING!