Thursday, February 24, 2011

'Magic Valley' - part three



For much of its recorded history, the Rio Grande Valley has been known for conflict. Agriculture brought a more positive reputation. It’s been called the Glamor Valley (the picture above is the cover of a 1940s book of mine) and, I think better, the Magic Valley.



With the arrival of that railway you can see above, the Valley's boom in the early Twentieth Century was founded on citrus - grapefruit, lemon and oranges - and then vegetables. Old postcards promote a vast market garden for northern dining tables.





Large scale irrigation was only developed a hundred years ago; water for agriculture made the land extraordinarily fertile. This canal - many cross the Valley - is near my winter home.



Hundred of acres are still orange groves.



Here's an old Valley fruit crate label.



My home is on land that was once an orange grove. Fortunately, one of the trees is just out the backdoor (and I also have grapefruit and lemon trees).



Most mornings, when I walk out, one or two oranges are lying on the ground. When there're enough, it's juice making time.



Thirty-six oranges produce this much juice ...



Compare my juice (on the left) with the pallid commercial product. I’m into vitamin C overload.


Monday, February 21, 2011

'Magic Valley' - part two



This is my street. I've had a pre-dawn coffee, glanced at the local paper - The Monitor -'Serving the Rio Grande Valley Since 1909' - and am going for a walk.
Many of the places in the park are real second homes, not my idea of a vacation. The less maintenance, cleaning and gardening the better.



Some aren't so big. Presumably cleaning this is very easy.


People come to the Valley from a long way.

From a really long way.


This rig - do a web search on how much these things can cost - pulls the owner's trailer, admittedly a big one.

This - with its golf bag carrier on the back - is just plain nifty.

As noted last year, the way of life brings out idiosyncratic touches. Texas cattle skulls are popular.


As are emblems of past activities, mainly military. Click on the picture if you can't read the writing.

On the subject of World War Two bombers, Jode's mother, Verla, and stepfather, George, are here.


George piloted twenty-six B-17 missions over Germany. He was based near the small English market town of Sudbury, in the county where I once lived. George and I reminisced about some little Suffolk villages and crumbling, Eighth Air Force airfields we know.

In 1916, Verla's father, Jode's grandfather, was with the U.S. Army in the Rio Grande Valley. The soldiers were combating cross border raids from Mexico. A few years shy of a century later, Verla and Jode winter not far from where the troops were stationed. A couple of historical minor coincidences ...

Saturday, February 19, 2011

'Magic Valley' - part one



I'm back. I bought. Here's home in the Valley for at least one more winter while I see if this works.

If you're wondering how I come to be in the borderlands, the colourful, too often violent, Texan frontier with Mexico, here's a link to my three blog entries from a year ago:


Mine is a very modest little home on the range (an old orange grove), an inexpensive pied-à-terre of under 400 square feet. The deck, however, is large and, depending on time of day, ideal for iced tea or 'Becker Vineyards 2008 Claret' (' ... from the vineyards of three heroic and determined Texas High Plains grape growers'). Good stuff.

Through the screen, this is my street view.


In December, while in the Philippines, I got an email from Don and Jode telling me they'd bought a new home in the same park. A few emails later, I was the owner of their old place. Why now? Mainly because it fell into my lap. Without Don and Jode, I wouldn't have done it. Not so posh that it’s more a home than a cottage. Not so costly that, if it went sailing off in a hurricane - and this is hurricane country - it would be catastrophic (unless I was in it).

Here's the interior.






I would never have thought of Texas, much less south Texas, but for last year's visit. It's an easy flight from Toronto. Driving is about 2600 kilometres or 1600 miles.

Self-satisfied Florida, moaning about too many Canadians, Canadiens, never made the list. Arizona and California don’t appeal. New Mexico is a more complicated trip. All seem more expensive than Texas. I'm also told, although the locals are partial, that the Rio Grande Valley is particularly welcoming to wintering northerners. I agree. The Valley's a bit quirky and rough around the edges, but oddly endearing, of which more in another blog. And, at day's end, sipping that Texas claret, the sunsets are wonderful.