Cruz Blanca (1): from the garden

For about twenty years, until two and a half years ago, we lived in this old stone house, part of a farm that was in Mrs. Q’s (Susan’s) family, and was sold before we married – all but the house and nearly nine acres of mesquite thorny bush.

Susan and her first husband (she was widowed young) raised their children at this place, but it was more or less abandoned for a time, overgrown ,  and wild.

Over the two decades we were there we hacked the bush back, mowed and planted (Susan, flower beds – her green thumb is quite famous – and I had trees and shrubs to plant).

We did much of the work ourselves, but help was affordable and were fortunate in getting some good people – specially for the hacking and clearing. This is “Cruz Blanca” – the “White Cross”, as Susan and Franz, her first husband, hailed from Switzerland.

The trees grew, and on the ” shade side” (our South, Northern Hemisphere’s North) we had a good forest going, with evergreen pines, cedars, spruces, mimosa and deciduous oaks, liquidambar, maples and just about anything that would grow. Susan had a rose garden, chrysanthemums, jasmine, a most admired cactus collection, a rock garden … and I’d better stop right there as I’m out of my territory. Maybe she’ll be along later.

The property is on a slope, a side of the Santa Rosa river, which runs across its Northern boundary, some five hundred yards downhill: a mountain river, white water and prone to floods in heavy rain (up to twenty feet, in a flash).  Under normal conditions though, its best feature is a fine swimming hole, a pool in the rocks.

The cool, clear water is about twenty feet deep, with some shallow parts and a sand beach (that over the years, disappeared, as some ten miles (in a straight line) upstream a small town grew and sand was taken for building.

In spring, the Jacaranda would show off:

And the small forest, not visible here, alongside the entrance driveway

We had to sell and leave – family dispersed and we were left, the two of us too far away from so called civilization, medical services, vulnerable to emergencies of any kind, with more than an hours drive to the nearest town; a bumpy crawl up a mountain track. Not without regret. And I gained access to the world, through broadband internet – I thought I had: turns out it’s not so broad and has been more or less disconnected for the last month or so – but that’s another story. This one, the tale of Cruz Blanca – the “White Cross” – this one I will continue from time to time, specially when as now, I unearth an album of photographs of the place and Mrs. Q and I become misty and nostalgic. Until later.

(And yes, 911 forest critters at WVU – and Gandy/Joni specially -  you did inspire this post. Now maybe, I’ll even write to the prompt

Q