A Walk Around the New Neighborhood

We feel very lucky to be living in such a rural area so close to the city of Las Cruces. When we lived in the city in the late 1990s we somehow missed discovering what a fine area was to be found just outside the city limits. Actually, its loveliness is easy to miss, since the nearby road leading out from the city is lined with a mix of older adobes, tired trailer parks, and commercial concerns that make it fairly unattractive. It isn't until you turn down some of the side roads that the potential of the area is revealed.

Here are some photos from our regular morning walk.

I'm not sure what these lovely little trees are, but I admired their shapes along the fence. This neighbor has a small herd of goats.

A pecan orchard, just like the one that surrounds our house.

Down the road a bit, there are some newer homes in the southwest style.

Back in Clovis, over a hundred trains a day pass through the town. On our tracks, shown here, we hear just three trains each day, and they are just far away enough to sound rather romantic.

The train tracks, headed south for Texas. That big ol' Texas is everywhere. When we were in Clovis, in a part of New Mexico actually called "Little Texas," the real Texas was just about ten miles to the east of us. Here in Las Cruces, we are just under 50 miles to the Texas border, this time to the south of us. We are also just over 50 miles to the border with Mexico.

In my next post, I'll show you some photos of "the ditch"--the acequia, or irrigation canal, that is so important to life in New Mexico.