Mission, Texas is home to hundreds of Winter Texans, which the surrounding communities embrace, which are also home to many other Winter Texans. The Winter Texans bring a lot of business to the area and there are signs all around welcoming them.
It was fun to see where our friends spend their winters: in a nice, two-bedroom home in a 55+ retirement development. They have a community room with a library, game room, swimming pool, indoor and outdoor hot tubs and a fully equipped tool shop and art studios. My friend discovered she can paint and has painted several pictures already, with lessons from an art instructor. She also enjoys making cut-glass art pieces. Her husband likes to spend time in the tool shop. They have enjoyed getting to know their neighbors and made some good friends over the years. It was fun to hear stories as we walked through the neighborhoods.
Right across the street, at the end of the driveway, our friend’s neighbor fills a three-tiered metal basket with surplus fruit from his backyard trees, free for the taking. We grabbed a couple of grapefruit to enjoy, and I also picked one ripe grapefruit still hanging on our friend’s tree.
Their backdoor neighbors have a lemon tree, also overflowing with fruit, and we were free to pick lemons anytime.
Friends down the block brought a big bag of oranges from their trees (twice while we were visiting) for us to make freshly-squeezed orange juice. All the fresh fruit was a special treat. We soon got in the habit of making fresh orange juice or grapefruit juice, usually in the mornings. One day we picked enough lemons to make a fresh pitcher of lemonade. Our friends had an electric juicer, which made the job very easy and fun.
We really enjoyed that fresh, off-the-tree citrus fruit which we don’t get in Minnesota.