Abuelita's house was always very mystifying and always home. There were five doors to the outside. The front yard was fenced yet it was like an oasis in Laredo. The greenery of the her lush plants which included a large palm tree. Abuelita had ferns, flowers, rosebushes, creeping plants, climbing plants, pirul tree, mesquite tree, and huge magueys in a row along the street front.

There seems to be hundreds of different size, color, shape, flowers in that front yard. The ornamental plants also were along the side of the house on through the end of the property. In her backyard, the fruit and herbs were growing. There were citrus trees, orange and grapefruit, a fig tree, peach, and cactus bearing prickly pears. Abuelita also had her prized egg-hatching chickens and turkeys. I remember that at one time she also had a goat and a rabbit. She grew her herbs for cooking, baking, and healing.

I remember that abuelita was lame from a stroke, but she got around with a cane and she loved walking around to see her plants and animals.

One summer, my cousin and I transplanted, under abuelita's supervision, small plants into small cans for sale. We placed all the plants in the wagon and we went on our way to seeking fortune. The streets of Laredo, were rocky and full of dust. My cousin, José, and I figured that we might have a better chance to sell our products to folks that live on paved streets. It was not hard to find such since there were only few. One of the plants was the asparagus fern. Neither José nor I knew that there was asparagus the vegetable. We arrived at this beauty shop and we announced that we were selling plants and one of the beauticians asked "what kind?" We said looking at our inventory, "asparagus, ivys...... She then asked "how much for the asparagus?" We responded "10 cents a can." Boy that woman, got her purse and rushed out before the other ladies. When she saw our wagon with the plants, her face frowns and says "Oooo, you have the asparagus the fern." My cousin and I look at each other, wondering to ourselves "boy, this lady is dumb what other kind (of asparagus) is there." She bought only one can of ivy. So much for our first sale. We were getting hungry, (we were typical 10 year-old boys) so with a dime we can't buy much. José remembered that his madrina lived nearby. So we walked in the blazing sun to his madrina's house. In Laredo, the sun is always blazing. We got to her house and thank God, she was there. She gave us some milk and cookies. We gave her some small talk. She then bought our entire inventory of 10 plants and paid us $1.00 for the plants and a tip of 25 cents each. Wow. We thanked her, hoping our eyes would stay in their sockets and that the excitement wouldn't pop them out. We must have run in record time to the corner store by buelita's house. We rushed in and each of us bought a balsa wood plane, candy and a soda for 25 cents. We then casually walked to buelita and gave her the day's earnings, $1.10. She was happy we had a good day. She made us some lunch of migas and frijoles.