Tuesday, March 8, 2011

H IS FOR ...

...HACIENDA


Living so near to the Mexican border, 'hacienda' is a familiar word to us.  It is what we call the main house of a ranch or estate.  We took these photos below, last week at the Leo Carrillo Ranch on the outskirts of Carlsbad.   It is one of our favorite places to visit -- quiet and beautiful.

The front of the hacienda

The back view from the patio




The side views

This place has so many photo opportunity spots and should surely not be missed if you visit the Carlsbad area.  Best of all it's free!

And to top it all off, from forty to fifty beautiful peacocks roam the grounds adding to the beauty. It is rare not to find at least one which will spread its feathers for you. Kay has the best photo of this so I'm leaving it for her to use on her blog.



This HACIENDA has to be one of North County's best kept secrets.

The letter 'H' brought to you by Mrs. Nesbitt and her fine team at 
abcwednesday-mrsnesbitt.blogspot.com
Up to a hundred bloggers participate in ABC Wednesday so you have to find many among them that are fascinating.

17 comments:

claude said...

Hello Chris !
Very good choice for H !
This hacienda is very beautiful.
The peacock and the Savannah sparrow are beautiful too.

Autumn Leaves said...

A gorgeous group of photos and oh what a beautiful hacienda. Is that your sister in the background in the second photo?

jabblog said...

It certainly is very beautiful and set in lovely grounds too.

kaybee said...

Yes, Autumn Leaves, that is me in the background - not sure what I was looking for! We had a lovely day at the ranch, and even the weather cooperated. I love Carlsbad's Mexican 'flavour' - it is a beautiful place.

Thanks, ChrisJ, for a great vacation -- sorry to have to leave, but work beckons!

duopastorale said...

That all looks so beautiful... and so different from home!

photowannabe said...

Free makes it a perfect place to visit. I must see it the next time we head to So. California.

Roger Owen Green said...

lovely. I even love the sound of the word itself.
ROG, ABC Wednesday team

Wanda said...

Chris ~ love this style... and when I visited my friend in Tucson several years ago, we visited a place similar. That's a beautiful peacock.

Leslie: said...

This looks like a wonderful place to visit! The gardens look amazing and imagine all those peacocks strutting around! Wow!

Leslie
ABCW Team

Tumblewords: said...

Oh, it IS a beautiful place and the peacock is gorgeous!

Rinkly Rimes said...

A lovely word and, clearly, a lovely place.

nonizamboni said...

Greetings from St. Paul!!
Perfect choice for today especially since, unlike MN, it was sunshiny the day you visited.
Thanks for the photo of the peacock as you can tell I am in awe of that color.
Happy week!

Jose said...

Wow, that is indeed a nice hacienda. "Hacendados" (hacienda owners) were all rich and owned lots of land, cattle, etc. I would love to have one. lol

Gattina said...

Are you sure these pictures weren't taken in Spain ? lol ! looks exactly the same (of course !)

Cildemer said...

A great entry for H day with a very beautiful set of pics!
Seems a fabulous place to visit! Thanks for sharing;o)

***Happy day****

Carver said...

Thanks for the tour of this beautiful hacienda.

Anonymous said...

I always found the haciendas a place of coolness. Especially the large monasteries out in the desert around San Antonio.