What  an exceptional evening we had!  Pink Martini is so much fun.  They are so tight and accomplished.  China Forbes was singing who doesn’t always apparently.  She and Thomas Lauderdale (sp?) the leader have been at this for twenty three years.  And there were nine other members of the band on stage last night.

Some of their songs are in english and some in all sorts of other languages.  So last night they invited people up on stage that could sing along with the song.  There was a song in French and a bunch of French folks went up to sing.  And Turkish there were a lot.  And three women who knew Mandarin Chinese.  And they did a piece in Arabic and one guy got up there and had his own mike and sang with China Forbes.  He was knocked out.

It was at San Michele Winery so we were all drinking wine and it started to rain toward the end but nobody minded.  I’m exhausted here right now back at home, we got back just a few minutes before midnight.  And just a thank you to Sister Joyce who paid for that whole thing as a gift, what a sweetheart.

So, am jumping up in a moment to pick corn for the day.  This is the last day of the stand being open.  I almost closed it Friday but decided I could probably stretch it over the weekend.  People will want to BBQ and eat corn over the weekend.  So we made it 27 days from the beginning of the early variety to the end of Bodacious, the later variety.  A good run and it brought a lot of joy to a lot of taste buds.

OK, stop back by tomorrow.  Take care till then, Felipe.x

That’s what I said to a visiting praying mantis.  I will have to tell you the story.  It all started yesterday when I went in to talk to the bookkeeper at the local hardware store. I had a mistake on my bill and I wanted to get it straightened out.  So the bookkeeper is this woman who I have known forever and she is really a people person but she works hidden away in the backroom of the store.  So, when you go into see her be ready for some conversation.

So after we got the work done she asked how I was and I said that I had just been stung by four hornets so the conversation headed off toward insects.  I added that there had been a pic on FB of a praying mantis appearing on Vashon recently.  She tells me of this praying mantis that she had a conversation with once.   Yea, yea, OK.  I said that I never had seen one anywhere before much less held a conversation.    So, that was that and walking out of the store I was thinking really is it possible to have a conversation with an insect?  Sounds crazy but who knows.

So I drive back to the ranch and I am still thinking about this as I go into our wood shop and I am dinking around there for a few minutes straightening up when what do I run into?  Yea, a praying mantis.  What?  I had never seen one before in all my years and all of a sudden there he was bigger than life.  He or she was perched on a piece of weathered wood and the same color, a light grayish brown, and I thought they were always green.

So I sit down on the next bench about four feet away.  I’m on one bench and he is across the way on the other.  So what do you say to an insect really?  And I open up with, ” Well it is just you and me and Saint Francis.”  And I go on telling him about my day and he is moving around a little bobbing his head like he is listening.  And I’m telling him about getting into the hornets earlier in the day and all of a sudden he takes to the air and flies in my direction and I move over quickly since I already had my bad runin for the day.  He lands on my bench and walks across the bench toward where I am now sitting and climbs up on my hand and just sits there  bobbing his head as I continue to talk.  Yea, and after maybe ten minutes he evidently got bored with me or had other business to take care of he turned a hundred and eighty degrees and flew away back to the other bench.  So, I left it at that and walked away a little wiser and happier.

So I thank my friend Molley the bookkeeper for putting the idea in my head and for the opportunity to try it out.  That was the high point of yesterday.  Today later we are off to see Pink Martini on the mainland, high times.  Maybe I will get a chance to talk to them.  Alperfect, love, Felipe.

I have a FaceBook friend who I have never met in person.  Her name is Raya and she is just entering grad school for religious studies.  Offhand I don’t know the school but that doesn’t matter for us now.   Anyway she posted a pic of the controls on a treadmill that she was using and said the she was starting her new camino.  Can a person have a camino on a treadmill?  Totally outside the box, right?  I love it!  She’s got us thinking.  Buen Camino Raya.

Well, of course her whole school year will be an experience, a walk, a camino so to speak.  But I love her thinking.  Maybe we can get her to comment on this topic.  I’m not sure that she reads this blog but maybe we can get her started.  I’m sure we can, we are so warm and cuddly!

OK, here is some big news.  A dear friend bought us tickets to the Pink Martini concert this weekend.  We are going to see China Forbes sing and hear the fabulous band.  Could be the high point of my summer.  Woo hoo!  In case you are unfamiliar with this ensemble they have plenty of videos on UTube.  Woo hoo some more!

Got hit by yellow jackets (hornets), second day in a row.  They are particularly serious this time of year, no fooling around.  Yesterday I got two stings and this morning four.  I’m not liking the trajectory of that.  Just adding venom to may other IV drugs.  Maybe that is the secret formula.

Well, another blog post written and now off to work.  Praying for hurricane folks.  Buen Camino, Felipe.

Was just back from the Camino and Spain a few weeks when I wrote this for this blog.  I was still wondering what had happened to me, had that run over by a truck feeling.  Still consider it my best post out of thirteen hundred some.  It’s a story of Felipe written by Phil.

Warning
I want to warn you that my inner romantic has escaped and is, well I don’t know where he is now really. He may have first left in early August around Estrella in Northeastern Spain. The last thing that he said was something about running with the bulls.

Be careful with him if he appears. Not that he is dangerous really but he has a tendency to be beyond normal, to talk poetically, to promise you anything. He is often outside of time and will trap you in endless dilly dally. He thinks that God made heaven just so the three of you could be together, imagine?

I just found a few paragraphs recently that he wrote and they may be helpful:

“I went to Spain to do the Camino with openness, with room for it to join with me. That’s all, really. And what I got in return was a hundred fold.

” The Spanish people: I remember an old woman begging outside of the Cathedral at Burgos, dressed all in black, she was so beautiful. I gave her some money and kissed her, I couldn’t resist. I remember a woman who brought us cold Cokes as we stumbled past her house in the heat. We didn’t have anything to give her but I made a motion with my rosary that we would pray for her and she understood and was happy. I remember a farmer herding his dairy cows down the road and I wanted to shake his hand. He made a motion like his hands were dirty so I kissed him on the whiskery cheek, nothing more, nothing less. I remember walking with a Spanish pilgrim who pulled out a candy bar and broke it in half and was in the process of handing half to me and it fell down into the dust of the Camino. I picked it up and he said that it was OK that he had another but I felt a need to eat that one as a communion with the trail and it’s millions of pilgrims. His smile signaled to me that he understood.

“Then there was the scenery that was knockout beautiful. And the agriculture which was ever present, robust, varied, feed the world awesome. There were the ancient stone bridges, stone buildings, roads and fountains to remind us that plenty of people had worked very hard to make us comfortable.

“The Camino attracts a certain set of people that come from all over the world and each has a story. Some are pilgrims to start with, others become pilgrims. You can communicate with them more or less according to your combined language abilities and this is major fun. I don’t know about major fun but a lot of communication takes place through the universal language of hunger, thirst and pain. In the end all sorts and flavors of people meet, talk, share, eat and drink with you. They listen and encourage and inspire you. They are your angels getting you from shade to shade or water to water or from town to town. Just as you are their angel.

“There are huge cathedrals at one end of the scale and little simple churches in all the small towns. OK, I was ready for that. But what else was every size, color, shape and variety of material reminder that God is present in the form of crucifixes, statues, shrines, collections and you name it all along the way.

“And I went into every church that was open, went into monasteries, convents and other meeting places. Prayed with nuns and brothers. Took Mass in a cave, outside, inside in small churches and Cathedrals. Passed out from heat exhaustion at the high point of one Mass and was caught in the arms of a woman named Grace. Falling into the arms of Grace, no joke. Shook hands and talked with the Bishop at Burgos. Was blessed along with my fellow pilgrims by priests in numerous places along the route.

“OK, so this is the evidence of how I flirted with, danced with, cavorted with and got drunk on Spain and the Camino. And in the end we made love.”

Yea, see what I mean? Look, if you run into my inner romantic would you please tell him to check in. We need to talk, you know what I mean. Thanks, Phil.

Ron from Virginia, newly minted Caminohead, got all inspired and did some research for us.  Yesterday we were talking about GK Chesterton and I was feeling like I ought to get in gear and read some of his stuff.  But where to start?  He was so prolific that it is hard to choose for the beginner.  So, kindly Ron came up with this handy dandy link “Chesterton a guide for the new fan”.

http://catholicexchange.com/reading-g-k-chesterton-a-guide-for-the-new-fa

I don’t know if that will be a hot link or not.  I would like it to be a hot link but I am having a personal technological breakdown at the moment and that is the best I can do.  I know enough to be dangerous so you have to be aware of that.  I might look like I know what I am doing but no, not so much.

In other news the Autumn here is filling up with people coming here from out of town.  And we have some trips happening also.  It should be interesting.  Usually there is a drop off when the weather changes to rainy blowy but this year we are going to keep on partying it looks like.

What’s the corn news Felipe?  Today is day 23 of having the stand open and selling our sweet corn.  First we had the early variety which lasted for 16 days.  It was slow to start but it kept in the freshness zone for quite a while.  On day 17 I started picking the later variety, Bodacious, and although good it doesn’t seem to have the longevity of the earlier stuff.  All of a sudden it seems peaked.  I was hoping to have a 30 day season but may not make that.  Oh well, those expectations were expectations and we all know how much trouble they can get us in.

Sister Joyce is scheduled to come out today to “walk” Phil’s Camino.  I say that because she will probably drive our sit-on mower around.   It will be fun to have her.  Also I have a couple of cousins showing up from New York later today.  Yea, I better get moving for now.  Off to work.  Thanks, Felipe.x

Yesterday the blog mistakenly got entitled, “We Can Help Ourselves”.   That was supposed to be “Can’t” but I’m leaving it.  Maybe that’s as true in it’s own way.  We did help ourselves by choosing the Camino way back when.  So in effect we can help ourselves.  I can see both sides of that one.  So, we’re leaving it.

I discovered the lending library at St. John Vianney’s.  My Rebecca and I watched a video about the author GK Chesterton last night.  But not just any video.  This is from Bishop Robert Barron’s series called “Pivotal Players”.  Man, the Bishop did it to me again.  So well done.  So informative.  So beautiful.  So inspirational.  Chesterton was such an interesting character and so prolific.  And the story is told so well in this video.  See if your church as it or the library.

Whatever the Bish touches is pretty darn golden.  He did the ten part series called “Catholicism”.  We saw it in our RCIA class four years ago.  That really affected me.  So I am looking forward to watching this whole new series.

Well, it’s day 21 for having the corn stand open.  I don’t know if I am going to make 30 days or not.  That is what I was shooting for.  The later corn is ripening so quickly that it might be all over sooner.  But it has been fun trying.

Have a good Tuesday.  Love Felipe.

Let me apologize for not getting with you yesterday.  We had a lot of moving parts going on to keep us busy.  And then lastly Sherie showed up with her friend Mary from Tacoma to walk and tapa.  So they stayed for dinner of venison and corn on the cob.  Yup, life on the farm, all very Norman Rockwell.

It kind of struck me today as I was doing the morning walk how crazy we Caminoheads are.   Not that I was thinking about Sherie specifically, but she helped, but just pilgrims in general.  But Sherie is in there and I’m in there.  We all have been changed and set loose.  Annie is in there as well as well you know who you are.  Annie put it, “we can’t help ourselves.”  That is part of it too.

It is delightful really and I never seem to tire of it, this Caminoism.  It is the Way.  It is the Way of St James or a close offshoot of Jesus Christ the Way.  Before Christianity had a name, before that word was coined, the movement was called the Way.  It’s all related, right?  And it is real, workable and accessible.  That is the beauty of it.

I weep while writing my good blogs so I know which ones are good.  This is a good one.  Have to go do some work, Labor Day, no holidays around here apparently.  Miss you, love you, Felipe.

Just picked nine dozen ears of corn, that’s some kind of record.  We are in third gear here with production.  That’s good being this is Labor Day Weekend.  Should be able to sell everything I put out there.  And the quality is supreme.  This is it, we are peaking.

Remember yesterday we were talking about Wiley and Hanna and the new dog.  So check this out, an old family friend sold them a runabout and a trailer for $11.  The boat was $10 and the trailer $1.  Hanna’s father Jim is got them all running around cleaning out old gas,  filling up with new gas, finding life jackets, washing and scrubbing.  They want to take it out for a spin today, wasting no time on these four day weekends, squeezing the most out of it.

I’m going to run over and see what time the launch is going to be.  Can check the corn in the stand and see how the supply is holding up.  Man, action central around here, no time for naps.  OK, talk to you in a moment.

OK, the sailors are out to sea and they don’t seem to be answering their ship to shore phones.  Well their was just a FB post with them frolicking so must be good.  Having too much fun to answer their phones.  So glad Jim the mechanic is with them.

Well, the character of this post seems to be all four day weekend.  Might as well go with it.  My Rebecca and I off to dinner with friends, probably BBQ.  Then tomorrow have Mass with Catherine then off to visit one of my old hunting buddies in hospice.  I’ll have to prepare for that one.

OK, time to prep for the dinner party, have to be in the right frame of mind.  OK, if I know you I miss you and if I don’t know you I still miss you.  Same same, love, Phil.

The stars are out and the corn is ripe.  Well, it is daytime now and that was last night but I’m still gliding along on the energy.  Started picking the late corn yesterday which is really the main event.  The early corn is well early.  It is tender and delicate.  I know you are early.  Yes, yes we love you still.   But it’s just that the late corn is so much more, well corny.  It’s high harvest, it is.

Back to the hospital today.  Dana is driving me, the dear.  Blue sky out there and it is going to be hot through Tuesday.  Perfect corn ripening weather.

The new addition to our family is fitting right in so far.  Wiley and Hanna adopted a rescue dog from Baja, a Belgian Shephard, female, 35 pounds, 7 months old.   I got a feeling we got the perfect farm dog.  A Belgian is like a half size German Shephard.  We got like a half sized ranch here so perfect fit.

So, that’s the local news.   Was thinking some more about the mazes and the labyrinths.  What if they were really the same.  Well, what if the journey is the same but it was all in your mind how you looked at it.  A reversal may seem a dead end to one person and their walk would suddenly turn into a maze because they couldn’t go beyond.  Where if you kept going it would be a labyrinth.   I might be on to something?  Hmm.

Well, have to get out and move around.  Thanks for showing up today.  Alperfect it is really.  Love, Felipe.