We are in a rainy patch here but there has to be SOME Indian Summer in our future. Janet from LA was going to come up but she is having second thoughts. But I think this precipitation is temporary.

I started knocking the corn down yesterday. Running the mower over the field to chop everything up and get ready for rototilling. Kind of sad. But the cycles go on. Want to get the clover cover crop planted this month so need to get started.

The corn always seems to go too quickly. It is good for such a short window. But I’m happy with the crop this year feeding all the pilgrims.

My Rebecca and I started proofreading a word document from Catalina which will be a chapter in her new book. Our part is about the trail and the blog and the film. Fun and humbling to read her take on the whole deal. I think most of the time we live our lives the best we can and don’t see how it fits into history and the bigger picture. We are thankful to her for having the expertise to dig that perspective out.

The poor girl read the whole blog also which gives me a headache just thinking about it. But she recovered some interesting Felipé quotes which was the idea. That’s what scholars do. But I’m saying,“Really, did I write that?”

Anyway, it is cool to read her words and see her view on the situation. It is sort of like the drone shots in the Phil’s Camino films. It’s a wider angle than we are used to.

My Rebecca’s first day of substitute teaching today. Back to school is here once again. Of course that means football season which is OK with me.

I have a visitor tomorrow from out of town. He was on the trip to Lourdes with the Padre and myself last year. It will be good to see him and catch up.

Well, that is the news here in early September. Wrapping up the summer is a job that requires care as you don’t want to rush it, it might stage a revival unexpectedly and you already through out the marshmallows.

revival loves, Felipé.

Yes, our new program of Bureau Chiefs to relieve Felipé of the Friday blogging is underway. And of course Pilgrim Farmer John answered the call. Well done PFJ! We are off to a flying start team!

Catherine said to me yesterday on our way to or from Mass that she sensed that it would be hard to integrate into the intensely personal world of Caminoheads blog. In other words it would be a challenge to get into the blog and do an offering because there is so much Felipé piled up in there. Well, OK.
We will just have to loosen that all up.

Farmer John for a period of his life was a Marine Corps Officer. In the Corps MC Officers are akin to the gods. I was so intimidated by farmer John and his band of officer friends when I first met them, a hold over. You just don’t hang out with officers. It’s more like, “Private Volker, there is an enemy machine gun that needs charging over there, do you see it?” “Aye aye sir! Sir, is that before or after breakfast sir?!

It is all jokes now but serious business once upon a time. And then Pilgrim Farmer talking about his basketball experience backing up the star. I got wrestling stories from the 1960’s in high school. I never played “ball” sports. I was to anxious about the darn thing. What if I passed it to the wrong guy or ran the wrong way with it or misplaced it, too much to worry about. I did cross country, wresting in the winter and then track in the spring, no balls anywhere around. Those three sports each had their own unique challenges. Cross country was such a mind game talking ourselves out of quitting forever. Track was similar but more competitive being part of a jostling crowd. But wrestling was the hardest for me.

I did after two years win a spot on the varsity team but even there was bounced around in a few weight classes because of the competition for those positions. Sometimes I would be wrestling JV again. Things were in flux. I earned the nickname “Kamikaze” because the coach might wrestle me up a few weight classes to fill a hole in our roster. That was the hardest job because there was little chance of winning and the object was not to get pinned which would be bad for our teams score. Taking one for the team had little glory.

As the Kamikaze I can appreciate being the backup guy. But the Bureau Chiefs are much more than that. They each have varied views different than mine. They bring what I can’t see or understand. They have interesting foibles as we all do. They will make the whole thing richer. Please welcome them.

Showers today. Glad that the Veranda was dry and folded away for now in our memories. Walk in fifteen minutes, yike!

Almost five hundred word loves, Felipé.

Thank God for the abundance of it all. Thank you Jim and Gloria for coming all the way from New York in May to plant. Thanks Jim Meiklejohn for help all along the way. Thanks to Pilgrim Farmer John for blessing the little corns when they were an inch tall and standing at attention in rank and file. Thanks My Rebecca for all the freezing and drying. Did I leave anyone out? Oh Steve-O was here early on weeding, thanks buddy.

And the plants survived the hungry deer and Pilgrim Farmer Felipé’s experiment with using propane to flame the weeds. But despite all that in the end it worked. The big goal was to feed the pilgrims at the Veranda which it did no problem and more.

Maybe today I will do a final pick on the Golden Jubilee variety. We had some for tapas yesterday and it was a little past prime. We had some surprise guests yesterday, Ben from Germany and Lindsey from Seattle to help us eat a few ears.

There is a cheerful woman that has worked forever as a checker at the local supermarket and I have to run up a half a dozen to her today sometime. Her father grew corn on the Island for years and was killed in a tractor accident back a while ago. So every year I make sure that she gets a few ears.

Well, yea, corn news. And Farmer John I know that you will be reading this at some point, would you please answer all the comments from your adoring fans. They loved your Friday Caminoheads blog!

OK, off to today. It is drying up outside. We had rain and thunder and lightning last night. Yikes!

thunder and lightning lives, Felipé.

In these last few weeks of the Veranda and all the organizational positive motion for Caminoheads I want us to remember our roots. Most of us trained on the Camino and it is the main thing that draws us together. But I just want us to remember that there are folks there now working away at their pilgrimage even as we enjoy our memories.

One of the folks that was here for the Veranda two weeks ago is there now and needs our old thoughts and prayers. And that is Debra Jarvis who was here with here husband Wes. I forget which day but it was probably Saturday. She is around Pamplona maybe and is challenged by shin splints. Please send her the energy that she needs to continue her journey.

I am in contact with her by cell text and my words of encouragement and sage advice are hopefully helping out. I think it is helpful to know that there is no right way. If you have to take a cab or have your pack carried then do it and continue.

Anyway there are others too that you may know of. Back them up the best you can. We are not here only to remember our own version of the Camino but to welcome others and “walk” with them where we can on their version. Remember Debra.

And so much thanks to Pilgrim Farmer John for his blog of introduction yesterday. He is such a mighty personality and it is great to have him on our team. Next friday we will have another of our Bureau Chiefs checking in with you.

So off I go. Helping Wiley with one of his projects today. All good at the ranch.

mighty personality loves, Felipé.

Welcome to the Future! As announced by Peregrino Felipe yesterday, today marks the inauguration of “The “B Team” filling in on Fridays. Usually, the “B Team” denotes the Junior Varsity, or at least “second string” players getting their shot in the limelight. Well, that’s partly true here as well, since none of us on the Bureau Chiefs Roster can fill the Big Shoes of Camino Phil. But, the purpose to is fill in and give the big guy a break once a week with this exceedingly long-running Blog. But, technically, for this “B Team” the “B” denotes Bureau Chiefs. A title we wear with some embarrassment as we don’t know how we got it, or what to do with it!

This missive goes out to many more folks than we were privileged to meet at the Veranda, so an introduction is in order: I’m Pilgrim Farmer John of Iowa. I’m the “Midwest Bureau Chief”. My so-far only Camino was in 2013, when I walked from Le Puy, France, to Finnesterre, Spain. My dear wife, Cathy, walked the last 110 kilometers into Santiago with me, and our middle daughter, Kelley, also joined us for several days. It was a total delight! My intent is to return in 2023 accompanied by a grand daughter, who will have just graduated from high school.

The other Bureau Chiefs will make their own introductions as they take their turns on successive Fridays. Not all of them are pictured above, but that shot is the only one we have available of the four of us who were at the Veranda.

I’m approaching my word limit imposed by Phil, so I’ll add this broad brush Thanks You to all the attendees at the Veranda, and the incredible hospitality of Rebecca and Phil to make it oh, so good! It’s nice that we can already start saying ‘Looking forward to Next Year!”

I don’t have all those cool sign offs that Phil comes up with, so I’ll go with the standard farewell by all old Marines,

Semper Fidelis,

PFJ

Just picked some Golden Jubilee for Jim and Richard. They walk with me quite often. Jim spent a lot of time weeding with me back in June and helped plant in May, It was a lot of work in June. Right now the picking is the easy part.

We have the wood stove hauled out of the house. It needs a rebuild before the heating season. Getting ready for Fall here at the Ranch, transition time.

I have been lagging on writing about the Veranda celebration. Still too new I guess. It had a lot of moving parts for me and they need sorting out. But I also need to say that the Bureau Chiefs have volunteered to take over blogging Friday’s to give me a break. The plan was to do that on a rotating basis. And I think that we have Farmer John slated to do tomorrow’s. So stand by for that.

Off I go loves, Felipé.

A pretty time of the year, morning fog and afternoon sun. The leaves are starting to turn and some of the winter birds are starting to arrive.

Monday 0900-1000
Tuesday 1600-1700 (tapas after)
Thursday 0900-1000
Sunday 1600-1700 (tapas after)

When the time changes here pretty soon the afternoon walk will start at 1530 till spring.

Felipé.

Here is a link to pics collected on Saturday by Jim Meiklejohn:

pics from Veranda Day Two

tuesday loves, Felipé.

bunch – o – loves, Felipé.

It’s St Giles feast day today. Father David had a great homily on hospitality and how St Giles opened a monastery along the Camino to shelter pilgrims on their trek across Spain. I did some reading on my own afterward and I couldn’t find any of that. But hospitality is a great topic and St Giles lived in the seventh – eighth century which is plenty of time to lose details. Maybe Father David just wanted to talk about the Camino which is a definite possibility.

Hospitality is my one word that I boil down all my Camino experiences into. When Kelly and I walked we said that we were going to let the Camino take care of us, no worries. And that happened, we were held by the trail. Cris CSABC said recently her one word was beauty which I can totally understand. That’s probably a close second with me.

Have visitors so please forgive me I must go and be hospitable!

boiling it down loves, Felipé.