We are supposed to have a real rain tomorrow so I got all the rest of the corn harvested.  The drying racks are full now and ready for a couple of months till grinding for cornmeal.    This all started in April and here it is September.  Just a few ears that are fit for eating now and then it will be gone for another year.  So glad  that there were so many folks that got to sample it.

So, what’s next Felipe?  Well, I thought that I would try and sell bundles of the corn stalks for autumn decoration,  Maybe I could glean another hundred bucks from that.  People can put them out by their mailbox or on either side of their door.  Yea, a little ambience for the neighborhood.

Well, Mass tomorrow morning with Catherine.  Her turn to drive.  I am reading “Rediscovering Catholicism” by Matthew Kelly which is hightening my interest in Mass. Thank you to one of the Terri’s from the Marauders for giving me a copy.

Alright, time for ice cream, so fun when you have to gain weight.  See you tomorrow.  Love, Felipe.

Yes, Angela and Dave showed up for us or to us last evening after a drive from Spokane.  They were a little late due to traffic so we had a chance to get all warmed up.  Kelly, Catherine and Dana were here to help.  You know once you go through to the training on the Camino it doesn’t take much to fire up a tapas party to the maximum.  I don’t know if we got loader than the Italians last night but close anyway.

Off to the hospital again later but we are having a special walk this morning for our guests in a moment.  Any excuse to tromp around.  It is a beautiful late summer morning.  It is supposed to rain Sunday/ Monday.  We haven’t really had any appreciable rain in something like eighty days.  So it will be welcome.

Thanks for being here with us at Caminoheads where we try and keep the feeling alive.  It’s hard or maybe impossible to do it alone.  Miss you, love you, Felipe.

Yes, yes, did the dishes, swept the floor, took out the trash.  Holy Cow!  Yes, Angela is coming today with her new husband Dave.  They are on a round the world honeymoon trip and of course one of their stops is Phil’s Camino.  Maybe this will be their favorite stop.

Three summers ago when Kelly and I were trudging the Camino we meet Angela and Mary Margaret about the same time somewhere out on the Meseta.  Hot, dusty, exposed we clung together.  But somehow tapas every night revived us.  How does that work anyway?  We achieved the rare prize of being “louder than the Italians” on occasion which is our real claim to fame.

Oh, I didn’t mention that Ange and Dave are traveling all this way from Australia from Sidney.  She and Gracie and Cherry were my introductions to that continent.  Thank you ladies you did a good job, felt like I’ve been there.  You were good representatives.

OK, time to walk the Thursday 0900 walk.  Sunny, blue sky and cool today.  Miss you all.  Come see us when you get a chance.  Most of you don’t have to come all they way from Down Under,  no excuses.  Plenty of tapas to be had here!  Love, Felipe.

Numbers, numbers, numbers, they are everywhere here at the hospital.  Here all day for my 103rd treatment.  And I was down to 171 point something pounds in body weight.  Need to eat some more of that corn on the cob.  I was 173 after the Camino and I thought that was light, more ice cream for Felipe.

I’m not getting very far with this post so far but just had an idea to put up some pics from Monday:  Sherie came for a few hours and we picked corn and sunflowers, eat some corn and shot some arrows in the woods.

Yea, I just don’t have it today to write.  See you tomorrow.  Love, Felipe.

Hi gang.  Seems like a back to work day after yesterday.  Yes, a new day and all that.  I read a blog post from Terry Hershey earlier this morning by mistake.  Well, it was a wonderful piece of writing but I mean I personally try and not read others wonderful writing before I get my blog done for the day.  But Terry slipped through.  In case you haven’t been there before Terry has a tremendous blog entitled Sabbath Moment that comes out every Monday.

I could give you a rough summary of this inspirational post but you should read it for yourself.  A woman, a physician named Athena was being beaten down by her job.  She decided to get some help and sorry but I can’t think of the source right now.  Anyway, she was advised to look for power in her lineage.  Both her father and grandfather had been doctors so she was able to carry on some of their energy to overcome the oppression that she was experiencing in the present.   She was getting outside of her box, her isolation and seeing a bigger picture which was rich and full of possibilities.

Terry’s blog post

We could all prosper by tapping into the flow of the energy of our families and mentors.  There is energy out there.  We need to figure out how to find it and put it to use.  Remember we have spiritual linage too.  The saints all have inspiration and energy to be had, that’s what they do.

Let’s try and point out these pregnant possibilities to each other when needed.  We need to be each other’s ” Cajun Navy”.   We all need rescue sometimes.

Love you, Felipe.

Well, Lisa from Hot Springs AK has her mission today.  It is her son Caton’s birthday.  And she and we her far flung friends are celebrating the date for/with him.  Caton’s is no longer with us as he was taken by an aggressive cancer not long ago.   Annie and I met Lisa about this time last year in Hot Springs at their film festival.

Lisa drove us from Hot Springs to Little Rock to the airport on our way out.  We all had that hour together and it seems we put it to good use.  Caton’s was still alive and in various care facilities at that point.  Medical science was doing everything that they could.  Lisa was working all day and with him all night.  She was impressively strong.

I am clinging to the celebration of Caton’s birthday as a sign of hope even in disaster.  Yes he suffered.  Yes he died to young.  Maybe a thousand other yeses.  What do we do with all that?  Can that be overcome, reconciled?  I don’t know unless we can grasp onto the idea that there is a bigger picture.  This is all a challenge and a lesson, a hurt and a reminder.  We really have to stretch ourselves to get anywhere with this, to get beyond the pain.

Somehow this is a little microcosm of the pain that our nation and the civilized world felt on this date in 2001.  An unbelievable event had taken place.  And what do we do with that?  We are still trying to get a grip on it, at least I am.  Maybe Lisa is way ahead of us on this account.  She is striving to put the sad energy to good use.  Bless you Lisa and your family and friends in on this.

What do we do with this day?  Love you, Felipe.x

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.