An ear of the Sugar Buns (early sweet corn) looking a week away from openers.Baby ear of the Bodacious coming along maybe three weeks away!
The corn is galloping into our future, our enjoyment future. It is making amazing leaps toward maturity. I have been meaning to snap a pic of one of the ears. Will have to in a minute to show you.
And the blackberries are starting to ripen, had a few. That is just going to be a cascade once it gets started in earnest. I made four berry picking buckets to help with the harvest. Hope you come to help!
Tonight it’s my turn to cook dinner. Thought I would do a whole chicken in the dutch oven in the campfire. And add some potatoes wrapped in foil. Then marshmallows on sticks afterward, summer fun!
This is absolutely my favorite time of year when everything is in such crazy abundance. Time for Felipé to gain a few more pounds, fatten up for winter. I am coming along on my weight gain program coming in at 178 pounds at my last visit to the Institute (new word for hospital, sounds impressive).
Verandatime is also galloping at us. Hope that you can join us for part or all of it. Preparations are coming along.
William, our trusty CCBC, sporting his sun bleached Caminoheads’ chapeau. This is the far northern reaches of our neighborhood.
I put down a copper penny (I write a blog post) and I get a shiny dime (beautiful comment)in return. Let me reprint this for you, it’s from Neighbor Catherine:
“Ah, it is enough to mind the land that nourishes you, to awake and praise another blessed day, to give thanks for all the grace that God has given you. If someone came to your door; you would, I know take them in. There are those called to take to the streets, and you would too, if you heard that clarion bell ringing in your heart. Pay attention to what you hear, God speaks to us in strange and mysterious whispers. Not everyone is struck from their horse like Paul on the road to Tarsus. (Should we all be so lucky.) Trust in that which is given to you and that which steers you. As they say: “God is with you.”
(OK, that was inspired or maybe just a glad or two of beer, unleashing some of my errant thoughts. Regardless, Felipe, the crazy world goes on, all we can do is grab a hold of what seems good, just, and beautiful before us, and place our shoulders to that particular wheel.)
Hugs from Crows Feet Farm, to Raven Ranch this fair summer evening.”
C.
I am the luckiest guy to live in such a neighborhood as I do. This is the Camino brought home. How is it that this works for us? We have found something priceless in a world so topsy turvy. It seems an opposite, a germ of better times.
And you too are with us. The more the merrier is the story. Thanks Catherine, we will all drink to it when we get together.
I get a lot of company here at Raven Ranch. Visitors come all the time. They all come in their own way and we have some amazing conversation. Let me show you what I mean.
Anatole Broyard came.
This author came with his book Intoxicated By My Illness. That is not accurate. This author came in the form of his book as he is no longer with us. He died of cancer and wrote half of this book about it. It is interesting for me to see how he thought about it. The other half of the book is the story of how his dad passed away from cancer years ago. He had a lot of practice observing, thinking and writing.
Hans Christian came and stayed.
Then a woman came with her daughter to walk. Kira had seen me in Orlando recently and was in the Washington State and came to visit. She is a doctor working with cancer patients in Denmark. The two were lovely and we walked and had tapas. She took a film back to Denmark to show and she left a figure of Hans Christian Andersen.
A jostle of pilgrims!
And then Marcia came via FaceBook and left a pic of a group, her and her pilgrim friends. But what a pic! It was a reunion and I thought of the Veranda coming up. The people in the image were positively glowing. The whole thing had a wonderful and powerful radiance. She left me with that gift.
This is my life right now. Well of course our daughter Tesia is here with her family so that is a whole visitation in itself except they are all still sleeping at the moment here in the morn. So, it is nice and quiet as My Rebecca and I sip our first coffee.
I have four hardwood trees that are growing in containers behind the deer fence. Jim my old friend from Buffalo brought them in his suitcase in May. They are doing well and are very soothing to the spirit I find. (two sycamores and two chestnuts)
The political rancor these days is, I don’t know, unbearable is a good word. It is like a drumbeat of chaos, if that makes sense. I strive to find my personal center after watching a few minutes of this hearing that is happening right now. Somehow it reminds me of walking into Burgos through those miles of industrial chaos. Both don’t seem healthy or conducive to anything creative. Yike!
Maybe I am just a weakling but this is too much for me these days. Somehow my plate is full with things that seem more vital or important to me personally. Am I burying my head in the sand or am I doing what I should be doing by taking care of my own business?
Every little thing seems a bit too important out there. And things that seem important one day are thrown away the next. And here I am refusing to chase all that around continuously. Is that OK with everyone?
Sorry for dragging you into this today but maybe you feel the same way. Maybe we aren’t supposed to live by being pulled in one direction one minute and off in another direction the next.
Well, I hope that is it for today. I need to get to work here. I have a lot of TV not to watch.
William’s party on the job for us in Alberta, Canada.
I just saw a picture on FaceBook of pilgrims at a Camino reunion. Only one word comes to mind, radiant! Need I say more. Currently asking permission to use it here on Caminoheads. All for you guys!
And you need a report of my foray into Swedish Cancer Institute yesterday. That sounds like a university, I wonder if I can be a college graduate now, Mom would be so proud. Shoot, I’ve been going for eight years now, I ought be get something to hang on the wall, don’t you think? Anyway, I passed all my tests, turned in my forms and answered all my questions right. So I am still in the clinical trial! Yea! I really didn’t think that I was going to get through all the hoops this time. But viola!
So beside all that, I hope that these little pink pills are beating back the little growies in my lungs. That would be the important thing here. So have three weeks back here at the ranch before I have to show up at the Institute. The Institute, that sounds important. Be there for a full meal deal scan, tests and appointment. I am so lucky!
OK, so there is merit and benefit in celebrating small victories I have learned. So, this here is one of those. At tapas today raise a toast to Felipé’s ongoing contribution to medical research. That’s only half funny, I really mean that.
So, our family is all here how at the ranch. That’s why I’m locked in our bedroom where I can talk to you in peace. My Rebecca is having the time of her life playing with the kiddos.
We should take a family photo to let you know what this looks like. Yea, good idea.
OK, time to get the day going. Have to go peek at the corn. It is all tasseling now forming those precious ears of golden delight. All for your eating pleasure!
Oh, Monday morning. And it’s Monday morning after Strawberry Festival, so many hangovers out there! But I feel pretty good. Off to the hospital this morning to get tests and meet with Dr Gold. I got a feeling that they are finally going to bump me from this clinical trial today. Just a feeling.
Then I’m off to the airport to pick up our daughter and her family. They are flying in from Massachusetts to spend time here with us. Rebecca’s up early now and doing a last minute scurry before they descend on us. Will have pictures of the fam for you over the next days.
There is news from our Caminoheads’ North West Bureau Chief, Steve-O. He and his wife Jo have moved from southern Oregon to Portland in northern part of the state. So, they will be closer to us here in Seattle. I am hoping that he will make an appearance at the upcoming Veranda.
Let me just talk about Steve-O for a minute. He is going to love me for singling him out. But he is a Caminohead that hasn’t walked “the Camino” as of yet. Or he may never maybe. But the point being that there are people that just belong with us regardless of their training ground. These are people that have there share of problems and have transcended those to be who they are today. They would totally get the standard Camino but have walked a different route than the usual. See what I mean? Besides he gave us Sture the Flatcoat Retreiver that you saw in the documentary.
Yup, time to pack it up for now. Got to make sure I have everything that I need for my voyage today. It is going to be beautiful today in the 80’s.
The pantry cabinet is installed now at St. John Vianney’s. Here it is still at the shop. Thanks guys for helping me move it, owe you.
Action packed Sunday here for the Felipé. For such a seemingly sleepy place this island keeps me busy. I had my first spiritual direction session with Jessika this morning. Been a long time since I had Sister Joyce to help me. We talked about the ins and outs of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Then I was off to My Rebecca’s church to hear a sermon by good friend Rev Bonnie Barnard. She is so vibrant, she gets me hopping. And of course, I went to Mass, the good Catholic boy that I am these days.
Have a walk in minutes. I don’t know where this day went to. Action central here on the Island. Catherine and Dana are supposed to make it here for the walk. They are some of my oldtime favorite walking buddies but you know that by now.
Well, the Vashon Strawberry Festival wraps up today. A major event for the Island. The other major popular weekend attraction are the Sheepdog Trials in early summer now. I sound like the Chamber of Commerce. But now the Island can glide into Fall and us locals can take our island back once again.
Preparations for the Veranda continue. We are all excited here, hope that you are getting pumped. If you have any musical talent please bring your instrument. We’re light in that area. Have a mariachi band you’re not using?
Ok, have to go for now. Super summertime loves, Felipé.
There was some video of the pilgrims at the shrine in Lourdes, France today on FaceBook. Cardinal Dolan was presenting this little introduction and it showed a lot of Order of Malta people. If you remember I had a chance to go there with the Order last May with Father Tom Hall.
Watching the video brought back many memories of that pilgrimage. The Knights and Dames of the Order were so great and all the doctors and nurses that were on the staff to take care of us were first rate. It was an action packed week there for everyone. And I don’t think it is possible to go there and come back and not be changed.
I remember how I struggled to try and capture the experience for this blog. It was hard for me to do that. It was hard to separate my idea of pilgrimage that I had developed from the Camino. I had to put that on hold to consider Lourdes. This took some doing but I did it.
Now more than a year later I see something maybe that I missed in my writing then. Well, basically the Camino is all about action. Walking, walking, showers, tapas, sleep, walking walking and on for hundreds of miles and many days. If it is not action it’s that you are resting and getting ready for more action. If we have to stop for good you would feel defeated.
Lourdes is all about sitting still, being still and receiving. It is all there for you, all figured out. Good people cart you around, literally, from one religious experience to the next. You are with thousands of other malades, pilgrims with an illness, receiving, receiving and receiving.
Of course I had trouble sitting still, the Camino guy that I am. So this is what I was wrestling with there and after. And what did we receive ultimately, what did we come away with beyond all that? What did I finally find and boil down to put in the blog? Well, in brief it was all about healing. And by healing I mean beyond curing. I mean we experienced a closeness, a glimpse of the bigger picture. That is beyond suffering. Something that can make it all seem OK or even better can see it all make sense. Or even better yet see as something to find joy in. Yea.
Well, just a flashback to last year. And a year can be an eternity when you think about it. A lot can happen and you can get a lot done in a year. Here’s to the future!
The blackberries, that really are the owners of our property, are starting to strut their stuff. The upcoming crop is looking totally outrageous. This wild and crazy plant is once again going to bring a cascade of abundance down upon us. Maybe we will have some guests here this summer to help us pick them.
But it was in February of this year that we had the big heavy snow and everything was crushed including the blackberry brambles. Things looked bleak for them but hark, look at them now. This plant just screams resilience! Cancer patients need to study this. What do they have that we could learn. It is a gnarly nasty plant by suburban landscape standards, way too unruly for the lot. But out here at the ranch it owns the land in between the forest and the pasture.
I know I curse them continuously, true, true, true. We compete for square footage. I hack and I burn and I sweat and I curse. Maybe some of their orneriness has worn off on me. You think?
Otherwise on Vashon Island there is the annual Strawberry Festival this weekend. There will be a parade and venders and dances. Thousands of folks from the mainland will descend to partake. I will be hiding out here pondering blackberries and resiliency. None of that wimpy strawberry stuff for me.
