Golden Days

Paddy is gone out on his morning dog-walk, but Una Dog just now returned home on her own. She doesn´t like taking walks any more unless I go along, so she abandons Patrick and Tim out on the plain and walks herself back home. We leave the gate open for her.

These are happy, golden days. Summer is my favorite season, so full of birdsong and blooming flowers and lush colors. In July everything is so alive. We can hang wet laundry on the line and it dries in minutes. And if there´s no guest in the house, we can go prancing sans culottes out into the sunny morning patio and pick the day´s outfit fresh off the line!

Here at the Peaceable we are having a long run of wonderful visitors. Still fast asleep at 10 a.m. is Michael, an Episcopal deacon/seminarian from California who stayed up way late with me over the past two nights, trading yarns. He is so full of hope and expectation, even though he´s going to work in a church that´s so deeply divided against itself.

Michael is typical of our guests in that we only ever met in cyberspace before he showed up at the door. So far the Web and the Camino have conspired well. We haven´t had any psychos or crashing bores or slobs stay with us, and most of the guests are good company, if not always useful and helpful.

This one is downright visionary. It seems like I´ve met him somewhere before, and we´ve been talking, chatting and laughing like we´ve been friends forever. He bought good wine for dinner, and helped Paddy and I do some heavy lifting out back... we now have a chicken run! (...now if we could figure out how to put up a useable gate.) He´s helping me think big, imagine all kinds of cool possibilities for our house and lives and village.

I am enjoying our pilgrims so much these days, nice, smart people blowing in and back out to the trail. Michael, too, is on his way out, on the afternoon train. I am sure we will see him again. He´s a keeper.

Una is asleep on the cool concrete in the entryway. It is still fresh and bright outside, but soon the afternoon sun will beat everything into quiet submission. Even the birds take a siesta in the middle of the afternoon. The only sounds are drones -- a distant tractor. A housefly circling round and round and round.