Back into town at the tail-end of a foggy walk, up Calle Ontanon. It’s 10:30 a.m., and Moratinos is waking up. The sun is trying to break through.

Paco’s on his way to his garden, he stops to say hello. There’s a tree down along the senda, I tell him. He’ll scuttle over there with a rope and drag it home, cut it up and stack it for next winter. Paco never lets anything go to waste.

Maria de la Valle pops out of her front gate to call Curro inside. Curro, her little Schnauzer dog, often comes along with us on our morning dog-walk. He doesn’t mix much with our three curs, but he seems to like being a part of the pack. He is a good boy.

MariValle asks me how I am. I give her the update. It’s been 18 days since surgeons removed my gallbladder. MariValle has been our stand-by neighbor throughout this months-long digestive epic. She keeps the rest of the neighborhood informed, more or less. I’m sure she tells my story straight, but somehow, by the time it travels to Sahagun, the ladies in the haircut place – people I never saw before in my life -- are asking after my liver, kidneys, pancreas.

We walk on, up to the crossroads by the carpenter shop. Eric, the youngest farmer, is up among the iron fittings of his John Deere, oiling. We exchange a wave and a smile.

Back into town at the tail-end of a foggy walk, up Calle Ontanon. It’s 10:30 a.m., and Moratinos is waking up.

A truck rumbles along the N120, we near the drive that will take us home, when something odd happens. A sound, from somewhere west, and south, squeaking, repeating, honking as it nears. It is overhead, but invisible. We stop, we look up into the thin clouds straight up above, and there it is. Or there they are: a long, scraggly V of snow geese, honking signals to one another as they fly northward, back to Scandinavia.

I hear a cry from behind us. Eric is standing up on his plow, shouting at the sky.

“It’s too early!” he cries.

Aside from a couple of ferocious windstorms, the winter has been mild. Purple iris are blooming in our back yard, and the jolly orange calendula flowers never stopped their blooming. Tiny pinhead-size white flowers sprinkle the sendas, the tractor-paths, where we walk each morning. Early, early. Early spring.

So welcome. So dangerous.

Peaceable Projects is lying low while I heal up. This week I meet with two city councilmen in Astorga to learn the fate of our Pilgrim Memorial Grove. I have two new stones to install, and was told to hold off… they then said the words that bring a stab of fear to anyone’s heart: “We are from the government. We want to help.” I have some good people coming along to help me represent. We will see what they have to say.

The Templar Knights at Manjarin now have a roof overhead, at least in their pilgrim reception area. Their bunkhouse needs an entirely new roof. No one can say how much that will cost. They will have a meeting, it’s said…

Over east at Arroyo San Bol, everyone is outraged about the cut-down trees, and everyone is apparently satisfied with the local mayor’s assurances that they will be replanted in the spring. Maybe. I don’t think we have seen the end of this one.

And in Sahagun, the plumber contracted to repair and replace the plumbing at Albergue Santa Cruz has injured his foot and is “taking some time off.” (The plumbers of Sahagun are a sorry lot, I am here to tell you.) The project is way behind schedule, but Father Dani is still rounding up hospitaleros and making plans for the 2020 pilgrim season. The Benedictine sisters who own the place are appealing to government and architectural agencies for funds to replace all the pipes in the rest of the entire monastery (the albergue is in what was the Novitiate wing), but that means another 40,000 or 50,000 euro. God only knows where they will find that kind of money. Or a plumber whose feet work. It is a good thing we are people of faith!

A week ago a pilgrim stopped in to introduce himself. He is JoseMa, or Joseph, owner of the Gite Beilari in St. Jean Pied de Port, the little Basque town in France where many pilgrims start their journey. We had tea and nattered for a good hour, mostly about our philosophies of hospitality. It will be good to have a contact way over east… even if his place is for-profit, his heart seems to be in the right place.

My eyes are ever oriented west. PPI needs to network up and down the trails. So as you walk, pilgrims, keep your eyes and ears open for needful things, good people, places where we can lend a hand. Let me know.

I can’t walk as far as you all do.