Harvest on the Camino: Be Aware!

[Rebekah Scott]

It's summertime, and the harvest is ongoing in the fields and forests all around the pilgrim trails.
A few things for pilgrims to keep in mind:

The crops in the fields represent an entire year's labor and potential income for somebody. Please respect their hard work.

Don't pick the sunflowers, no matter how pretty they are.
Do not walk into or across fields of standing grain, and do NOT set up a tent in a grain field unless you want to meet an irate farmer!
Don't smoke or throw your cigarette ends near fields of standing grain.
If you use straw bales for shelter or picnic spots, clean up after yourself.
Don't open bound bales, they may collapse under your weight and bring other bales down on you. Broken bales will not survive transport to the barn.
The grapes in the vineyards and fruit in the orchards are someone's livelihood. If a loaded branch is hanging over the trail, help yourself. Don't take any fruit that requires you to step off the trail to get it.
Don't pick flowers or herbs that are obviously cultivated.
If you listen to music in headphones as you walk, lower the volume enough to hear approaching tractors and farm equipment. The Camino de Santiago is harvester access to hundreds of fields.
If you must relieve yourself, don't do it in front of an exterior gate or doorway, no matter how overgrown or unused it looks. This is the time of year when those doors are opened.
Great hills of grain appear on the threshing floors on the edge of farm towns. Tempting as it is, don't leap or roll around in them (yes, this happens sometimes!) unless you want to meet another irate farmer.
The carrier bag tied to a tree-branch with a sandwich inside and the bottle of beer in the creek are not a gifts from God. They are probably the farmer's lunch. He is plowing in the next field.

This is all no-brainer stuff, I know. Just keep it in mind as you walk these fields of gold.

 

[bystander]

Very well put, Rebekah

Those of us brought up in the countryside know the rules.

The problem is the urbanites and suburbanites (or townies as we call them) who, in their ignorance, treat the whole countryside like a great big sweet shop/candy store where the owner is missing and then help themselves and don't care what they do, where they go or what they leave scattered behind them on the ground.

Bizarrely the chances are they would never behave like that in their own home neighbourhood.

For example if a near neighbour of theirs had a large garden and an orchard would they go and raid it, have a picnic there, then dump the remnants of that meal and their gastro-colic reflex in that garden?

I very much doubt it.

 

[Kiwi-family]

The sad thing is that it even needs saying - thankfully you say it so well!
May Reb, the irate farmers' voice, resound in the heads of those tempted this harvest-time.

 

[mikevasey]

I was brought up in the country and I can say that rural people are just as likely to defile the beautiful country that surrounds them as as a townie. The flash floods that can occur from cultivated lands in the South West are not townies clearing fields of trees for fun. The BSE disgrace was not townies coming in and feeding the meat of cows to other cows. One of my earliest memories is of a hunt coming through my little village and disregarding the safety of toddlers and pets. Rant over, but its a myth when its claimed rural people have more regard over nature.
Buen Camino

I thought the post was originally about pilgrims being careful (and we can be inconsiderate pains) but if you going to go off on one section of people don't be surprised if someone has the opposite experience.

Toned down by Mod. William

 

[MichaelSG]

Hmmmm.... I'm an urbanite and I didn't even pick any grapes. It's all common sense and common courtesy.

 

[Kanga]

I do particularly like the warning about the carrier bag with the sandwich inside and the bottle of beer in the creek. Can just imagine some pilgrim giving thanks for the unexpected gift....

 

[mikevasey]

Thanks for the humour Kanga! Im off to bed now and will try to avoid this thread for a few days!!! Don't want to make the moderators lives harder.

 

[grayland]

Mike posted his view...please respect it and return to Reb's OP.

 

[trevorcc]

It's summertime, and the harvest is ongoing in the fields and forests all around the pilgrim trails.
A few things for pilgrims to keep in mind:

The crops in the fields represent an entire year's labor and potential income for somebody. Please respect their hard work.

Don't pick the sunflowers, no matter how pretty they are.
Do not walk into or across fields of standing grain, and do NOT set up a tent in a grain field unless you want to meet an irate farmer!
Don't smoke or throw your cigarette ends near fields of standing grain.
If you use straw bales for shelter or picnic spots, clean up after yourself.
Don't open bound bales, they may collapse under your weight and bring other bales down on you. Broken bales will not survive transport to the barn.
The grapes in the vineyards and fruit in the orchards are someone's livelihood. If a loaded branch is hanging over the trail, help yourself. Don't take any fruit that requires you to step off the trail to get it.
Don't pick flowers or herbs that are obviously cultivated.
If you listen to music in headphones as you walk, lower the volume enough to hear approaching tractors and farm equipment. The Camino de Santiago is harvester access to hundreds of fields.
If you must relieve yourself, don't do it in front of an exterior gate or doorway, no matter how overgrown or unused it looks. This is the time of year when those doors are opened.
Great hills of grain appear on the threshing floors on the edge of farm towns. Tempting as it is, don't leap or roll around in them (yes, this happens sometimes!) unless you want to meet another irate farmer.
The carrier bag tied to a tree-branch with a sandwich inside and the bottle of beer in the creek are not a gifts from God. They are probably the farmer's lunch. He is plowing in the next field.

This is all no-brainer stuff, I know. Just keep it in mind as you walk these fields of gold.

Respect as we are guest in this great land of these wonderful people i agree 100%

 

[wayfarer]

Rebekah's post was straight and to the point and made perfect sense. What I do not understand is starting an argument over irrelevant points as to who would and who wouldn't take what and do what. We have had several post locked recently because some people don't seem to realise that everyone is not of the same opinion and we try and impose our beliefs/opinions on them. If we start off from the bases of "each to his own" and respect that we won't see so many good threads locked IMO.

 

[William Marques]

As wayfarer says lets get back to the original topic. Any further posts on townies v country folk will be deleted. The topic will stay open.

 

[Tia Valeria]

Think of it this way maybe.
You have a nice garden with an apple tree which leans over the hedge. Some-one comes past and pulls an apple off, then opens the garden gate and (with or without a trowel) uses your shrubbery as a toilet. ....and this happens regularly, plus leaving often their other rubbish to collect and bin.

Alternatively when thinking about the cornfields ask if you want to eat the contaminated product in your bread.

If the answer to these is 'No' then please show respect for others property and crops etc on the Camino.

A timely post Reb, but one that should not have been needed. A sad reflection on the human race.

 

[mikevasey]

Alternatively if you would like some of the fruit that you are looking at, ask. If you see a person or the door is near go and ask, I have done it with water in the past and several times on the last Camino I was offered fruit by the owners without asking, the last time being the most remarkable, a 70+ woman came out of her house climbed the wall around her trees stood on it and then handed delicious plums to us. Obviously commercial farmers won't be keen on this but local people are often remarkably generous.

 

[Lynda t]

Remember grapes and other fruits may have been sprayed with pesticides.

 

[bystander]

This same problem started in the Garden of Eden!

There's a warning for you!

 

[obinjatoo@yahoo.com]

It's a sad truth that some folks don't have any manners.

 

[MaxfromMO]

Rebekah, thanks for bringing up this subject. Coming from farm country in the States, it really bothers me to see people damaging or eating from crops along "The Way". These are small plots of land, many times, and they struggle against the onslaught of thousands of tourists who think, "it's only one small bunch of grapes", etc. The residents of this country are trying to get on with their daily lives as we pass through. They constantly have to watch out for us on the roads as they commute to work, or fix the damage we may have inflicted on their property, or live with the loss of income because pilgrims have raided their crops. We need to remember this as we walk The Camino.

 

[Dutch]

This seems to be a thread explaining why (and even what) you shoudn't steal. We all know we shouldn't steal and the people that do steal, aren't gonna listen to the people that say that they shouldn't.

 

[naplesdon]

I would also like to add a warning regarding walking on narrow paths used by the farmer on tractors going back and forth to their fields. I saw a guy almost get run over this year as he walked obliviously towards a very large tractor coming downhill towards him. His near miss from a tire of at least 2 meters in diameter was only because the driver swerved to miss him. It might be "your Camino" but it is also the traditional route from farm to field for many Spanish farmers. I wish I had taken a picture of the expression on the face of the farmer as he choose between hitting the pilgrim or tipping his tractor over in the verge.
My advice, whether it is a car, a bus, a truck or a tractor, stop walking and step aside onto the verge for a minute; after all you have all day to walk and hopefully it will be for the rest of your life!

 

[basquelady]

It's summertime, and the harvest is ongoing in the fields and forests all around the pilgrim trails.
A few things for pilgrims to keep in mind:

The crops in the fields represent an entire year's labor and potential income for somebody. Please respect their hard work.

Don't pick the sunflowers, no matter how pretty they are.
Do not walk into or across fields of standing grain, and do NOT set up a tent in a grain field unless you want to meet an irate farmer!
Don't smoke or throw your cigarette ends near fields of standing grain.
If you use straw bales for shelter or picnic spots, clean up after yourself.
Don't open bound bales, they may collapse under your weight and bring other bales down on you. Broken bales will not survive transport to the barn.
The grapes in the vineyards and fruit in the orchards are someone's livelihood. If a loaded branch is hanging over the trail, help yourself. Don't take any fruit that requires you to step off the trail to get it.
Don't pick flowers or herbs that are obviously cultivated.
If you listen to music in headphones as you walk, lower the volume enough to hear approaching tractors and farm equipment. The Camino de Santiago is harvester access to hundreds of fields.
If you must relieve yourself, don't do it in front of an exterior gate or doorway, no matter how overgrown or unused it looks. This is the time of year when those doors are opened.
Great hills of grain appear on the threshing floors on the edge of farm towns. Tempting as it is, don't leap or roll around in them (yes, this happens sometimes!) unless you want to meet another irate farmer.
The carrier bag tied to a tree-branch with a sandwich inside and the bottle of beer in the creek are not a gifts from God. They are probably the farmer's lunch. He is plowing in the next field.

This is all no-brainer stuff, I know. Just keep it in mind as you walk these fields of gold.

I met an American pilgrim in Zariquiegui (before Alto del Perdón) who assured me that the "faces" on the sunflowers, made by taking out kernels from the seed-head, had been crafted by the farmers, to cheer up pilgrims.

 

[indyinmaine]

If you're lucky to be walking the day they're picking the grapes you'll be overwhelmed by their generosity. We were treated to handfuls the day we walked into Ponferrada.

 

[Rebekah Scott]

Basquelady, I have heard the same self-serving nonsense. Maybe we should start a "Camino Urban Legends" thread, that would be one of the top entries!

 

[SabsP]

I met an American pilgrim in Zariquiegui (before Alto del Perdón) who assured me that the "faces" on the sunflowers, made by taking out kernels from the seed-head, had been crafted by the farmers, to cheer up pilgrims.

Oh my word ! Some people are just too naive for their own good....

 

[Bogong]

Respect as we are guest in this great land of these wonderful people i agree 100%

Walking in early March through the "lonely" Meseta, a lot of it was a hive of activity, with tractors out and about as farmers tilled for next season's crops. Lots of friendly waves and "buen Caminos", and, from me, "Muchas gracias Señor, lo agradezco". What a wonderful place!

De colores,

Bogong (with likely snow forecast for Canberra today - reminds me of my Camino!)

 

[William Garza]

I remember delivering fertilizer to one farmer, warm sun, sandy soil, and a blackberry bramble along the barb wire fence
he drove up, signed the bill and we talked a moment, and as usual, my stomach made its presence known...
he laughed gently and asked if i had raided the blackberrys yet, i told him no, it were his bushes and i wouldn't take any, it might be income for him
he looked at me and said go ahead, i was the first to ever ask for permission!
that part of Texas is rural and poor, so in his goodness, he let the local townsfolk harvest them to sell for them to get a little extra income, they in turn kept people from raiding his fields
a symmetry ime sure
Later in he even sent me a lil bucket for me to enjoy at work
these guys work finger to bone decade after decade through drought and storm tossed mornings, all at the mercy of nature,
all they ask for is a little consideration now and then
thats why your story rang a memory

 

[nidarosa]

I feel bad about my (big smiley face camino sunflower) avatar now

Edit: So I am taking the plunge and showing my face. But I will keep the big (fake) sunflower on my pack!

 

[sriyantra]

I have been reading all of the above posts. I saw Rebekah's message the first day it was posted....and I just read beautiful things like:
sunflowers, standing grain, straw bales, grapes, fruit in the orchards, flowers, herbs, music, open doors, hills of grain, sandwich, bottle of beer and fields of gold. I had a perfectly lovely picture in my mind of what I hope to see and experience in a month's time. I had no problem with her post.

 

[amancio]

Excellent post, Rebekah, clear and to the point! In general, brambles or blackberries are free to pick, if that is a consolation to anybody. Also, if you see a plastic bottle hanging off a string on a tree, it probably means the crop has been treated with pesticides, so DO NOT PICK IT UP!!!!

buen camino, amigos!

 

[Kanga]

Yes! This IS ALL no-brainer stuff Rebekah! It is all common knowledge, good manners and good behavior, as well as respect for nature, the people who live there and for other peoples property!!! So WHY mention all this in the first place?
!

Because Rebekah lives on the Camino, and sees first hand how badly pilgrims behave. I thought her post unexceptional. Ullali, you would feel differently if you had cleaned vast tracts of the Camino of pilgrim rubbish, trails of women's toilet paper, removed human excreta from outside your front door, scrubbed pilgrim graffiti from ancient walls, and then rescued, fed, watered and sheltered numerous foolish pilgrims who have got themselves into trouble, as Rebekah has done.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

The kind, friendly and goodhearted people of this Forum, surely DON'T need a lecture in good manners and behavior!

That could be said of most of the advice posts in the Forum. Threads recommending bells on bicycles reach almost no one who is startling walking pilgrims. Threads on litter and litter pickup reach almost no one who is dropping it, but they do get us thinking about how we can do something to clean up. The topics on pilgrim etiquette have opened long discussions and lectures on the dividing line between selfishness and selflessness, and occasionally reveal that not all people of this Forum are friendly and goodhearted all of the time (clearly that does not apply to me*). On the topic of trampling farmer fields, the Forum may reach some pilgrims who have not thought about the issue. There have been posts about sampling wine grapes and picking fruit, and even an avatar of a defaced sunflower. Spreading awareness may have a positive impact.

The written word can be too stark. A strongly stated opinion may not really be a lecture. It may just be a strongly stated opinion!


*

 

[Kanga]

That could be said of most of the advice posts in the Forum. Threads recommending bells on bicycles reach almost no one who is startling walking pilgrims. Threads on litter and litter pickup reach almost no one who is dropping it, but they do get us thinking about how we can do something to clean up. The topics on pilgrim etiquette have opened long discussions and lectures on the dividing line between selfishness and selflessness, and occasionally reveal that not all people of this Forum are friendly and goodhearted all of the time (clearly that does not apply to me*). On the topic of trampling farmer fields, the Forum may reach some pilgrims who have not thought about the issue. There have been posts about sampling wine grapes and picking fruit, and even an avatar of a defaced sunflower. Spreading awareness may have a positive impact.

The written word can be too stark. A strongly stated opinion may not really be a lecture. It may just be a strongly stated opinion!


*

Falcon, you are full of good sense.

 

[Dutch]

I think nobody is friendly and goodhearted ALL the time (besides falcon of course*)



*

 

[Kanga]

I think nobody is friendly and goodhearted ALL the time (besides falcon of course*)



*

Oh, Falcon can bite! (Peck?)