Our first non-English-speaking buddy

Yesterday evening, we took a new friend out for coffee. We met Alex through Elia, one of David's counselors. The great thing is that Alex, who is originally from Ukraine but has been in Israel for nearly 2 decades, speaks almost no English. This forces us to communicate in Hebrew, which we were able to do quite well. We must be sure to spend more time with him, especially since he's also a very nice guy.

Do they REALLY move mountains??

I had to drive over to the local post office this morning, and, on my way, I read something interesting on the back of the car in front of me. There, in plain block letters on the left side of the trunk lid, with no logo or other contact information, it said: חברה להזזת הרים khevrah k'hazazat harim. The translation: "Company for Moving Mountains"! Really?!? Certainly NOT with that puny, dented little white car that was in front of me! There was more very small writing on the right side, too small for me to read, so, who knows?

A trip to Har Barkan

On Sunday, we took a drive to Har Barkan, in the Hills of Gilboa, just this side of the 1949 armistice line (the so-called "Green Line"). The last time that we were there, we had walked on the "Iris Trail" and had read that the irises bloomed in late March or April. So, we had made a mental note to return during that time frame, and this was our opportunity.

We were NOT disappointed! There was a profusion of flowers blooming everywhere! I took 73 photographs, and here are 22 of the best, which I edited for your viewing pleasure. First, a large white flower, with a small bug on it that you can see near the top:

I think that this plant is called "Bishop's Weed". We saw lots of them blooming in that area:

Here are some small, delicate pinkish white flowers:

Here's a pair of beautiful pink flowers. We saw quite a few of these there:

Here's a pair of purplish white flowers. I don't think I've see this kind before, and we didn't see a great many of them there, either:

Here's a small group of the same kind of pink flower seen above. These seem to like to bloom in groups:

Here's a close-up detail of another Bishop's Weed blossom:

We didn't see very many of these, but I know from the smell of the leaves that they are some kind of sage:

Here's another group of those photogenic pink flowers!

We saw quite a few of these beautiful blue flowers, which we also see near our house. I thought the little yellow flower down in the corner made a nice contrast:

We saw quite a few flowers like these, which I had also photographed the day before in the Golan:

Now we come to the main reason for this whole trip: the irises. These were VERY RARE there yesterday! In fact, we only spotted TWO flowers! It's likely that there actually were a few more in the area, further from the trails. Because of their dark purple color, they don't stand out very well, and they bloom down low, close to the ground, as well.

I took three photos of each of these two irises, and, luckily for me, they all turned out well. In fact, you can actually see the flowers better in these close-up pictures than I could see them in real life!

Here are the 3 pictures of the first one:



And here are the 3 pictures of the 2nd one:



We saw only a few of these lovely little 6-petaled white flowers:

Here's another example of one of those purplish white flowers that we saw earlier:

We saw quite a few of these stunning red flowers. This pair's photo turned out well, I think:

Here's a beautiful white daisy:

And, I'll close this show with another handsome red flower:

Golan trip

It was a nice day today, so, after I had finished feeding all the snakes and after we had eaten lunch, we decided to drive over to the Golan. What a beautiful drive! There are MILLIONS of flowers blooming everywhere!

I took a total of 143 pictures on the trip. Of those, there were a few that were out of focus, which I discarded. However, that still leaves WAY too many pictures to post. I picked out 29 of the best, cropped most of them to feature the most interesting part, and saved in at lower resolution. Finally, I selected the 20 best of those, and I'm posting them here for your enjoyment.

We drove up the Gamla road from the Kinneret, and I stopped at a bus stop, where there was room to pull over and park the car, and took the first group of pictures. Here's one of those pictures, featuring a bee doing her work on a nice yellow flower:

Here's a gorgeous red kalanit, which I just couldn't resist photographing:

And here are a couple of beautiful white daisies:

These flowers are interesting because, as you can see, their color seems to vary between purplish-blue and pinkish-purple:

This close-up of some pinkish white flowers turned out so good that I just HAD to include it here:

These pink flowers looked really nice mixed up with the white daisies:

The next picture is from the second stop that we made, at another bus stop further up the road. Here's a great close-up of a small pink thistle:

At that same stop, across the road, I saw some wild fennel blooming. This picture was actually taken between two strands of barbed wire, which I cropped out of the picture:

Quite a way further on, I missed a turn that I had intended to make, and so I pulled over to check my map. There was a sign pointing down a road to the right that referred to irises, so we thought, "Let's go over there and check them out." And thus we made another of our many serendipitous discoveries: a nature preserve with even more fantastic flowers!

We saw several kinds of flowers there that we have never seen anywhere before. Here's one of them, apparently a pink kalanit (anemone):

Here's another example of that same kind of pink kalanit, except this one is a slightly lighter color. Both pictures came out so well that I just had to post both of them:

We had actually seen flowers like this last year on the Golan. This time, we learned that this is called "Jacob's Yellow Rod":

I think these are probably the irises that the sign was referring to. In any case, we had never seen any like them before. This one has a caterpillar crawling on it, something which I only discovered AFTER I had come home and was editing the pictures!

Here's another beautiful example of these lovely, delicate pale-yellow irises. These wild irises, by the way, are actually quite a bit smaller than the typical cultivated varieties.

This picture of pinkish white flowers came out so well that it, too, just HAD to be posted here:

Look at the bugs on THIS iris! There are at least 2 different kinds of them:

Look at this red-striped bug, perched on this iris like some kind of space alien!

We saw quite a few of these delicate blue flowers, as well. Perhaps they are also irises?

The gray background of the path (it was paved at this point) makes a nice contrast for this brilliant yellow flower. But we saw MILLIONS of these beautiful flowers, literally blanketing whole fields!

Here are some other nice yellow flowers, of which we also saw millions!

After we left that nature reserve, we continued north on the main road of the Golan. On the right, I spotted a tour bus parked on a small hill there. I figured it might be interesting to check it out. According to the sign where the road to it turned off, it's called "Tel A-Siqi". It's not a very big hill, and its top was completely covered with a dug-in military outpost, although it's not currently in use, of course. Instead, it is obviously a tourist spot now.

After going up the stairs from the parking are to the top, I found that the people from the bus were up there listening to their tour guide. This was a group of Israelis, who probably were either born here or came here when they were small children because they were all speaking only Hebrew. I think they were also all in their 60's or 70's, obviously retirees. As I watched them make their way carefully down the slightly treacherous steps, I couldn't help but think that some of them probably fought and maybe even watched their comrades die in the 1967 or 1973 wars, when some of the bloodiest fighting occurred in the Golan. They didn't seem at all solemn, though.

I took the following picture from the parking area, looking north towards Har Peres (Mt. Peres), a peak which we can see directly east from our house. This tank seemed to be in reasonably good condition, unlike the other rusty, banged-up vehicles we also saw nearby. Perhaps this was a Syrian tank?

Zemel Choir concert in Karmiel

Last night, our neighbors, Patricia and Shimon, took us to a concert in Karmiel. Well, actually, WE took THEM, since they don't have a car. But they bought the tickets.

It was a concert by the Zemel Choir, the leading mixed voice Jewish choir from the UK, and it took place in Karmiel's "Culture Palace". They sang a wide variety of music, quite a bit of it a capella (without accompaniment), literally from medieval chant to The Beetles! It was very enjoyable -- I liked them enough to buy 3 of their CD's after the concert.

A midday walk to recycle plastic bottles

In the early afternoon today, we took a walk to our post office box to check for mail also to deposit empty plastic bottles into the big recycling cage that is located next to the mail distribution center. Here are some pictures that I took along the way.

First, a bee doing her work on a flower:
In this next picture, we see two different kinds of flowers, both of which are quite common around here this year. The white flowers are actually a little more purplish white than they look in this picture, probably because the bright sunlight is washing them out a bit. The orange flowers were quite rare in previous years but are blooming everywhere this year.

I got David to take this picture so that you could see ME! So, here I am, putting one of the empty plastic bottles into the recycling cage.

These beautiful yellow flowers were actually in someone's yard, so I don't think they are wild flowers. But they still are very nice!

I saw these small white flowers quite near our house.

In this view, you can see part of our house on the right, with mustard flowers in the foreground and our yellow car behind them. If it had been less hazy, you would also be able to see part of the Golan in the background. The mustard has been extra plentiful this year, and, like in Southern California, is probably the most common flower seen all over this part of the country.

Drive to the southern Golan

We took a nice drive this afternoon to the southern part of the Golan. Sorry, I didn't take my camera with me, so I don't have any pictures to show you this time. There were LOTS of flowers blooming, though. The most common, as in Southern California about this time, was mustard -- many areas were just covered with these ordinary yet beautiful yellow flowers. However, I also saw many other kinds of flowers, even though I didn't even get out of the car!

A short walk on a warm afternoon

Yesterday, I went for a short walk in the afternoon, taking my camera with me. It was a beautiful, warm day, and here are some of the things that I saw.

First, our peach tree is blooming. I actually was trying to get a picture with the blossoms in the foreground and Har Khermon (Mt. Hermon) in the background, but I couldn't get both in focus at the same time. So, here are some of the peach tree blossoms:

One of the outdoor cats that we have "adopted" was hanging around wanting some attention. After I had petted him a little and held him, he settled down in one of his favorite spots in our yard. So I snapped a nice picture of him. Here's Tz'hovi:

A little ways down our road, I was able to get a picture of the mountain with some mustard flowers to frame it in the foreground. Since the flowers were a bit further from the camera, I was able to get both them and the mountain reasonably in focus.

In a field not far from here, there were a lot of little flowers blooming close to the ground. I think they might have been clover or something similar. In any case, I heard, and then saw, quite a few bees buzzing around them. I managed to get a great picture of one of them:

There were also quite a few butterflies around. It was a little hard to photograph them, but I did get a good shot of one. Here it is:

Very near that same spot, I saw this caterpillar:

Walking a little further, I came to a building that was intended to be a hotel but was never finished. I went inside and up to the top floor. Here's a great view of the Kinneret (the "Sea of Galilee") from what would have been the window in a guest room. The birds that you see were some that flew away from inside the structure when they heard me coming!

Here a view of the front of that same building, complete with its sign, which says מלון ריג'נט פאלס Malon Regent Palace (since "malon" is the Hebrew word for "hotel", the name means "Regent Palace Hotel" a rather pompous name, I think, especially for a hotel that they never even managed to finish building!). Although it did provide me with a nice vantage point for a picture, this building really is an eyesore in the neighborhood. On the other hand, if it hadn't been built, the buses might not come halfway up the hill to the bus stop that is right by it and is the nearest bus stop to our house.

Walking along further, on the way back home, I came upon these lovely little pink flowers:

Here's another view of the irresistibly photogenic Har Khermon, this time with a couple of cows in the foreground:

These flowers are not wildflowers. They were actually deliberately planted in our yard. Still, they're very beautiful, aren't they?

This butterfly is sitting right on the outside of the vertical wall of our house, near the kitchen window that is by the refrigerator. The view in the picture is actually quite a bit better from what I could really see with my eyes, thanks to the zoom on the camera (and some cropping, of course!).