Pesach 2010 at the Loberants'

Last night, we celebrated פסח Pesach (Passover) for the 2nd year in a row at the home of our friends, the Loberants, in Nahariya. We had an absolutely wonderful time! Here are a couple of the many pictures that I snapped with my iPhone.

First, my beloved, David, who was, of course, sitting right next to me:

The Loberants have a wonderful tradition for the kids. They dress up in costumes representing the various characters in the well-known Pesach song, Chad Gadya, and then play out the actions described in the song. Here's a shot of most of the "cast" in their post-performance pose. From the left are Norm (our host, the grandfather), six of his grandkids, and one of his sons, Moshe:

The Kinneret View Tower

Yesterday, Shabbat, was a nice day, so we decided to take a drive. I picked some roads southwest of the Kinneret that we had never been on before.

We started on the first new road at Kfar Tavor, which is just east of Har Tavor (Mt. Tabor). From there we drove east across a fertile, fairly flat plain. Just before the end of this flat part, we had to wait because a truck trailer had either overturned or just slipped off into the ditch, and a big crane was there trying to get it back up onto the highway, blocking both lanes (it's only a 2-lane road). Finally, the crane finished it's work and we could get past.

Shortly after that, the road descended into a valley and went through a town. After that, we went up a bit and came to a junction. I saw a gas station just to the right of the junction with this tower. We both needed to use the restroom, but, of course, I also wanted to go up this tower for the view!
We readily paid the price of 2 shekels per person and started walking up the tower. When I got to the top, here's the first thing I noticed:
A handy place to make a nest for your eggs, isn't it? Except maybe for all the humans that could disturb them.

The views from the tower were indeed spectacular. Here's the view towards the northeast, showing most of the Kinneret (the "Sea of Galilee"):

Looking east, you can see the southern end of the Kinneret and, beyond that, the southern end of the Golan. Further right are hills in Jordan:

This is the view looking southeast, showing the Jordan River valley south of the Kinneret and, again, hills in Jordan on the other side:

For the curious among you, here's a Google satellite image with the position of the tower shown very precisely with the stick pin. My iPhone got the location exactly right!

Hike in Nakhal Amud

Yesterday was a lovely Shabbat here in northern Israel, so David and I decided to take a short walk in upper Nakhal Amud, which is just down the hill west of Tsfat. We started our hike where the road from Tsfat to Meron crosses the Nakal, somewhat north-northwest of Tsfat, and went down from there. Here are some pictures that I took along the way.

First, a view looking up this beautiful nakhal:

Here's a pretty yellow daisy:

Here's a nice red flower. I think it's a poppy, but it might be one of several other types of red flowers here that look very similar. I saw quite a few of these, but most of them had damaged petals.

Here are some nice lacy white flowers:

Here's a beautiful tiny pink flower:

We smelled these flowers before we saw any of them. They have a lovely sweet smell, something like start jasmine but a more full-bodied fragrance, I think:

Maybe this cow or one of her herd-mates was responsible for the damaged petals on the red flowers! In any case, she turned around when she saw us, and I was barely able to get this picture before she disappeared up the road!

We've bee seeing a lot of flowering trees like these recently. These particular ones are near the highway where we parked.

"The Cat Came Back"

Here's a very interesting story. Ts'hovi, the presumed father of our outdoor kittens (including the two that we adopted and brought indoors, Pascal and Peachy) had not been behaving well, at least some of the time. He would try to mount the other cats, especially Mr. B, biting their necks to keep them from getting away.

Finally, we had had enough of this rude behavior, so on Saturday we decided to relocate him to Rosh Pinna, in an undeveloped area that's not far from some houses. On this Google Earth image, you can see almost all of the route we drove. I have marked it with a yellow line. In the upper left, you can see where our house is (although it's not actually in the picture because it hadn't been built yet when the picture was taken). About half-way down the right side of the picture, I marked the place where we dropped him off. What you can't really tell from this picture is that our house is high on a hill, and Rosh Pinna is at the foot of the hill. The elevation at our house is about 2800 ft (855 m) above sea level, and the elevation where we dropped him off is about 1235 ft (377 m) above sea level. That's a difference of above 1565 ft (478 m)! If you click on the picture, it should open in a larger, full-screen version so that you can see the details more clearly.
So, imagine my surprise this morning (Tuesday) when I saw him sitting on the spool table on our porch, waiting with the rest of his family for me to feed them! Here's a picture of him that I snapped several minutes later, after most of the cats had eaten all that they wanted.
So, I think that we'll just adjust OUR attitudes about his behavior. Of course, another option would be to get him neutered, if we're willing to spend the money. We already got Beatrix, the kittens' mother, and all the kittens neutered, as I've mentioned before here, I think.

First time as khazan at EVS

Last night I served as חזן khazan (cantor) for the first time at our synagogue, אמת ושלום Emet v'Shalom, in Nahariya. Our rabbi, who usually is also חזן, is in Argentina for a month, visiting family attending attending a couple of family events there. Everyone said that I did a good job, and I felt that it went well, too. Some parts of the prayers (usually the middle parts) are not usually sung but are read instead. When I tried reading them at home, though, I sounded like a 1st- or 2nd-grader who hasn't quite learned to read fluently yet. So I enlisted help from 3 of the young people of our congregation, all of whom are bilingual native speakers of both Hebrew and English. They did a beautiful job! Thanks, Ayelet, Odelia, and Elad! I also had some help from David Lahav, a member who usually sings certain of the songs. Thanks to him, as well!