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!).