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!

Construction near us

The area around us is really beginning to build up. There are currently at least a dozen houses under construction within a short distance from our house and at least 5 or 6 others that have been completed withing the last year or 2.

Now, they are preparing the land just across the street and down a little from us. Our neighbor, Mordechi, says that they are building 8 duplexes. Since the hill slopes down from the street, they have been digging out a lot to make level plots. Probably these will be 2-story buildings with entrances at street level to the 2nd floor. The first floor will be a basement on this side but will be ground level at the back. At least that's what I think they'll build.

To prepare plots around here, they have to do a lot of digging, and the ground is very rocky (and red). So they bring in one of those big earth movers with a huge scoop that runs on tracks (like a tank) instead of wheels. We call it "The Monster". They parked it up near our neighbor's house, to the west of us. Then, each morning, they opened its huge "hood" (presumably to check all the fluids etc.), started it up, and drove down right past our house and around to the work site, which is east of us. After working all day moving dirt around, they drove it back up to its nightly parking place.

This morning has been quite rainy, so I was surprised to seem them start it up. Then, they only drove it to the end of the road, just north of our house and stopped. An hour or 2 later, I found out why. Its work here must be finished, because they drove it up onto its flat-bed truck carrier. The Monster is now on its way to its next job. We're going to miss her (I say "her" because the Hebrew for "The Monster" is המפלצת HaMifletzet, which is feminine.).

The rain is supposed to clear by tomorrow, so they'll no doubt be back at work on the construction. We'll see very soon what form these new building will actually take. Obviously, the construction slump in the States has not affected us here at all!

Purim at EVS

Last night, we went to the Purim party at EVS (Emet v'Shalom, our synagogue in Nahariya). We hadn't even decided for sure whether to go until earlier in the day. The weather has been quite stormy, and David had not been feeling so well recently. In the end, though, David was feeling better, and there was a good lull in the weather, so we decided to go. David wore a funny rainbow clown wig. I wore black jeans, a white long-sleeve thermal undershirt, my black leather biker's jacket, sparkling dangly earrings, and a genuine Hasidic black hat! Not surprisingly, my costume was a big hit! Our friend, Cynthia, who hadn't even planned to attend but changed her mind, didn't even recognize me at first.

The party itself was nothing terribly special, although they did have nice falafel with all the fixings (salatim, the so-called "salads"), and oznei Haman (hamantashen, literally "Haman's ears"!). We were glad that we had gone.

The supermarket security guard

This evening we did our usual weekly shopping at our favorite supermarket. As we were going in, the security guard (all large stores here have security guards) asked us about how to pronounce "color". Of course we told him.

When we were coming out of the store, we greeted him and helped him with some additional English words. He told me that he wants to learn English because all the rest of his family is in America or Australia. I noticed that he was writing the pronunciation in Arabic letters, not Hebrew. So I told him that after I learned Hebrew well, he could teach me Arabic. He then told me that he also spoke Aramaic!

After some further conversation, I found out that his family was originally from Iraq but had moved to Lebanon. While there, they had helped Israel in its fight against Hezbollah and the other enemies there during the time when Israeli troupes were still in southern Lebanon. I had known that when Israel withdrew from Lebanon completely in 2002, we had allowed our allies (mostly Meronite Chrisitians, I think) to move to Israel in order to avoid retaliation. But this is the first time that I had met one of these people personally.

So, just another one of those cool, only-in-Israel stories!

Golan trip (Gamla and Har Bental)

Today is a beautiful, warm day here, so we decided to take a drive to the Golan. Our first destination was Gamla National Park. We had hoped to take a tour of the ruins of the ancient city (destroyed by the Romans in 67 C.E.), but apparently they no longer offer vehicle tours down there and thus the only way would be to hike down and, more worryingly, up again! Since we weren't willing (or perhaps even ABLE!) to do that, you'll just have to settle for this picture, taken with the maximum zoom on my camera:

There were plenty of other lovely things to see there, though. Here's a gorgeous white flower of a kind that I'm not sure I've seen before:

Here's a close-up view of a bee enjoying a yellow Bishop's Weed flower:

Here's a caterpillar that was hurrying across the paved path. We saw several of these:

We see a lot of these small birds all over the place in the North. This one was hanging around the eating area near where they sell snacks:

After we left Gamla, we continued north along the Waterfalls Highway and stopped at this one, called Ayet Falls. In this picture, you can see the waterfall and you can also see the highway right above it:

Further north in the Golan, I stopped to snap this picture. In the distance on the left, you can see Har Khermon (Mt. Hermon) with some snow still on it. Somewhat closer, on the right, you can see a row of power-generating windmills (which we have visited and I have written about previously):

At the same place where I took the previous picture, next to a road leading west, I saw this sign, a reminder of the military presence that is necessary in the Golan:

We finally arrived at Har Bental (Mt. Bental), one of the many volcanic peaks in the Golan (some of which, including this one, we can see from our house). Along both sides of the path from the parking lot to the top of the mountain, there are scrap metal statues by a Dutch artist. These little signs have always seemed just a little humorous to me. This is the entire sign; notice that it's only in Hebrew. What is the message that needs to get across, but apparently only to Israelis, you may ask? It's "Please don't touch!" I guess they're not worried about other people touching?!

Here's the overall view of the top of Har Bental. On the left, you can see the entrance to the coffee house. In the background in the middle, you can see Har Khermon with snow still on it. In the foreground, you see the bunker where soldiers can stay if they need to defend this mountain again. For now, though, it's open to tourists, and, in fact, I walked through it again today.

Looking east from Har Bental, one looks directly into Syria. Here's a view of the Syrian city of Kuneitra: