Kidum Noar May 2011

Lag B'Omer bonfire from my window

Saturday night's festivities from our living room window.

Spring Clouds

Shot these walking home from work one spring day before the clock changed.

More plants and flowers I have known in the Galilee

Common Mallow flowers. Good to harvest in spring, dry, and save for use in home made cough syrup in the winter. Leaves and roots are also helpful.

Next few shots are of "Ox Tongue". Someday I'll find the latin name. I found out about the edibility of these plants one day from a local Arab harvesting the flower bud clusters (see below). The clusters are battered and fried. When I harvested them, my harvest bag was alive with bugs, so I didn't eat them. Very young shoots are also edible.

Ox tongue in a different light.

Ox tongue bud cluster.

Poppies!

More poppies among other friendly plants.

Come hither, Dorothy!

Mustard blooms among wild wheat, oats, and a blooming olive tree behind them.

Yup, I took this pic on my walk to work. Oh thank heaven for living close enough to walk to work!

Pointing out the wild geranium leaves.

Earlier this spring, wild nettle, plantain, and more common mallow. 

Love how the April showers have increased our green and the variety of blooms!

The almond trees are beginning to bloom - השקדיה פורחת

 

As I mentioned, on my way home from work on Sunday I saw the first almond tree blossoms. Today there were more, with the one tree pictured here already quite in bloom.

Almonds bloom and are quick to fruit. They are the first fruit trees in bloom here in spring.

Never get tired of the Galilee view

I love the clouds covering the lower Galilee mountains... looking like waves out into the distance. Closer by mist gave the trees an almost smokey look.

Winter barely here. I saw almond blossoms on the way home today from work. Will try to take my camera tomorrow to get first pics of the shkedia.

Need Rain

I took these shots on 5 December, and then we had a storm that I had hoped would herald a nice wet season moving in and be able to do a "before and after" shot. However, the storm moved on after a couple of days and since then we've had very little rain at all.

Things are still very dry and the water situation is serious. Please pray for rain for Israel.

Something old, something new...

The Bridge, there's only one in town.

At the corner of Jerusalem Street

Fall may be here soon. Some slightly cool air, and it brings with it a melancholy of some unknown nature. It felt right to take the color out of the picture for a B &W shot.

She's one of my favorite beggars in town. Always has a smile for me, no matter how bad things are. This was a particularly sunny day, with lovely music heard under the bridge from a vendor selling burned music discs..

There's only one bridge in Tsfat. Hagesher.

A Photo Essay in Graffiti

The Na-Nachers write on every surface here. You'd think it was holy spray paint.

Interesting sign

Funny, I always remembered it as "The Jewish Quarter" and "The Arab Quarter", but I have never been good at history.

Now well all live jumbled up together, Sephardim and Ashkenazim.

The Caf-Bet Fountain has been on lately

This is a composite photo of two shots, since I don't have a wide enough lens for my camera.

It's rare that the fountain has been on since we moved here. Recently I saw that it was on, the week after the memorials, week of May 15.

The fountain is a memorial to the 22 high school students killed in a terrorist attack in Maalont in 1974. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma'alot_massacre

Lovely alleys in Safed

A couple of views from off the main thoroughfare in town, Jerusalem St. (And yes, Jerusalem has a Tsfat St.).  Love spring!

Lovely Day in Northern Israel

MHad to go to the consular services in Haifa again. Dropped off a sample from our lab to the Rambam Hospital, and then I took the train all the way north to Nahariya. The bus ride from there back to Tsfat is cheaper and less painful than the bus ride from Akko. Plus I got to go to the beach for a few minutes to take pictures!



Behind the Rambam Hospital is a beach called "Quiet Beach". It's in the middle of a heavily industrial port, but it is quiet otherwise.

It was already hot in Haifa, and I don't know the city well. So I got back on the train and went north to Nahariya.  A far more beautiful town....

My favorite cafe, used to be you could see the surf from there, but now the boardwalk is a bit built up. Still, a nice place for a breakfast on the beach.

Then a nice bus ride home. Views of the green hills, and Mount Meron where the Lag BaOmer celebrations will be next week. The town sprawling on the hillside is Tsfat viewed from Meron.

Meron:

Green Hills: