Rebar and concrete

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One of the many houses under construction in Meitar's newest neighborhood.
In Israel it's all concrete and rebar.
The wood you see in the photo is only temporary.
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Toy building blocks for a giant?

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More scenes from the new neighborhood being built in my town. 

 Don't these look like toy building blocks for a lucky giant?! 

A lot like Lego Duplo, no?

They were lined up on both sides of the new street,

. . . just waiting to become a new sidewalk.
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday.  And for ABC Wednesday C is for construction.)
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Red clay tiles waiting

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It is just speculation on my part, but it seems that red tile roofs are a status symbol in Israel. 

This was my first time to see such a roof in its "becoming" stage. 
The clay tiles were in neat little stacks, just waiting for Shabbat to be over so the roofer could start to lay them. 

A whole new neighborhood is being built in my town in the Negev. 
You can see here that the street and houses are still under construction.  (With two clicks you can open the photos to full size and see better what I men.)
(My neighborhood is up behind those trees on the hill; it was the first part of Meitar to be built, in 1984.)
Almost all the new houses have flat roofs, except for these two here in the photo with the sloping roofs. 
The red one sticks out like a . . . like a status symbol. ;-)
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UPDATE: Just found this article in Haaretz:
"The rise and fall of the red roof: Israel's white picket fence."
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A monster in the sky??

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One of the vintage 1985 houses on my street is getting a thorough redo. 
Yesterday afternoon a cement mixer truck and this red extra tall cement pump were working for hours. 
I guess it has to be that tall to reach safely over the electric wires. 
Meitar's neighborhoods that were built after Stage Alef and Stage Bet have all their wires and infrastructure underground. 
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
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Ready, Steady, Build!

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If I had to operate any of this heavy machinery in the hot dusty desert, by the end of the day I'd feel as if I had been under the steamroller.

I don't know how the operators, who are usually Bedouin, work all day with no food or drink now during the month of Ramadan.

But the new neighborhood in our town has to get built.

And work goes on, winter and summer.
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Lots of arches

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An evening view out the windows of a new building going up in Meitar.

Meitar was founded in 1984 here in the northern Negev as a yeshuv kehilati, what I like to translate as a planned community.
Over the years,  five neighborhoods have been built, one after another.
Now Number six is in progress.
See this aerial orthophoto from 2014 to grasp the layout.

I'm so curious what this will be.
A public building, I'm assuming.
The architecture looks almost like a mosque, but we have only a small percentage of Bedouin families living in Meitar, probably not enough to warrant a mosque. 

Maybe this sloping hole in the ground will become a big mikva, and the building is really a synagogue?
Time will tell.
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Meanwhile, for ABC Wednesday, W is for wonderfully weird windows and walls.
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A bed

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Sighted yesterday at the edge of town, where they are building a new street and a whole new neighborhood.
Maybe even bulldozer operators need to stretch out and rest during their long work day?

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A new neighborhood going up in Meitar

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On the right side of the wadi the new houses are already lived in.
On the left, a whole new neighborhood is being built.

Here are some in-progress houses as seen from the direction of Meitar's new promenade and bike path (seen in the foreground).

Lots of big houses.
Meitar is a yishuv kehillati, a planned community, begun in 1984; and every so often they add a whole new neighborhood.
Our population is over 8,000. 

When the streets are finished, they will all be named after different birds.
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(Linking to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Good-bye desert, hello new neighborhood

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Oi veh, I knew it had to come sooner or later.
This month they started chopping up the desert to add a new neighborhood to Meitar.
(Meitar is a planned community, begun in 1984, and it expands according to plan.)

Enlarge the photo; see all those sections of pipe just waiting to become underground infrastructure?

Dust is flying as the diggers dig and the dump trucks dump.

Meanwhile they make a whole new landscape.

The new piles look like a field of giant molehills made by some giant burrowing mole.
Kind of unreal.

Bottoms up--there goes another load of several tons of good earth.
Sigh . . .

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(The big blue sky over the former big desert joins SkyWatch Friday.)
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