The good life of a cactus in Meitar

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 In the center of Meitar is a little "mountain" where hardly anybody ever goes.
Yesterday I ventured up to check out the curious new growth on the cactus plants. 
You can enlarge the photos quite a lot with two separate clicks.

 They are all so different one from the other.

And so weird!

Tune in tomorrow for more cacti.
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UPDATE: Cactus expert Jose of Lisbon and the Sunny Coast blog, has given us lots of information on the plants!  Do see his comments on this post and on the new post!    Thanks, Jose!
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)

Recess on a sunny warm day

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Recess time at Meitarim Middle School today.
Click the photo a few times to see the different activities going on.

I just happened to be on top of the "mountain" in the middle of Meitar, checking out the diverse cactus plants.
Come back tomorrow to see their growth spurts.
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Late instar caterpillar on the road to metamorphosis

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Why did the caterpillar cross the road (or here, the sidewalk)?
 Probably to look for a twig in the wadi on which to spin its chrysalis.
 It will emerge as a Swallowtail butterfly,  a Papilio machaon syriacus.

The photo, taken in November, can be enlarged 2x. -- Recommended!

Butterflies in Israel -- the facts behind the stamps

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Linking to Camera Critters.
More butterfly posts:
http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.co.il/2014/01/safe-home-for-butterflies.html
and
http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.co.il/2011/12/of-moths-and-men.html
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Internatl. Volunteer Day, Heifer Ranch

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Today being International Volunteer Day I am thinking back to my eleven straight years (1995-2006) of serving as a full-time residential volunteer in Arkansas, Switzerland, and Australia.

My Heifer Ranch years, 1996-2002,  were great, shared with the wonderful volunteers in these two photos, as well as new ones who came every year.
The pictures, not my own, are from the late 1990s.
(Here above, I'm at the bottom right, kneeling.)

We all lived in several volunteer houses on the Ranch's 1,200 acres in Arkansas, USA.
We worked, ate, and played together.
I worked hard caring for the livestock and sometimes in the organic gardens.

Wikipedia explains Heifer International:

Heifer International  is a nonprofit working to eradicate poverty and hunger through sustainable, values-based holistic community development. Heifer distributes animals, along with agricultural and values-based training, to families in need around the world as a means of providing self-sufficiency. Recipients must agree to “pass on the gift” by sharing animal offspring, as well as the skills and knowledge of animal husbandry and agricultural training with other impoverished families.
Based in Little Rock, Arkansas, Heifer International started with a shipment of 17 heifers to Puerto Rico in 1944. Since 1944, Heifer International has distributed livestock such as goats, bees, and water buffalo, along with training and other resources, to 20.7 million families, or more than 105.1 million people in more than 125 countries.  . . .

My earlier posts about the Ranch are here. 
See what visitors do at Heifer Ranch educational farm: many programs available.

Learn about the good Heifer International does in the world at the website, and while  there click on the Gift Catalog where you can do your holiday shopping!
One share of a goat costs only $10, for instance.  See the other ways you can honor family and friends by  "buying"  animals and stuff in their name.

Instead of money I donated six years of full-time labor.
You might want to apply for a volunteer position of a few months at Heifer Ranch.  Who knows . . .
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(Linking to Camera Critters.)
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Sitting in the light of Merav

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A sitting corner at the Sde Boker campus of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

A local stone is embedded right in the table.
The metal sign says "In memory of Merav Ziv, our student in the Desert Ecology Department."

She died in 1999 in the field,* on a research trip, after falling from her bike.

Her family funds a Merav Ziv Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Ecology and there is an annual symposium on her name.
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* UPDATE DEC. 2017:  Not exactly, apparently.  Please see the comment below from Avi about the date and sad real cause of Merav's death.  May her memory be for a blessing.
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Sand fly threat

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So, let's get back to discussing the intentional communities in Ramat Negev Regional Council that my group visited a few weeks ago. 

Everything looks nice and we heard about the advantages and good feeling of living together by choice in a communal settlement (yishuv kehilati).
 But we also noticed the lecturers kept rubbing their arms as they spoke.

And then our guide pointed out these fly traps hung all around (around the kindergarten, in this photo)  and the source of the itching became clear.
Traps not just for regular pesky flies but rather for dangerous little sand flies.

Sand flies of the genus Leishmania bite and cause leishmaniasis, known colloquially as the Rose of Jericho.  (Warning: that link shows ugly scars that can result from the bites.)
It has always been endemic in Jericho, but apparently in the last few years the disease has spread into Israel's Jordan Valley.
And now the sand fly has invaded certain parts of the Negev too.

Two years ago the Israel Ministry of Health designated  Sanford F. Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases of the Hebrew University as Israel’s National Laboratory for Leishmaniasis.
I just hope the various government authorities get their act together and decide who should be  responsible for controlling this threat in Israel.
 An estimated 12 million cases of leishmaniasis are reported worldwide, with 1.5-2 million new cases a year.

No one promised the early and the current pioneers in the Negev a rose garden, but they should not have to suffer from the Rose of Jericho.
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(For ABC Wednesday, U is for ugly urticarial papules.)
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The Holy Sepulchre as workplace

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How does it feel to be a floor washer of the holiest Christian site in the world?
I could imagine it as a big honor.

Coming very early one morning to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, before the hordes of tourists descended on it, I was almost alone in the cavernous church.
Only the cleaning man was busy, washing the ancient stones at the entrance. 

His buckets and mops were stashed behind the great door,  on the very steps which lead up to Calvary, to Golgotha.
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For more about the Holy Sepulchre see Sacred Destinations or visit some of my previous posts.
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Today city bloggers all over the world are posting People in Their Workplace for our City Daily Photo theme day.  You're invited.
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(Also linking to OurWorld Tuesday and  Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Bedouin girl and camel

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A Bedouin girl brings in the family camel.
One of many small Bedouin settlements in the Negev,  Israel's southern desert.

Please enlarge the photo a few times to see them better (photo from a fast-moving bus).

Linking to Camera Critters.
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A religious pioneering community in the Negev

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This week the blog has been showing you some of the three different types of intentional communities that our group visited last Friday.
They all belong to the Ramat Negev Regional Council in southern Israel.

Here is the Council's "city hall" in the desert.

Our next stop was Kfar Retamim, a religious community/ yeshuv kehilati.
They started small in 2006 and today they are 180 adults and 280 children. 

A member (with his first-born holding his hand) explained to our group how it works.
But why not hear it from this 6-minute video. Enjoy the young woman's enthusiasm!

And more info and a map are here.

I'll be showing you two surprising things at Retamim in the coming posts.
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Happy Thanksgiving to the friends in America.
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UPDATE: Online info about Retamim.
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15 young families living together in the desert

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As I was saying (in the cat selfie post), on Friday my Shishi Zioni group went down south of Beer Sheva to visit and learn about three different ways of living together in the Negev desert:
 1. a kibbutz mitchadesh, 2. a religious yeshuv kehilati (community settlement/planned community), and 3. a mixed religious + secular yeshuv kehilati.

Our bus slowly went up the dirt road to Sheizaf.
Half in jest our guide said not to fear the guard dogs because they were tired from having barked all night.

Our busload of older Israelis numbered just about the same as the current population of Sheizaf which is 15  young couples with 20 little kids.

Each family lives in a caravan, the portable pre-fab houses that were set on the ground in 2012.
Or maybe they are big enough to be considered caravillot.
(The Hebrew word caravilla is a portmanteau of the words caravan and villa.)

  Itai, who was a driving force in creating this yeshuv kehilati/community settlement, spoke with pride about the young people who were attracted from all over the country to come and establish a new place in the sparsely-populated Negev desert.
BTW, recruitment was done via e-mail and Internet. 

Our guide for the morning was Ofir, head of hityashvut/settlement for the Ramat Negev Local Council.
In addition to his help, Sheizaf got backing from Ayalim Association, a 21st century organization whose slogan is "Bringing young adults to live and volunteer in the toughest places in Israel to serve as its newest Pioneers."
This means the Negev and the Galilee. *

See a short video explaining Ayalim's altruistic aims.

Sheizaf is not enclosed within a fence.
At their website you can enjoy a slideshow of the houses and people of the community.

One of the fathers brought up his little son, to the delight of all the grandparents of our group.

Sheizaf is a rare example of a social experiment  deliberately mixing observant and non-observant Jews.
There vision is to grow to 250-400 families and when the kids are ready for school to have a mixed religious + secular education for them.
(The practice in Israel today is for a child to attend either religious school or secular school.)
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Good luck to these brave and idealistic young people who chose a far-from-easy life!
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*UPDATE: I see Ayalim does good work in central Israel as well.  This article and little video about their new project in Lod just appeared today.  A shipping container village is going up to house the enthusiastic students!

Cement to build a nation

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I am always fascinated when seeing the Nesher factory from afar.
At night it is lit up like a big city.

"The company's flagship plant in Ramle near Tel Aviv is one of the world's largest and leading factories in terms of production capacity, advanced production technology and preserving the environment," their website says.
"During 80 years the company has produced 125 million tons of cement, which among other things, has been used in the construction of 4 million homes."
Nesher has three factories in Israel.
"Nesher supplies most of the cement needs of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and also exports cement and clinker."

Clinker? Who every heard of clinker?  Not me.
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For ABC Wednesday,  T is for tons and tons of cement.
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And I just clicked on Nesher's Hebrew website and found they offer tours for families and groups during Chanuka vacation!
Register at http://www.nesher.co.il/visit_center.htm
During the whole year 2013 some 26,000 came to their Visitors Center.
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Thousands of Chabad rabbis take a group selfie!

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It is not often I find something for the Monday Murals meme, so I was extra happy to discover the Rebbe painted on rolling shutters protecting the entrance to a store in Beer Sheva's old section.

The Rebbe is the late great Rabbi Menachem Shneerson, scholar, teacher, leader, and the pioneer of Jewish outreach.
The head of Chabad-Lubavitch movement died in 1994 in New York,  but many of his devoted followers believe he was, and still is, the Moshiach, the messiah.

In the 1950s the Lubavitcher Rebbe, from headquarters in Brooklyn,  started sending out young rabbis and their wives to cities and towns all over America and the world, even the remotest places like Kathmandu.
These idealistic couples open Chabad Houses and offer worship, classes, support, and love to Jews who are far from being observant.
They are called in Hebrew shluchim, literally, those who are sent out.

This week 4,200 of these rabbis are in New York for their International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries.
Don't miss these amazing photos of how they take a huge group selfie!
It was taken with a particularly large lens that was held up with a 5-meter-long stick carried by two men.

And equally impressive are these pictures of how the 4,200  pose for the more orderly and formal  annual photo.
They even launched a helicopter-drone to take a video of the mass photo shoot!
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UPDATE: This  in today's Times of Israel says it so well:   Thank you Chabad.  Very worth a read.
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(Also linking to Our World Tuesday.)

Selfie of a cat

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Well! -- this was the first time I ever took a selfie of a CAT!

But there is a good reason why I couldn't get up and stand in front of the cat and take a normal shot.

Yesterday my Shishi Zioni group went to three places in the Ramat Negev region to hear about three different types of communities.  (More about that in coming posts.)
Most of the folks sat down on chairs on one side to hear Itai, a member of Shizaf, talk to us.

I sat on a row of stacked stones on another side.
A cat came from behind to check out the several people on the stones.
I said "Psst psst" to invite her him over.
She He accepted and came for a good snuggle, then settled down right next to me!
The lady on the other side of the cat was not at all happy about our new neighbor.
But I happily laid my hand on the warm, fluffy, clean, purring kitty and tried to concentrate on the lecture and not attract attention.
I just had to,  however, take one discreet selfie of this sweet animal!
Wish I could have taken her him home. 
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UPDATE: I am now reading the garinsheizaf Facebook page of the community and learn that the cat is a male named Bentzi and he is their only cat.
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(Linking to Camera Critters.)
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Beer Sheva, Bedouins, and a boy

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A few pictures for SkyWatch Friday  from today's trip to Ramat Negev. 

The clouds are rolling in and tomorrow should bring thunderstorms and maybe flash floods.

Little patches of sun bring light to the desert.

Please enlarge this photo to get a better look at the sprawling skyline of Beer Sheva contrasted with a Bedouin settlement in the foreground.
And a Bedouin boy walking along the busy highway.
A lucky catch (not intended, not even seen) from a speeding bus! 
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Drylands, Deserts & Desertification conference today

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Today I got to go to the last day of the 5th International DDD Conference -- Drylands, Deserts & Desertification.
This year's theme was Healthy Lands  Healthy People.

You can see the many interesting topics that were covered in the brochure.

The venue was the beautiful Sde Boker campus of Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
Right after the closing session, foreign attendees went straight to free buses to Ben Gurion Airport or to Jerusalem.
I took this one northward to Beer Sheva.

But first everyone grabbed one of the delightfully crumpled paper bags filled with a sandwich, citrus fruit, and water.
"Sandwiches on the go"  it was called.
Indeed, the bus soon smelled of tuna and clementines.
It was a good day and a warm day, 27 degrees C.
I learned a lot about the great projects going on in Israel and in the dry parts of the planet.
Idealist people with vision trying to improve the earth and the world. 
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UPDATE: The Franciscans just put up a little video report on the conference.
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(Linking to signs, signs and to  Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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It's only a bee suit

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No, it is not a hazmat (hazardous materials) suit for ebola.

It's just a bee suit trying to bring customers to the honey table at Beer Sheva street fair.

However, last month medical and security teams at Ben Gurion International Airport did hold an exercise to simulate an arrival of an Ebola patient to Israel.
And Israel is sending clinical aid to the three countries in Africa that need it most. 

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Sheepskins on a pillar

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S is for stack of sheepskins for sale in Jerusalem's Old City.

For ABC Wednesday.
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Build your house wisely [if you can afford a house]

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On Friday  Meitar's gym was full of young couples.

As the stacks of booklets prove, it was a lecture and exhibit day on the subject Build Your House Wisely--in Meitar and Carmit, 2014.

Wouldn't it be fun to have a samples case like this full of little floor tiles?

My grandchildren would love to play with such samples.

This is probably as close as I'll ever get to the beautiful (and costly) imported material.
But at least I learned the name Klinker (see about clinkers in Wiki).
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Here is a short video becrying the skyrocketing prices of plots for homes in the now being built new neighborhood of Meitar, like three times more than in 2008.
Even if you don't speak Hebrew, you can see our Council Head (mayor) and my town of Meitar.
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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