Sea turtle egg-laying season at the Mediterranean coast

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Something told me, late last night,  to post my turtle pictures.
And today I wake up to discover that today is WORLD TURTLE DAY!!

It is now turtle egg laying season along Israel's Mediterranean coast, but sadly, this sea turtle didn't make it.

My town's touring group visited here in March and we saw three dead ones.

Each year about 300 sea turtles are washed up onto Israeli beaches after being harmed by marine waste, fishing nets, hooks, boat motors, etc. 

Now, during the spring and summer laying season many volunteers and park rangers come to the beaches to assist and protect the endangered sea turtles when they come ashore and later, when the hatchlings hatch from the eggs.

The Israel Sea Turtle Rescue Center does good work.
You can see their videos and photos on Facebook at  המרכז להצלת צבי הים .

When the coast was less built up, less urbanized, the females would swim ashore, lay their eggs in a sandy nest, and immediately return to the water by following the moon's reflected light on the sea.
But the beach we visited is close to the big Arab town of Jisr az-Zarqa.
The turtles now often get confused and turn instead toward the light of the town and lose their way.
That's why volunteers are needed.
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UPDATE May 23:
See also photos, video, and info about Israel's turtle rehab center:
https://www.israel21c.org/nursing-sea-turtles-back-to-health/

And more information from this good article:

Under cover of darkness in May and June, female sea turtles make their way from the waters of Israel’s Mediterranean beaches to the seashore, where they dig nests and lay dozens of eggs. In August, the hatchlings start cracking their way out of their shells, and begin a perilous trek to the relative safety of the water.

Israel is home to loggerhead, leatherback, green and softshell turtles – all endangered due to decades of hunting, pollution, manmade dangers and habitat disturbances caused by human activity. The newly laid eggs and the hatchlings are quite vulnerable to predators and the hot sun. Left on their own, only a few survive.
Since the mid-1980s, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority has been sending out rangers and volunteers in the summer months to move nests to protected beach reserves or incubation farms.

(Linking to Camera-Critters,  ABC Wednesday and Our World Tuesday.)
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Olive oil by the barrel

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T is for tugging.

Dani, the in-charge of Kibbutz Gezer Olives had just driven two heavy barrels of our fresh oil back from the olive press.

And they had to be off-loaded to the entrance of the kibbutz bomb shelter where the oil would later be bottled.

American volunteer Ashlea took a whiff.

Dani made the taste test.

Ashlea got a capful of the precious fruit of our olive-harvesting labor.

Luke, a WWOOFer from New Zealand, tried it too.

Only I, as reflected in the pure oil, was busy with the camera and mercifully too busy to drink.
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UPDATE May 2018:  A brief video of the Kiwi volunteer Luke was just published! He talks about his good experience at Kibbutz Gezer.

(Linking to T-day at ABC Wednesday and OurWorld Tuesday.)
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For Dog Day, our growing dog training promenade

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In honor of National Dog Day (in America, at least) and for Camera Critters meme, here are some fresh photos of our town's dog training promenade.

It is a work in progress, made by volunteers, friends of our local veterinarian Dr. Doron Avishai,  who died before his time.

The builders left their names and messages in the concrete next to the water bowl.
To see how much has been added lately and to check out the various wooden training things, see my post from 2015.
And here you can enjoy pictures of the happy Dog Day that was held there in cooperation with the vet's widow.

The main rule listed here is to keep your dog on a leash.
This is in contrast to the official bare-bones Dog Park built by the Meitar Local Council right across the path; see the difference here.

Another welcome new addition is a patch of bare land where the sign invites you to scatter seeds of wildflowers from our own Negev desert region.
There's also a caveat: Please do not spray here.

Happy Dog Day!
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday.)

Missing the Hills of Jerusalem tonight

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Remembering cool evenings in the Jerusalem Hills, sunsets, jackals, old friends, and the terrace of St. Elisabeth's built by the 12th century Crusaders.
Sigh . . .
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Shabbat shalom from the hot desert.
And thanks to Kristine S. for taking the photo. 
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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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Olives go to press

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As you heard in Friday's post, we were off harvesting olives last week at Kibbutz Gezer.
Here is me, Susan, Dani, Maybelline,  and Mikki.

Susan from Michigan, who came up with the idea to spend a week of her vacation in Israel working through WWOOF, invited me to join the olive harvest.  We had been roommates at the Hebrew-learning ulpan in Kibbutz Hazorea in 1968.  We had a lot to talk over after all these years.
Dani, a former American, divides his workday between being in charge of the olive plantation and working as a lawyer in Jerusalem.
Maybelline and her friend, Steven, were traveling the world.  In their native Singapore they had never seen a wheelbarrow before! They said the country was too small and urban to have room for agriculture but that maybe their parents or grandparents had still seen some farms.

Mikki the Israeli college student lifted the crates of our day's harvest into the trailer.
Here he is, multitasking.

And off we drove to the olive press.

We drove through the flat expanses of the Shefelah, the lowlands of central Israel, under a big sky.
(Rain came that evening, exactly as I boarded my bus back to the Negev.)
Enlarge the photo 2x and you will find recently-baled bales of hay  cotton  with bright orange-colored covers.

A smiling forklift driver off-loaded our olives and drove them toward the press.
In the next post you will see how solid olive fruit is turned into golden oil.
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To learn more you can take a look at Gezer Olives website.
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday.)

Olive time!

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 Shalom friends!  I'm back!
For the past half week I've been helping harvest olives at Kibbutz Gezer in the Shefela, in central Israel!
Here you see me "combing" the olives off the branch with a big comb.
Or maybe it's more like a plastic rake.  Or a mega back-scratcher. 

First you spread a long long tarp under the trees.

After raking, shaking, or beating the olives off the branches you get them all into one pile,  pick out any little twigs, and then push and pour them into plastic crates.
That's Danny, the nice kibbutznik in charge of the harvest.

Young Israeli Mickey made a good healthy field breakfast.
We worked from 6:50 until 1:00.

 Nice volunteers from USA and Singapore.
Did you know we have WWOOF in Israel?!

A good time was had by all!
Yesterday we drove our olives to the olive press to see how the oil is made.
Pictures to follow!
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LOX

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Even more essential to a Jewish hospital than lox and bagels are these tall tanks of LOX, liquid oxygen.

UPDATE:   Forgot to tell you--the oxygen tanks are ready for any earthquake!
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There is something I found online today that should be added to yesterday's post. 
On my tour of the hospital I saw one of the women referred to below  at her work station, but didn't feel right about taking a picture.
Now I am glad to read this and to understand:

...one department’s volunteers were singled out for special recognition. This year, the department was Sterile Supplies, and the volunteers who were recognized are indeed very special.  
They are volunteering for Shaare Zedek under the auspices of the Aleh Siach organization, whose goal is to help developmentally-challenged individuals to achieve self-fulfillment and independence. 
The four young women, who were trained by an Aleh Siach counselor, prepare the sterile supplies required for surgery.  
“The pride they take in a job well-done is a wonder to behold,” says Segev.

The same article (from 2001) tells about the hundreds of volunteers who work at the medical center:

Volunteer Services director Nehama Segev says that when her professional colleagues in other organizations discuss the issue of how to attract volunteers, she has nothing to suggest.  “We don’t have that problem.  We have more volunteers than anywhere, without ever advertising.  I think there’s something magnetic about Shaare Zedek. This place radiates human warmth, without in any way compromising medical standards.”

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Hunters and scavengers

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A cat down in the wild wadi next to my village was so intent on stalking prey that it didn't even notice my arrival.

Many hikers visit the spring over the weekend, too many for only one trash bin.
If the lid can't close properly, it's easy pickin's for the jackals and cats to dig in, scatter the garbage, and look for a meal.
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Fortunately, this area is on the Hadassah Trail, not far from the medical center.
The hospital encourages staff members to volunteer to go out and clean up this area (and also Khirbet Sa'adim spring, up on a different mountain) on a regular basis.
I think Hadassah gives the volunteers picnic lunches, transportation, and pay for the days they clean the adopted nature areas.
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For Camera-Critters meme.
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The death of a camel

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Rajah died this week at Heifer Ranch in central Arkansas.
Shalom, old camel.
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(Photo from Dave Lowe's album. ;-) Dave is the one on the left.)
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Some of us ranch hands used to call this camel Gillette Foamy.

Male Dromedaries have a soft palate which they inflate to produce a pink sack.

This doula, as it is called in Arabic, hangs out of the side of their mouth -- some say -- to attract females during the mating season.

Well, Rajah was making the blub-blub-blub sound with his slobbering doula in every season.

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It was always a race to see if I could drive the Livestock pickup truck to his feed box on the fence and dump the feed before he raced over and spewed his foam on my hat. Feh!
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(Photo by Rena Olsen)

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Then one day in the late 1990s someone, a certain G.J., had the bad idea to pasture a donkey with Raja and Gobi (the female camel).

I came to the paddock and discovered this just ten minutes before I needed to catch the donkey (put on a halter and lead rope) and bring her to my workcamper group for a "cut and carry" forage project.

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I had no choice but to enter the big pasture and grab the donkey.

Oh no! For a few terrifying minutes that huge anti-social camel was grunting fearful noises while he danced a circle around me bobbing his head up and down!

I released the donkey and backed off, feigning courage to my opponent.

That gate seemed so far away.

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Maybe that is why mine is the only minority opinion in the 41 (!) comments that Dave received on his Facebook announcement of Rajah's death. Everyone else says they will miss that camel.

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Well, in death may Rajah rest in peace. He certainly never rested much in life.

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P.S. I worked full-time at Heifer Ranch from 1996 to 2002. I lived there in community and worked and learned as a volunteer. You can too!

The Ranch is a learning center of Heifer International, an organization that gives livestock and training to folks in need around the globe.

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This post is for Camera-Critters Sunday meme.

Volunteers under the vault

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Fun with "V" today for ABC Wednesday.
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Very old vaulted ceiling being made whiter.

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Volunteer friends from Arkansas spent half their vacation in Israel scraping, schpachteling, sanding, and painting.

The three of us did the work for neighbor friends last summer.
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Volunteers Mark, Kristine, and Dina make the V for Victory sign.

Victorious under the now-white vault!
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Drawing water with grace

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Continuing the topic of world water shortage, I'd like to draw your attention to a short video of a beautiful and smiling woman drawing water--so gracefully--from a well in Senegal.
The Heifer Blog posted it for Blog Action Day.
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Heifer International is a great organization that gives livestock, training, and hope to needy families around the world.

Heifer Ranch volunteers, ca. 1997
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You can see from this photo what fun it is to be a volunteer at the Learning Center at Heifer Ranch .

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I worked and lived with young folks like these at the Ranch in Arkansas from 1996 to 2002 (that's me on the right).

The kids did mostly guiding and experiential education work with the thousands of visitors who come through the ranch every year.

I got to take care of livestock and teach young work-campers how we do chores, and sometimes I worked in the organic gardens.

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You too can contribute to Heifer's noble work, with gifts of your time or your money.

Christmas, Chanuka, birthdays are coming. Give the gift of hope, buy an animal or a share of an animal, through the unique gift catalog.

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Aldo's Gelateria Italiana

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After a hot afternoon visit to Susita National Park we dig volunteers stopped our convoy of three vehicles at a famous ice cream place near the Jordan River.
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And luckily for James' Weekend Reflections, Janet appears reflected in the glass.
Janet is a Protestant minister serving a church in Ohio who fulfilled her dream of working at an excavation.
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There were more fancy flavors on the other side.
A hard choice! But I never pass up coconut if I can find it.
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The Hebrew sign says "Glidaria Italkit."

That would be a translation of the chain's name, Aldo's Gelateria Italiana.

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Whatever you call it, the ice cream was cold and sweet on a hot day.
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A stairway to (a blue) heaven

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Israel's sky is blue with no rain in sight. All week we have been having a heat wave.
It's back to sandals and T shirts, for now at least.

As shot from the bus window, this is Yad Sarah House in Jerusalem.

Click the photo to see the unique staircase.
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Yad Sarah, the largest voluntary organization in Israel, provides a spectrum of free or nominal cost services designed to make life easier for sick, disabled and elderly people and their families.
There are over 100 branches all over Israel.

Yad Sarah is best known for its lending of crutches, wheelchairs, etc.
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Together with our Foreign Ministry, Yad Sarah is donating three tons of medical equipment to Haiti.
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Happy SkyWatch Friday!
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Dancing at the dig site

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The month-long fall season of our excavation in Tiberias ended last week.
On Thursday we were digging from 5:30 until 13:00, then a little snack and several hours of pottery washing. We rushed back to the hotel for a quick shower, then walked back to the site for our evening FAREWELL PARTY.

Roi, the dig administrator, took on the role of Grill Master. Hot dogs, chicken wings, and skewers of meat and chicken hearts.
The portable gas-fed Weber grill worked wonders.

There was lots of posing, e.g. my area supervisor Asaf and me.

Our very young and capable staff: Katia, Shulamit, Yuli, and Asaf.

The men are the paid workers, Bedouin from northern Israel.

Dig director Dr. Katia Cytryn-Silverman presented a certificate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to each volunteer.

After the meat, salads, pita, humus, tehina, wine, beer, and Coke, this volunteer married couple brought out a birthday cake.

The younger Bedouin gathered off to the side. One man sang while another played a double flute-type instrument that has been know in the Middle East since antiquity.

The flute sounded like a bagpipe minus the bag.
Click on the photo and you'll see the boy's cheeks full of air.

The old-time music really got our blood racing! Everyone was clapping to the beat and the Bedouin danced the debka.

Here is a very short video for you to get an idea of the music. Like it?

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