At last, a puddle

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Finally! Enough rain water for a puddle, for a reflection.

In the forested hills that surround my village.

Shabbat shalom and happy Weekend Reflections.
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Turning green

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See all the bumpy details by enlarging the photos.

So funny.
This chameleon was lying lengthwise, right on top of the popsicle wrapper.
He had turned so green as to be almost invisible.

Well, yeah, after a long hot dry summer, paper is the only green thing you can find on the ground in the woods.

While I got the camera out, he walked away ever so slowly, but turning brown quickly.
The chameleon looked stiff as a board.
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You don't see them much around here, maybe just because they are so well camouflaged.
Here is one climbing straight up a green bush, and here is one getting eaten by Lara the cat.
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For Camera Critters meme.

Singing on the path of Life

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While you are reading today's post, which is for Robert's PsalmChallenge, please click here and enjoy the singing of verses 1 and 11 of Psalm 16.
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The song is one of many created at the Taize monastic community in France.
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____________________________________source____________

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PSALM 16

1. A michtam. Of David.

Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.

² I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” ³ I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”

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⁴ Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.

I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips.

⁵ LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure.

⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. ⁷ I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.

⁸ I keep my eyes always on the LORD. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, ¹⁰ because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.

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¹¹ You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
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Hand in hand

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There's a new dog in the neighborhood.
He is just a puppy but look at the size of his paw!
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I think he's supposed to be a guard dog but he often comes out and follows me into the woods and then follows me back to my home again, even when I tell him firmly "Lech habayita! Go home!"
He just wants to play and loves to shake hands.
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This puppy is for today's Camera-Critters Sunday.
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Burning!

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A forest fire is burning just outside two sides of my village!
It started down in the valley, near our spring and spread to Hadassah hospital.
Cars were damaged in the Hadassah parking lot before the fire could be controlled.

The neighboring moshavim/villages up on the mountain were being evacuated as of 3:00.

I walked closer to take pictures and could see the flames and hear the shouts of the fire fighters in the forest right above the gate to our moshav.

They have such pitiful old equipment.

Two planes are helping.

But now there is a new moked, a new fire starting up near Kennedy Memorial and Khirbet Sa'adim.

This in the photo is where I take walks in the evening. Our beautiful nature is now black and smoldering.

The buildings on top of the hill are the periphery of my village, near my house. The fire came that close!

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Over 500 dunams of natural woodland have been destroyed in the past few hours.

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It is a hot and windy day.

Pray for us!

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UPDATE: Now, at 8:30 p.m., things seem quiet and under control, thank God.
Radio is now saying it burned 1000 dunams (= 247 acres) of trees (mostly planted by the Keren Kayemet/Jewish National Fund).
Careless, thoughtless visitors to our spring caused this emergency by making a bonfire. grrrr!
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The call of nature

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Three million Israelis (of a population just over seven million) flocked to Israel's forests, nature reserves, and national parks during the Passover week vacation just now ending!
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The intermediary days of Pesach are a rare chance for very religious Jews on leave from their intense studies to get out into nature (and to go a bit wild).
Near my village is an underground spring. Kids like to take off their shoes and wade into the tunnels.
I enjoyed the scene pictured above, so symbolic of the week of Pesach. A religious boy had hung up his suit coat and fedora on the tree in order to climb down to the spring.
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On normal weekdays the spring is a hidden place of silence and solitude, under the fig trees, in the valley.
Not this past week!
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The nearby wadi was also full of big families exploring what feels like a Swiss forest.

The older kids tried to hold the hand of younger brothers or sisters on the more dangerous parts of the trail.
This dead pine tree was still attached at the roots. A dozen little kids were straddling it and bouncing it up and down like a seesaw.

Great fun, and all natural!

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Such was our sunny, warm, fun world all week for That's My World Tuesday.

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Wilderness in our back yard

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A new stretch of path, about an hour's hike, was completed during the past year in the Hills of Jerusalem.

(All photos enlarge when clicked.)

Last week I missed the bus to my moshav (village), which you see above in the center of the photo, and decided to try out the new path.
The trailhead is at the bend in the highway and leads down some new steps into the forest.

Suddenly I was totally alone in the quiet wilderness!
I could only dream about such close-by nature and long for it when I was growing up in Chicago.

Lots of terrace walls, some of them thousands of years old.

And here and there a shomera.

I don't know what they would be called in English. Maybe a corbelled stone farmer's hut?

I think in Arabic it is il-girna.

Here is the other side.

This one is nicely preserved. Many are half in rubble.

This one short stretch of path had been "paved" with sharp stones.

Good that I had my hiking boots on. (Actually I don't have any girly shoes. LOL)

At the bottom of the valley is some flat land. Not much, but enough to do some small farming.

I reckon agriculture was practiced in the wadi and on the terraces right up until the mid-20th century.

The trail ended and I emerged on this, what once was our village's only road to the outside.

From here it is just a slight climb of ten minutes up to my house.

Down and to the left of the barrier is a nice underground spring.
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Thanks for your company along the way.

That's it for That's My World Tuesday.

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Ash Sunday in the forest

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Today I walked in ash, silent and alone and in awe, to see the toll taken by yesterday's forest fire.


The olive trees, each individual with a shape of its own in death as in life.

All of this was just 26 hours ago covered by underbrush so thick you couldn't walk through it, except on the paths worn down by jackal traffic.
Here in the late afternoon sun, the ash looks almost like snow.

A scorched ktalav.

An interesting pattern left under the burned bark.

The cables along the monastery's perimeter wall.

The Franciscans will not have electricity for the next 3 or 4 days.

This tree was both bowed down AND uprooted.

The cat was the only one who could get down or up the steep slope that goes down to the monastery buildings. You can see why planes were needed, in these places where men could not stand.

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Come back tomorrow for three hopeful pictures that came out of the ashes.

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Our neighbors the jackals

Jackal! I finally got a good shot of a jackal!

Just in time for ABC Wednesday "J" day.

I was walking silently on the path in the woods, on the part that is covered with soft pine needles. Suddenly I saw a jackal standing on the path, looking out over the valley. He didn't notice me! I turned on the camera behind my back, trying to muffle the sound.
Then he saw me. I knew the minute I moved the camera he would run. So we both just stood and stared at each other. I was so enjoying being that close to a wild animal.
A second jackal came up behind the first and must have said, "What are you doing?! That's a human--let's get out of here!" Only then did I raise the camera and shoot.
Don't you love the look on his pretty face?! (even better when you enlarge the photo)
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Jackal groups howling next to my house and in the woods can be heard on a short sound clip here. They are very funny.
To see a majestic jackal in the snow please see my post "In defense of jackals."
And to have a laugh, see "Danger lurking in the night" starring Shachar the Cat and a prowling jackal.
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Return of the rain!

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Rain! The sweet smell and feel of light rain finally returned to the Jerusalem Hills. We have not seen any rain for about half a year, which is normal. That's why it is so exciting to see it now, in its season. Here are some scenes from yesterday's walk through the woods, down just two terraces from my house.
The acorns and the olives were all wet and glistening.

The cypress had bright leaves, "bombelach" (cones), and even yellow flowers.

The thirsty lichens seemed to be drinking it all in.

Pines were dripping.

And the swirled wood of the ktalav (Arbutus) was even more shiny and smooth and dramatic than usual. (My earlier posts about this manzanita tree are here, here, and here.)

Let's hope and pray lots of rain will fall this winter.
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Sister Moon appears

Mazal tov! A new meme has been birthed by the SkyWatch Friday crew. Have a look over at SkyWatch.

Just as I was coming up out of the woods Sister Moon came up and lit my path.

Twin forests in Germany and Israel

Ramadan kareem to all the Muslims beginning their fast and their observance of the special month of Ramadan today.

It's also the first day of September and that means the members of City Daily Photo are posting for their monthly theme day. Their theme today is Sister Cities. Well, I must have spent too long living as a volunteer in a monastery because my first reaction was "Cool--whole cities full of nuns!"
I had to Google to find out that Jerusalem is, no big surprise, twinned with New York City. But more interestingly, I learned that Israel and Germany have twin forests! The Jewish National Fund/Keren Kayemet website reported this:

"There are already several Israel-Germany twin towns and now, there will also be twin forests. Although 'Thüringen Forest' in the Northern Negev will certainly never number as many trees as there are in the wooded State of Thuringia, an extra 5,000 trees in the 'Forest of German States' will make a significant difference to the life quality and recreational opportunities of residents of Beer Sheva, Lahav, Lehavim, Rahat and many smaller communities."
(full article here)

The forest that I see everyday on the mountain right across the valley from my village has 20,000 trees that were donated by German citizens in the year 2000.
"The Peace and Reconciliation Forest 2000" was planted by an organization in Wetzlar, Germany called Christians for Israel. While hiking there in Sataf, I was saddened to see the sign on the stone. Someone had scratched out the German word Christen and the words in Hebrew for Christians and Germany. Someone without peace in his heart.
Feelings, painful memories, always remembering--nothing is simple or easy in the Jewish State.

Danger lurking in the night

What prowls in our dark woods?

Lara the Cat: "Uh-oh, is that a jackal I just heard?!" Jack the Jackal: "You bet your sweet life it is, tasty morsel!"

Enjoy bloggers' weekly animal postings

at http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/ every Sunday.