Need one say more. Here is Nick Drake's "River Man". I have no idea where this particular video is from, it says it's an edit from a BBC documentary (but which?). I like the scenes of England. What an old, green land.
I would have preferred to embed, this video of the song, but Island Records have disabled embedding. Doesn't he seem like a very sad chap?
I don't usually post twice in one day, but today is special. Guess what! I got home tonight only to find that once again Azziza threw out the curry. How many curries are going to have to be sacrificed, I ask with tears in my eyes.
There is a very interesting debate going on at the New York Times. Ethan Bronner is the Times' Jerusalem bureau chief. In my opinion he does an excellent job, from time to time annoying both sides of the conflict equally. A few weeks back I listened to his presentation at a Duke University conference on "Archaeology, Politics and the Media" (you can hear the audio by clicking on his talk at this link). Anyway, it appears that his son, 20 years old, decided to enlist in the IDF for 1.5 years. This has, of course, generated all sorts of repercussions.
On Saturday, Clark Hoyt, the Public Editor of the Post, called for Bronner to be reassigned. He claims that no matter how good and impartial a reporter Bronner is in reality, it's the appearance of bias that is the problem here. Bill Keller, the Executive Editor (the big boss), wrote a response on why he will not reassign Bronner. I am interested in watching where this story goes. Of course, the comments in the various articles on the issue are the most fun to read. I hope the don't move him, it will be interesting to see if the NYTimes can stand the pressure.
I am very distressed by something I have noticed that's on the increase recently. More and more people are becoming neurotically germaphobic. Especially here in Israel. I'm starting to believe that someone like me, who is unafraid to open a bathroom door without protecting my hands with a tissue, is becoming a shrinking minority. Not to mention that I will even eat an apple after washing it with plain water (no soap or special pesticide removing liquid required) or wear new clothes without first washing them. I have even been know to drink out of the same bottle as another person. The horror! What is it with all these people. People who walk around with anti-bacterial gel in the pockets (or purses) so they can disinfect their hands each hour. I even know someone who doesn't like eating in restaurants because there could be germs on the knives and forks (no kidding) and who knows, maybe the cook has a cold!
I'm happy to say none of these freaks would last five minutes in our house. We are quite normal here. Except that blackson and blackdaughter don't like touching dirty dishes, but that has more to do with laziness than germs (judging by their rooms).
I have to apologize in advance for all the pictures and words. Blackwifeo hates it when I post too much and go off - it's boring, she always says. Well, it's my blog and I can do what I want. I had a really crappy week, this last week. Some weeks I get to the weekend and I feel I can't go on like this. Something is going to break. There are just too many balls in the air and I'm tired of catching them and stressed lest any fall to the ground and break. So today's trip was special for me. It recharged my batteries and defragmented my disk. I so needed it.
I forced myself and the boy out of bed before 6am. It was dark and cold. I warned him to dress warmly and in fact it was just 2 degrees C when we got to Latrun, and the car actually had the "ice on road" warning light flashing, something I have never seen before.
I planned a visit to Emmaus Nicopolis. It's an old town, first mentioned in connection with Judas the Maccabee's wars against the Greeks (2nd Century BCE). The Hashmonean city was destroyed by the Romans in 4 BCE. In the first half of the 2nd Century CE, Romans and Samaritans settled in Emmaus, which eventually gained 'polis" status and was called Nicopolis throughout the Roman and Byzantine period. It was conquered again by the Muslims in the 7th century and then again by the Crusaders who restored the Byzantine church.
Emmaus Nicopolis is particularly special as it's mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 24,13-25) as the village where Jesus appeared to his disciples after his crucifixion and resurrection. It's now run by the "Community of the Beatitudes", whose nuns and monks were asleep when we arrived at the gate at 7am. So we had some time to kill till it opened at 8:30.
It just so happens that Emmaus adjoins Ayalon Park (or Park Canada - it seems to have two names). So we went off into the woods to make our coffee. It was cold. But we braved the elements and the coffee was hot and delicious. The park has lots of trees. They are still young trees but it's beautifully green and lush. I knew from my "research" that there was a Roman Bathhouse nearby and so we trampled through the mud and puddles (it has been raining of late) till we found it. It's great. See the channels that brought water into the pools. We crept inside. There clearly has been archaeological work going on. You can see the hypocaust system the Roman's used to heat the air that passed underneath the warmed floor. It's a great building. This I think is the room with the heated pool or caldarium, through the doorway is what I think is the tepidarium. This is the roof. It was domed and there is that gap at the top where the light gets in now. See these are the domes on the roof. Adjacent to the bathhouse (in fact touching the outer wall) is a Muslim cemetery. We did a little bush bashing and explored the destroyed Arab village of Amwas, which was captured from the Jordanians by Israeli forces in the Six Day War in 67. It seems that way back in 1878 one Blessed Mariam of Jesus Crucified, a nun from the Carmelite monastery in Bethlehem, had a revelation in which Jesus told her that Amwas was Emmaus of old. So the Carmelite monestery acquired the site from the locals and pilgrims have been visiting Emmaus ever since. This is the tomb of Sheikh Ibn-Jebel. He was a Muslim general who died of the bubonic plague which broke out in 640 BCE, two years after the Muslims conquered the Holy Land. Emmaus was abandoned and fell into ruin due to the plague, until the Crusaders came along. By now it was 8:30am and time to go visit Emmaus itself. On the way out of the park we stopped for bagele. The bagele dude, told the boy that the bagele on the table were just for "advertising" and the fresh ones are in the trunk of the brand spanking new Kia from Hertz. The bagele business is clearly better than I would have thought. His giant falafel (stuffed with onions) were excellent. This is Emmaus (it costs 5NIS to enter, collected by a stern nun). These are the remains of the Byzantine Basilica (5-7 Century CE), rebuilt (on a smaller scale) by the Crusaders (12 Century CE). There are some excellent mosaics in the foreground. This is the baptismal font (I think it's called). It used to be inside a smaller baptistery chapel. I love the lines of this, the southern apse, unfortunately you cannot see the reliquary niche in this picture. There are some 1st Century BCE Jewish graves in the hill off to the side of the Basilica. This is the building you see from the Tel Aviv - Jerusalem highway (Highway 1) up on the left hand side as you pass Latrun Junction. The building was built in the 30's and now houses the chapel of the Community of the Beautitudes, who have lived there since 1993. This is their chapel. I swear we have the same rug on our living room floor.
All in all, it was perfect. We came home and Ravid and Shiri popped in for brunch. Now it's time to hit the books. I feel much better.
Have you noticed that since I started up my studies again, I have become more predictable with my blogging. Any excuse to ignore the books. So how is this for 80%. For the last few weeks we have had a mosquito infestation here at #3. Every night we turn off the lights and a few seconds later I'm standing on the bed, squinting to get used to the light, squishing another bloody blood-sucker on the roof (I found that Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond makes a perfect mosquito flattening tool). Our ceiling looks like the windscreen of an 18 wheeler that's driven through one of those love-bug swarms in Houston. For two weeks now I have been looking for the poison to put in our "Sanomat" mosquito killing machine. I know, I know, the poison is probably killing us faster than the mosquitoes, but give me a break - I need to sleep - and that high pitched whine, it makes me crazy!!
We (bwo and I) have independently visited every SuperPharm and NewPharm in the Sharon region, and none of them have the deadly mosquito killing liquid refills in stock (good for 45 nights of untroubled sleep). Everywhere I went I got the same story. "It's winter, they only make them in summer and anyway there are no mosquitoes in winter". Well someone forgot to mention this to the mosquitoes. They think all the warm weather and water makes for a choice breeding climate. I can tell my the bumps all over my body. Finally yesterday, in the SuperPharm near squint central I uncovered two (dusty) refills, hidden last summer behind some tampons. I danced with glee over to the counter to pay the ridiculous non-discounted winter prices (25NIS each). The cashier looked at me when I handed over my card, "You don't need these surely", she said, "it's winter, there are no mosquitoes in winter".
You cannot believe the stress and pressure of the last few days around here. Blackwifeo is a 'Dedicated Follower of Facebook' (a DFF), and the latest fad (well before the latest, latest, type your name into urbandictionary.com fad) is to change your profile picture to a celeb that you look like. She asked me what I have come to understand is the second most dangerous question of married life (after "how do I look in this?") - "What celebrity do I look like?". Of course, I have no idea. As far as I'm concerned she is the most beautiful woman alive and way surpasses all others in her radiance. Still, clueless male that I am, I had no idea. The matter went on for days, while all her friends were facebooking with pictures of Goldie Horn, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Barbra Streisand etc, she was stuck with her own picture. What a problem.
Finally today, a friend from the US (thanks Lianne) figured it out. She looks like Elizabeth Shue! Especially the biceps. Whew the relief. But you know, bwo, you are much better looking than Elizabeth Shue and I think she should rather use your picture in her FB profile.
Today's video comes to you care of Brian. He is not one to post much. He sent me a pointer to this video. I liked it enough to buy an album of theirs. This video has energy. It looks like they enjoy their work. Ladies and Gentlemen - The Levellers.
I am not usually moved by online questionnaires. But this one is way worth it (100%). What Type Are You is by Pentagram (one of the leading design houses, as explained to me by one of the hip designers working with us here at squint central. Do the questionnaire! I apologize in advance for their rude resizing of your window - They're designers after all. It appears my type is Pistilli Roman. Because "If you always demand that things be in order, then are incredibly moved when they are". So What Type Are You?
So the wife has a new obsession. Knitting, or to be exact crocheting. In the last week she has made a dozen or so twirly scarflike things that only women could love. I suppose crocheting is to knitting as snowboarding is to skiing. It's just a touch more edgy. Bwo being who she is, this mostly means that I need to use my special knot undoing powers quite often.
They're odd these knot undoing powers I have. I can get in a zone and take the biggest mess of a confused pile of hairy wool and mystically and magically undo it. I have no plan or method, I just let my vision glaze over and let the knot talk to me. I learned yesterday, while listening to a lecture on the Bhagavad Gita, that karma refers to our chosen path through this word (Wikipedia says "Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives"). So maybe my life's calling is to be an undoer of knots. I do it with joy and without concern for results - for all I know, I'm quite average at it. Sounds like karma to me. I wonder if the string factory is hiring?
This weekend is High School "Hockey Marathon" and bso and bdo are playing hockey for some 36 hours or so. This meant the boy would not me able to join me on Saturday morning for our usual outing. So I decided to take blackbrotherinlawo (lets call him Ari for argument sake) along. I have wanted to check out the Kebara Cave ever since I went to the slightly disappointing Carmel Caves a few months back.
The Kebara Cave is rather special. It was occupied in the Middle Paleolithic (60000 - 48000 years ago) and then again in the Natufian period (12500-10200 years back). The cave is particularly famous for an almost complete Neanderthal skeleton found there in 1982. They named him "Moshe". They also found a Natufian burial pit in which 17 adults had been buried. I knew the cave itself was blocked off, but I was interested in looking at the surrounding environment now that I'm studying landscape archaeology (no bwo, it's not the archaeology of gardens!). I wasn't disappointed.
The trail to the cave starts in the Ramat HaNadiv park between Benymina and Zichron Yaakov. It's a very nice place with some good hiking trails. The "green" trail we took to the cave was quite steep in parts and required some climbing. The Rafafot are out in force. Nature gave us the complete show. It was wonderful. Lots of green and color. This is the "nose of the Carmel" range. The Kebara stream (dry even now after the heavy rains of late) runs down the valley you see. The cave is low down on the other side of the valley. The path is excellently well marked (green markers all along) and we only got lost once. There are parts that are quite steep, like the rock face above. But we loved it all. The rock faces have interesting markings. Not sure what that black stuff is, possibly some sort of moss or mineral or something. Still, it makes nice patterns. The is bbilo (Ari) surveying one of the smaller caves on the side of the mountain near the Kebara cave itself. There are a few of these. I had to include this picture of the Kebara cave itself. I know there is not much to see, as it's fenced off with razor wire and gates. We could hear all sorts of birds calling inside. Ari thought they were bats, but I always thought bats were silent (at least during the day), sounded like pigeons to me. We walked back up the mountain along the river bed. From time to time we came across these pools of standing water. Great for the mosquitoes, who feasted on us. As we came back to the Ramat HaNadiv park, we passed large cages filled with serious birds-of-prey. These are apparently acclimatization cages for injured birds-of-prey. They have some very big birds. This chap was just sitting at the top of his cage and pining for the fjords. Believe me, these are some serious cages with some serious birds. Ari really liked this tree. As we neared the car park, we came upon a typical Israeli scene. This is a school tiyul (field trip). They brought the class to come paint the poppies. That's a pile of easels you see in the middle there. Most interesting are the fathers standing around the edge. They do these tiyulim on Friday so that the fathers (who work Sunday through Thursday) can accompany the kids. They really look like they are having big fun, don't they.
All in all at great time was had by both of us. The banana-chocolate muffin my sister-in-law sent was perfect with the coffee which was made with the now perfectly repaired gaziah.
So for a while now (nearly 50 years) I have been wondering where those weird, alien like creatures that I sometimes see drifting in front of my eyes, come from. I remember laying on the grass at 35 Mill Park Road looking up in the sky and watching those strange round circles and spirally patterns move across my vision. I always thought I was the only person who could see them. (I suppose I never told anyone about them to protect my questionable sanity). Yesterday, after battling with a particularly persistent "floater" (I always call them floaters when chatting to myself) that seemed stuck in the center of my vision (left eye only) and that seemed to move off to the right when I looked at it, I finally decided to ask the internet.
So I googled "eye floaters". And believe it or not I found this. Seems I'm not alone. There's a rational scientific explanation as to where they come from and why they occur. They're even called "floaters" in the literature. It's slightly comforting to find out I'm not all alone, but I'm a little sad that they aren't aliens or spectral remnants of another dimension after all. Now all I have are the strange voices in my head.
My first MA course arrived today. 7KG of Landscape Archaeology books and papers. I am terrified. So I may be a little quieter for the next few months while I get over my panic. As always, I will still have a lot to say, so I am sure it will not be that quiet. Talk amongst yourselves.
I have this nephew. He's now a doctor. He has a blog that he writes from time to time. In the past he has often pointed me to music that I would never have found on my own. Like all my nephews, his taste in music is impeccable. In his last post, he pointed out Boingo Boingo's feature, Adventures in Music. These are some amazing old clips found on the YouTube, compiled by guest blogger, Stephen Worth head of the ASIFA Animation Archive. Read it and watch the clips. I think this one's classic. It's the Osborne Brothers, Live at the Bluegrass Country Soul Festival. I just love the audience and banjo. Awesome.
I bought a book. I bought it online at Amazon and had it shipped to my brother's. He offered (I asked) to drop it off at the squint's hotel while they are in Houston visiting a customer. All looked rosy. Amazon then opted to use a fly-by-night shipper called "Velocity Express". A bunch of clowns. I watched in online in dismay as they managed to not deliver the book for two days in a row. I tried calling them on the weekend but the clowns were off doing what clowns do on the weekend. My brother called this morning and it seems that in their wisdom they decided to return the package to Amazon "undeliverable". Seems they could not find the house.
Now I was irate. I called Amazon. I expected a long wait with millions of reroutings. Wrong. Ten seconds on hold and boom, I got to talk to Tracy. She took care of everything. They are reshipping my book (a different copy) with either UPS or Fedex overnight. No charge. And they're terribly sorry. Just so you know, Tracy does not choose what shippers are used, so it's not her fault. And Yes "Velocity Express" are a bunch of clowns. Hopefully I will even get my book - it's the bible, so I expect divine service. Although it's a New Testament with Apocrypha (the not-holy bits) , so maybe my god is pissed, and she is sending me a message.
It's taken since last week for me to calm down enough to write this post. It was last Thursday that it happened. First, some background. As you all know, the wife has been laid up in bed having "put her back out". So last week she was hardly moving. Certainly not cooking. At some point on Wednesday, doped up on enough Optalgin, she ventured down into the kitchen and made us a nice, if a tad mild, curry. This is only because her son asked for it. I would get ice in winter. Anyway we enjoyed the curry on Wednesday night. The boy and I went back for seconds. It was chock full of chickpeas, carrot and onion goodness. Excellent over a little rice.
Thursday was a rough day at the salt mines. All day I barely kept it together. Only the thought of that curry, now juicier and tastier, better blended after a day in the fridge, kept me going. I dragged my weary body into the house after dark and climbed the stairs to visit the bedridden wife. After actively listening to her description of her pain, fluffing her pillows and wiping her brow, I noticed the smell of bean soup drifting up the stairs. Now I'm not a bean soup lover (even if my mother thinks it's my favorite). She told me that through the fog of pain she had made us soup for dinner. "No worries" said I, "I'll just have the leftover curry" my mouth water at the thought of it's delicious spiciness. Then the bomb dropped. "Azziza threw it out" she said calmly.
Now this is not the first time Azziza, the maid from Qalansuwa, has thrown out the curry. "It smelled off", was her excuse. No! It smells just like curry. O.K. so you tell me, how many throwing outs of curry constitutes a firing offense? Even one may be too much, in my opinion!
This morning the boy and I set out for the Beit Shemesh area. Off we went to vist the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa (or "The Ella Fortress" or perhaps "Sha'arayim"). We had studied this site and the controversy around it in my archaeology class. There is an ongoing dig here run by the Hebrew University (here is it's site). The question about this site is when was it in occupied. According to the C14 dating of four olive pits found near one of the gates, its use was somewhere around 1000 BCE. One of the big controversies in biblical archaeology revolves around the date of the "Kingdom of David". If this site comes from 1000 BCE and it has huge fortifications and big gates, then perhaps there was a centralized kingdom that did extensive public works around that time. But, four olive pits do not a kingdom make. The opposing view states that there was no big kingdom around that time and that population growth only happened later.
On top of all this, an Ostracon (a piece of pottery with writing on it - a sort of Iron Age sticky note) was found at the site that is claimed to have the oldest writing known in Israel (check the ostracon's site here). There has been a lot of media hubbub about this ostracon and the implications of when it was written and what it says.
One of the big issues with this site is that the excavations are sponsored by "Foundation Stone". These guys have a clear nationalistic agenda and are interested in "redrawing the map in education", which seems a little loaded to me. I personally have a lot of issue with organizations like Elad (who control the City of David, although their name appears nowhere on the site) and Foundation Stone. I (naively) believe that archaeology and politics should be separated.
Back to our visit. Our gazia sadly is not working all that well and so we gave up on the coffee. We parked quite a long way off from the site and had to go bush bashing and climb the hill. It was quite cold when we arrived, but we soon warmed up with the walking. The Insight did a decent job of getting over the bumpy road, it's no 4X4 but it certainly gets better mileage. This is the view of the fortress from where we parked. It looks quite intimidating up there on the hill overlooking the Ella valley. The rakafot are in season and the hillside was covered with these pink flowers. Most beautiful. This is the Eastern gate, facing Jerusalem (This is wrong, this gate faces West and what was Philistina). There are unusually for settlements of this period, two gates. Hence the theory that this is biblical Sha'arayim (two gates in Hebrew). The Western gate features later in the pictures. There are nice and clean walls. They have done a lot of excavation and the Hebrew University team seems to be very professional and neat. This is a cistern. It goes down quite deep. The boy did not want to climb in, no matter how much I encouraged him.
This is the other gate. Huge stones were cut and moved in order to make the fortifications and the gates. A huge amount of work. The excavators say the site was only populated for about 20 years in the Iron Age IIA. That's a short time for so much work, don't you think. Here are more of the spectacular walls and gate.
This is the reason for building a fortress in this area. That's the Ella valley that we are looking over. It's extraordinarily green at this time of the year. Khirbet Qeiyafa is only 12KM from the mighty Philistine city of Gath, who was a leading player in those days. So this was a border area and a good place to build a fortress.
This can only be called chutzpah. It seems thieves broke into an Ashdod museum this week and stole a bunch of valuable artifacts from an exhibit called "Antiquities Thieves in Israel". The exhibit showed loot that had been previously recovered from antiquities thieves. I guess the police will have to recover them again. You can read about it here. Actually the theft and reselling of antiquities is a real danger to the cultural heritage here and elsewhere. Don't buy any dubious antiquities - ever.
On a more positive note, Yuval pointed me this amazing guitar called the Misa Digital. This is what I want to make next, once I actually finish the ones currently in the pipe. Check it out, it's extraordinary.
There are some decent people around. I noticed when I get to the University early in the morning, some kind soul has always put out food for the cats. There are hundreds of strays that wander around the TA University campus. Sometimes they join the classes, sometimes actually asking better questions than many of the students. These are some of the smartest cats in the world, you know.
I'm always amazed at how many people are actually terrified of cats here. There are so many stray cats wondering around Israel. They mostly keep their fighting to themselves and stay out of the way of the humans. The screeching at night can get old though. I have also noticed that there are much fewer really scrawny and hungry looking strays these days. People all over seem to take care of the strays in their area. I see many people bring cat food onto campus to feed the strays there. I think it's nice.
We do our bit feeding the poor homeless of Rehov HaNevel. Our strays only like the good stuff, 100NIS a bag, nothing but the best for the cats of Raanana.
It's bdo's turn to pick the video of the week (or weak), but she is busy catching up on math homework after an email from her teacher (they don't send notes home anymore). She picked the Asaf Avidan song below. He is a "new" Israel artist, who sings in English. He is allowed to, as his parents met in LA. Actually his lyrics are not too horrible and his unusual voice and good melodies are interesting. Here is the video for Weak. I think it's rather good - apparently done by a friend of his.
It was cold. But we braved the elements and the coffee was hot and delicious.
The park has lots of trees. They are still young trees but it's beautifully green and lush.
I knew from my "research" that there was a Roman Bathhouse nearby and so we trampled through the mud and puddles (it has been raining of late) till we found it. It's great. See the channels that brought water into the pools.
We crept inside. There clearly has been archaeological work going on. You can see the hypocaust system the Roman's used to heat the air that passed underneath the warmed floor.
It's a great building. This I think is the room with the heated pool or caldarium, through the doorway is what I think is the tepidarium.
This is the roof. It was domed and there is that gap at the top where the light gets in now.
See these are the domes on the roof.
Adjacent to the bathhouse (in fact touching the outer wall) is a Muslim cemetery.
We did a little bush bashing and explored the destroyed Arab village of Amwas, which was captured from the Jordanians by Israeli forces in the Six Day War in 67. It seems that way back in 1878 one Blessed Mariam of Jesus Crucified, a nun from the Carmelite monastery in Bethlehem, had a revelation in which Jesus told her that Amwas was Emmaus of old. So the Carmelite monestery acquired the site from the locals and pilgrims have been visiting Emmaus ever since.
This is the tomb of Sheikh Ibn-Jebel. He was a Muslim general who died of the bubonic plague which broke out in 640 BCE, two years after the Muslims conquered the Holy Land. Emmaus was abandoned and fell into ruin due to the plague, until the Crusaders came along.
By now it was 8:30am and time to go visit Emmaus itself. On the way out of the park we stopped for bagele. The bagele dude, told the boy that the bagele on the table were just for "advertising" and the fresh ones are in the trunk of the brand spanking new Kia from Hertz. The bagele business is clearly better than I would have thought. His giant falafel (stuffed with onions) were excellent.
This is Emmaus (it costs 5NIS to enter, collected by a stern nun). These are the remains of the Byzantine Basilica (5-7 Century CE), rebuilt (on a smaller scale) by the Crusaders (12 Century CE). There are some excellent mosaics in the foreground.
This is the baptismal font (I think it's called). It used to be inside a smaller baptistery chapel.
I love the lines of this, the southern apse, unfortunately you cannot see the reliquary niche in this picture.
There are some 1st Century BCE Jewish graves in the hill off to the side of the Basilica.
This is the building you see from the Tel Aviv - Jerusalem highway (Highway 1) up on the left hand side as you pass Latrun Junction. The building was built in the 30's and now houses the chapel of the Community of the Beautitudes, who have lived there since 1993.
This is their chapel. I swear we have the same rug on our living room floor.
Have you noticed that since I started up my studies again, I have become more predictable with my blogging. Any excuse to ignore the books. So how is this for 80%. For the last few weeks we have had a mosquito infestation here at #3. Every night we turn off the lights and a few seconds later I'm standing on the bed, squinting to get used to the light, squishing another bloody blood-sucker on the roof (I found that Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond makes a perfect mosquito flattening tool). Our ceiling looks like the windscreen of an 18 wheeler that's driven through one of those love-bug swarms in Houston. For two weeks now I have been looking for the poison to put in our "Sanomat" mosquito killing machine. I know, I know, the poison is probably killing us faster than the mosquitoes, but give me a break - I need to sleep - and that high pitched whine, it makes me crazy!!
You cannot believe the stress and pressure of the last few days around here. Blackwifeo is a 'Dedicated Follower of Facebook' (a DFF), and the latest fad (well before the latest, latest, type your name into urbandictionary.com fad) is to change your profile picture to a celeb that you look like. She asked me what I have come to understand is the second most dangerous question of married life (after "how do I look in this?") - "What celebrity do I look like?". Of course, I have no idea. As far as I'm concerned she is the most beautiful woman alive and way surpasses all others in her radiance. Still, clueless male that I am, I had no idea. The matter went on for days, while all her friends were facebooking with pictures of Goldie Horn, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Barbra Streisand etc, she was stuck with her own picture. What a problem.
The Rafafot are out in force. Nature gave us the complete show. It was wonderful. Lots of green and color.
This is the "nose of the Carmel" range. The Kebara stream (dry even now after the heavy rains of late) runs down the valley you see. The cave is low down on the other side of the valley.
The path is excellently well marked (green markers all along) and we only got lost once. There are parts that are quite steep, like the rock face above. But we loved it all.
The rock faces have interesting markings. Not sure what that black stuff is, possibly some sort of moss or mineral or something. Still, it makes nice patterns.
The is bbilo (Ari) surveying one of the smaller caves on the side of the mountain near the Kebara cave itself. There are a few of these.
I had to include this picture of the Kebara cave itself. I know there is not much to see, as it's fenced off with razor wire and gates. We could hear all sorts of birds calling inside. Ari thought they were bats, but I always thought bats were silent (at least during the day), sounded like pigeons to me.
We walked back up the mountain along the river bed. From time to time we came across these pools of standing water. Great for the mosquitoes, who feasted on us.
As we came back to the Ramat HaNadiv park, we passed large cages filled with serious birds-of-prey. These are apparently acclimatization cages for injured birds-of-prey. They have some very big birds. This chap was just sitting at the top of his cage and pining for the fjords. Believe me, these are some serious cages with some serious birds.
Ari really liked this tree.
As we neared the car park, we came upon a typical Israeli scene. This is a school tiyul (field trip). They brought the class to come paint the poppies. That's a pile of easels you see in the middle there. Most interesting are the fathers standing around the edge. They do these tiyulim on Friday so that the fathers (who work Sunday through Thursday) can accompany the kids. They really look like they are having big fun, don't they.
This is the view of the fortress from where we parked. It looks quite intimidating up there on the hill overlooking the Ella valley.
The rakafot are in season and the hillside was covered with these pink flowers. Most beautiful.
This is the Eastern gate, facing Jerusalem (This is wrong, this gate faces West and what was Philistina). There are unusually for settlements of this period, two gates. Hence the theory that this is biblical Sha'arayim (two gates in Hebrew). The Western gate features later in the pictures.
There are nice and clean walls. They have done a lot of excavation and the Hebrew University team seems to be very professional and neat.
This is a cistern. It goes down quite deep. The boy did not want to climb in, no matter how much I encouraged him.
This is the other gate. Huge stones were cut and moved in order to make the fortifications and the gates. A huge amount of work. The excavators say the site was only populated for about 20 years in the Iron Age IIA. That's a short time for so much work, don't you think.
Here are more of the spectacular walls and gate.
This is the reason for building a fortress in this area. That's the Ella valley that we are looking over. It's extraordinarily green at this time of the year. Khirbet Qeiyafa is only 12KM from the mighty Philistine city of Gath, who was a leading player in those days. So this was a border area and a good place to build a fortress.
There are some decent people around. I noticed when I get to the University early in the morning, some kind soul has always put out food for the cats. There are hundreds of strays that wander around the TA University campus. Sometimes they join the classes, sometimes actually asking better questions than many of the students. These are some of the smartest cats in the world, you know.
