Another Adventure

The fields at sunrise



I’ve decided to continue this blog as it seemed silly to me to stop with just including Israel since I am continuing to journey further into my own personal wonderland.

After some intense traveling the last 2 months, all around Israel, Turkey, Upstate New York, Houston, and San Antonio, I’ve finally unpacked my suitcase for a 3 month stay at Brook Farm. I will be completing a work/study there as an agriculture intern. I’ve completed two weeks so far, which I must say was not easy. I am putting some intense hours in each day, as I’ve been starting work at 7am to finish at 6pm, but my body is finally starting to toughen up to these new harsher conditions. And just in one week I’ve already started getting a handle and education in late summer/fall plantings. Brook Farm is a completely different type of farm compared to Hava V’Adam (the place I spent 5 months in Israel). Hava V’Adam is a small educational farm where we grew food basically for our own consumption and Brook Farm is a 5 acre, tractor plowed, CSA farm. On a CSA farm you really feel as if you are the keepers of the vegetables. CSA members prepay you before the season begins to grow and care for their food, so this is a very different practice and thought process being done here.

As an intern in exchange for my labor I receive lodging in the old farm house (my own bedroom and bathroom), all the fresh veggies, eggs, and meat I can eat, and a stipend. It’s a pretty great deal as I’m actually getting to further my education doubly while I am here. I will be listening on an ipod to lectures in my slow hours weeding because I’ve recently enrolled in a distance learning program through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. With this course work (which will be completed in 10 to 15 months) I will be become a certified (by the American Association of Drugless Practioners) holistic health counselor. Where by the end of my course I hope to work on or at CSA farm teaching workshops on healthy holistic lifestyles that will focus on an organic diet and nutrition.

As I’m at Brook Farm I will continue to update my blog to let everyone know how the vegetables are growing and hopefully share some new found wisdoms.


Jimmy Cricket in the bean patch

So the Time has come....

Well my program is officially over and I've been traveling around with EE. I'm obviously way behind in pics and posts but I will be trying to post mad crazy in the following days. So stay tuned!


Harvest time with the Ecos

Aliyah Ba’Regel

One new backpack, 25 kilometers, and 3 days later we completed one more field trip to Jerusalem but this time in the ancient tradition of aliyah ba’regel, which means to “go up by foot”. Two thousand years ago this was the tradition for the 3 major holidays Shavuot, Passover, and Sukkot, for all Jews to walk and arrive in Jerusalem and give a sacrifice to the temple on the day of the holiday. And this is just what we did. We started in Modi’in hiking through national parks, stopping by natural springs and having many mikvahs to arrive at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.



This was my first major hiking experience. Before this I had lots of experience in day hikes and camping but not a long trip where you carry all your food and water you need. I finally took the plunge and bought myself a brand new Gregory backpack. It is beautiful and fits me like a glove, def worth the money because it made the hike so much easier. I had a lot of weight on me carrying so much but I was able to accomplish the trip without any blisters and very minimal chaffage.





We hiked through some gorgeous parts of Israel; ancient trails that have been in use for thousands of years. We passed the oldest natural forest in Israel, mountains filled with deep dark caves, Arab towns, and many natural springs. One of the nights we slept by this natural spring under a mulberry tree that must have been 500 years old. It was a stunning location.



The most amazing part of this journey was the satisfaction I felt arriving in Jerusalem. Knowing now how capable my body is and the endurance I have makes me feel so alive. We hiked all the way into Jerusalem to the cotel. There we did a ceremony and a sacrifice in the ancient tradition. Our ceremony consisted of a meditation circle and blessing. Before the trip we harvested wheat from the field by our farm and ground it by hand. We made pita from it and offered it as our sacrifice as well as the remainder wheat we harvested. Having a beer and some watermelon finished off the ceremony. It was all so beautiful and magical. I really felt connected to old ways. I have been on this course since my arrival in Israel but I no longer feel like I am a Jew but I feel as though I am a Hebrew. Going back to the original laws and traditions our ancestors practiced here. I’ve wanted to write an entire blog entry about this transition and will do at some point soon.

Sorry

Hey everyone sorry for the delay in posts but many are to come shortly...they are all written I'm just waiting on the photos. Hope everyone is well. I just got back from an amazing field trip up north..details to come. Love ya, Flo


Me hoeing some weeds...lol

Paige and I's Dome Garden

My tomato bed just as baby seedlings

My roommate Paige and I prepared a massive garden around our dome about a month ago. It is broken into 4 sections, the largest being specifically for tomatoes and basil. In fact half of the tomatoes in that bed were volunteers from the compost pile (we need to work on our composting skills as all seeds should be dead before the compost is used) and the other half came from transplants that we found in the greenhouse. Now none of the tomatoes were labeled properly so the entire bed is a mystery. We know they are tomatoes but we have no idea what variety they are. They could be anything from yellow pears to big beefsteak tomatoes but soon we shall find out as the first of the tomatoes are producing fruit.

The other half of the garden is a mixture of flowers, tomatoes, and basil. There are sunflowers, cosmos, carnations, and basically anything we could find a seed for that would grow this time of the year.

J-Town

Last week we had our field trip to Jerusalem. Now you would think this would be a fun experience but ultimately it was depressing as hell. We covered the entire gamut of Jerusalem’s history…From 2,000 years ago to the present, and it is filled with sorrow, sadness and fighting. It's easy to forget all this when you go into the city and are just walking around the shouk, which I do frequently…I’m not in direct contact with the remnants of these wars. But even though this entire trip was depressing its still def worth sharing.


Our first day was spent having class over looking the Old City, going over the ancient history. This was all in preparation for our tour to the Wall. Now something I didn’t realize, this is why its important before visiting any art or artifacts to have some background info on it, because I have walked past the Southern temple wall half a dozen times never really fully understanding what its significance was. I knew it was ancient but that’s about it. Everyone knows the Western Wall. It has become an iconic symbol of Israel but it turns out the Southern and Eastern Walls are just as significant. All were the original walls surrounding the temple. The reason why so much press is given to the Western Wall is because it is a few meters closer to the actual temple mount. But after visiting both I think the Southern Wall and Eastern Wall are much more significant. These were the walls in ancient times that you would take your ritual bath, purchase your sacrifice, and enter the temple from. The great ancient staircases and mikvahs are still there. You can touch the same stones that our Hebrew ancestors touched. Feel the warmth and smoothness of the marble. It’s an absolutely beautiful thing. One that I felt a real connection with. You can just feel the energy pulsing from these spots. It’s still a sad energy like all the walls give off, but there is something more, something absolutely sacred. Unfortunately during the crusades the crusaders blocked off the entrances to the temple mount but today there is a different route to get to the temple mount.


The Southern Wall


Original stairs to the entrance of the temple

Now something else that I was completely unfamiliar with before this trip but the temple mount, the original location were Isaac was going to be sacrificed before God sent an angel down to stop it….That same spot is now covered by the Dome of the Rock, the location where Mohammed was launched into heaven on a white horse. After the second destruction of the temple, on Tish'a B'Av, the temple was not rebuilt, the spot was still sacred but Jerusalem went through many different ownerships as well as the Hebrews getting kicked out of Jerusalem by the Romans. During one of these various stints the Muslims built a sacred temple to Mohammed that stands today on top of the original spot of the Hebrew's sacred temple. Non-Muslims can still visit the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock only during specific hours allocated to them during the day. Hopefully soon I will be able to make one of these visits.



Dome of the Rock

The next day of the field trip was spent learning about the more recent Arab/Jew relationship. I’m not going to go into all the details and info here that I learned (it would just be way too much) but if anyone is interested I would be more than happy to share. I feel like I got a really unbiased and deeply informative session regarding the current problems facing the two groups.

We took a tour, which is offered by a politically neutral group, Irri'im. We traveled through East Jerusalem, the checkpoint gates, and the Jewish and Arab settlements. An Israel and Palestinian led this tour. The most significant part of this tour was driving through the town that the tractor terrorist lived. I feel like I have a full understanding of the animosity and hatred that has built up amongst the Jews and Arabs. Next was a meeting with a group called Combatants for Peace where we listened to stories from both an Israeli army man and a member of Fattah. We listened to their stories and were given a chance to fully pick their brains with questions.


The separation wall in Jerusalem



The wall...a few hundred meters from the Mount of Olives

The next day we went to Har Herzl, which is the military cemetery in Israel. It is one of the largest and is the burial place of many famous Israeli leaders, i.e. Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin. At this point in the tour I started feeling rather bad as a cold I had been trying to fight off was getting the better of me and an old bee sting was coming back to haunt me and causing my finger to swell up until it was unmovable. But I decided to put aside my physical ailments and focused on continuing the remainder of my day.

After Har Herzl and going through and listening to stories and heroic acts of dead soldiers we walked next door to Yad Vashem. This is the Holocaust museum in Israel, and like the first time I visited this place I could not contain the tears. It was a full day of sadness and death and my body gave up and I was fully sick after this.

So the next day I spent going to a natural healer, getting some clay for my finger to make a poultice to try and extract the poison built up there and slept my sickness away. I missed the remainder of my field trip and the hike in Sataf and the community gardening but I needed the rest to fully recover.

Culinary Classes

Me and Big Mamma



The couple of weeks leading up to the field trip we were having almost daily culinary classes learning to prepare and preserve the food that we are currently growing. We had a raw food class, where we learned how to make things from almond milk, flax seed crackers, fruit leathers, and raw beet salad. We had a French bread making class and a Pickle/Kraut class. I know now how to make pickles, kimchi, and sourkraut. They are pickling away in our kitchen as I type this.