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.

Pesach Break

In Israel spring break for schools is squeezed together at the same time as Passover. These breaks can range from a week to a month for some. I got ten days.

The first days I spent heading down to Rechovot with Paige, Scott, and Brett to a friend’s home to have Passover Seder. This was an unusual Seder for me for two reasons: one it was all in Hebrew and two was the fact that my friend is Yemenite so we all partook in a Yemenite Seder. The big difference between this Yemenite Seder and the traditional American Seder is the food. We didn’t have your traditional gefilte fish, chicken soup, matzo balls, choroset, and wine. Instead it was mousaka, grape juice, etc.

This was a large 34 people and multigenerational group. But they did a great job of making us feel at home and incorporating English when they could. Some of the prayers were said in Arabic. They do this because back in the day in Yemen women weren’t aloud to attend school and didn’t know Hebrew, they only spoke Arabic, and it became traditional for parts of the Seder to be in Arabic so the women could understand.
The next day after the Seder I went back to the farm so I could do my watering chore. Over the break we all signed up for specific days to water so our newly seeded beds would grow. Once watering was over which took like 3 plus hours as we don’t have drip tape for most of the beds yet. (We are trying for more but we have to wait until budget issues are taken care of. Because we do not have the drip tape (drip irrigation lines) we have to hand water everything with a hose. Normally this chore is broken up amongst three or four but it was just Renaya and I this time.) But once we were done with our chore it was off to Tel Aviv by train to meet up with Beth and then head down by a direct bus to Eilat for a couple of days in the sun.

The bus ride to Eilat is about 5 hours. It’s really long but thankfully the bus makes 10 minute stops at rest stations twice along the way. Once we were in Eilat we found our hostel put our stuff down and went out to explore the city.
Eilat is designed and laid out along the Red Sea. On the other side of the cove you can see Jordan as the Red Sea is one long inlet from the Ocean. The Shouk and most hotels huddle around the edge of the beach. Walking around it was very crowded almost NY Chinatown crowded, as Eilat is a favorite destination of Israeli’s during Pesach Break. It reminds me of Las Vegas but on the ocean.


The Red Sea

We ended up going to Giraffe, an Asian fusion restaurant in Israel, for dinner the first night and then sitting by the water’s edge talking. The next two days were spent lounging by the beach. We found a great spot, not to crowded, and located within throwing distance from the juice bar, crepe stand, and grocery store. These beach days were fabulous. It was hot but the water was crisp and immediately cooled us off when we dipped in. We spent many hours hanging out, talking, reading, and walking around browsing in the shouk along the beach. It was a great time of relaxation, surround by beautiful clear blue green water.




Working on getting rid of my Farmer's tan

Being in Eilat was a little difficult because it was Pesach break and lots of places are closed for the holiday. And even though it is Israel there weren’t that many food options since I was not eating bread. They have Pesach bread, which supposedly is ok to eat during this time but it felt like cheating to me so I stuck to my Matzo, Tzchoug, and cheese for most of my meals.

Another thing I forgot to mention about Pesach in Israel is the cleaning of the Hametz before. People go a little nuts here, wrapping things in plastic, using blowtorches to sear pots, and intense cleaning of houses and kitchens. I’ve never experienced anything like it. But watching all these different people going through these rituals of getting rid of any bread particles in their home has given me a new appreciation for bread.

By that Sunday we were ready to leave Eilat. I made a brief stop back to the farm to change out my clothes for warmer ones as my next destination was north and the weather is completely different from the Southern tip. In the north it is still very much early spring with cold rain showers. Flowers are just beginning to bloom, the irises coming up. The climate and landscape could be compared to northern California or the mountains in Colorado.

The first couple of days up north I stayed on a friend’s kibbutz as they had an extra yurt. A yurt is similar to my dome as it’s a geometric structure. But these yurts are a bit nicer than my dome because they have insulation and their own personal kitchen built on the outside. During those days when the rains would let up I did a bit of hiking up and around the mountains in the area. There are tons of pockets where there are springs, wells, and caves that have been used by people for thousands of years and I did some exploring in and around these.

That Wednesday I went down to Sfat, to break my Passover that night I had some yummy pizza. The next day walked all around, toured the Shouk there, which has lots of galleries and Judaica. Sfat is a really old city around 800 years. There is amazing architecture here. Influences of the different cultures that have lived in Israel over the years…Turks, Arab, Hebrew. It’s also a very religious city as it’s the center for Kabbalah.



A large group of us went hiking for an afternoon along the Israel trail. The same trail the Walk-About-Love is traveling on. It is such a beautiful part of Israel up in the mountains surrounded with pine forests.

That Friday on our way south we stopped at this beautiful beach about 20 km north of Tel Aviv. It was so beautiful with tall cliffs bordering the ocean. We spent a few hours there enjoying the sun after spending so much time in the rain and cold up north. Then continued south toward Tel Aviv for Shabbat. I haven’t talked much about religion in my blogging because it’s such a large topic I haven’t had the energy to delve into it yet. But I want to just say a few things quickly.

In Israel the majority of the population is Jewish but not everyone is religious. In fact it’s broken up pretty evenly betwen secular and religious. But during holidays and weekly Shabbat, public transportation, shops, basically everything public shuts down. These closers forces everyone to prepare for these days whether you observe them or not. For instance you must buy food and wine before if you’re going to want them because all the stores close and the only things that are open are a few kiosks owned by Israeli Arabs. And the kiosks are very minimally stocked, no refrigerated goods. It’s funny how dependent Israeli’s have become on other cultures that aren’t observant of the religious days. The only way to travel on these days is if you have your own car, can hitchhike with someone, or take a communal taxi that is run by an Arab. If I’m trying to travel I usually take the taxis when I can.

Since I’ve come to Israel I’ve been celebrating Shabbat every week, whether it’s a big dinner with songs or a small moment with the blessing over the wine. It’s become a day for me to rest and to let the world around me rest. People get so caught up in their day-to-day lives it’s really nice to have a scheduled time every week to just step away for a moment or a day and focus on my needs and myself. To not worry about chores or work; to do things that I enjoy like cooking, reading, writing, and hanging out.

So once in Tel Aviv we went to a friend’s place to have Shabbat dinner. Then the next day went for a walk around the city and to the beach. It was really crowded but a beautiful sunny day. And then Sunday it was back to the farm for the start of work and school again.

I can finally read Hebrew!

When I fist arrived in Israel one of the immediate goals I set for myself was to learn how to read Hebrew. And so within three weeks with the help of my Hebrew class, my fellow Ecos, and the assistance of many others I learned my alphabet, script and block letters. It was def a struggle trying to memorize new letters, a style of writing, and sounds but I am now a proficient reader of Hebrew. It was so frustrating the first month here not being able to read signs and product labels. But I’ve become so comfortable with my Hebrew reading abilities now that I prefer to spell all my Hebrew specific words with Hebrew letters and not in the English phonetic version. Now my goal is to learn as much vocabulary as possible so I can not only ask questions in Hebrew but understand the answers.

Gardens are a Growin’

The Big Dome with tons of flowers

So we just finished up doing our massive summer planting in and around Domeville. From the fields to our personal beds around our domes we planted tepary beans, pigeon pea, blacked peas, green beans, Cherokee purple tomatoes, money maker tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, sweet basil, purple basil, watermelon, cantaloupe, corn, sunflowers, millet, amaranth pumpkins, winter squash, cucumber, zucchini, and many more....


The freshly planted fields


The spiral herb garden I helped plant....A very important design in Permaculture to help with watering