What a Difference a Week Makes

When I walked out after my "senior citizens" fun activities in the shelter nearby I noticed that the almond tree had lots more flowers than last week. 

As you can see, the tree still isn't full, but no other nearby tree can compete. This is the earliest blooming almond tree in the neighborhood. Generally there are almond blossoms in the middle of the Jewish Month of Shvat which was last week.  And last week it took a lot of imagination to imagine a flower-filled shekaidiah, almond tree. Nearby trees don't even seem as full as this one was last week.  I'll keep you posted.

When we lived in Bayit Vegan, there was a big old almond tree right next to our building. We could see it from our apartment. Every year the preschools would come and gather underneath to sing:
השקדיה פורחת
Hashkediya Porachat
The Almond Tree is Blooming

Picnic Lunch, Eating Creatively

One day last week I went to Jerusalem without packing a lunch nor wanting to eat/buy restaurant food.  I did take a cucumber and mushroom all washed and ready to be eaten with some cottage cheese. Now, I've done the cottage cheese meal before. Every supermarket or even small grocery store offers a "free spoon" if you ask, and that was my plan.

Somehow, I, davka, ended up in a supermarket that had run out of these free spoons. By the time I had discovered that, I had already paid for my cheese and figured I'd somehow manage, which I did.




As you can see, I used the veggies to scoop out the cheese and had a lovely meal in the little park by Safra Square, the Jerusalem Municipality.  I enjoyed watching the trains go by and admired the late winter greenery. It was a nice change of pace for me, and the weather was perfect. It felt like spring, though the trees were still bare. The weather forecast for this week is a return of winter, so I'm glad I had that opportunity to picnic creatively.

Mid-Winter Beauty

We're now in the Jewish Month of Sh'vat or Shevat or however you want to spell it. There should be another two months plus of rain, G-d willing. So far we've had a decent amount of rain and even some snow.

Here are a few photos I've taken the past few weeks around Shiloh and traveling to Jerusalem. You can see the rich vegetation and glorious colors in the sky at dawn. In Israel we only get winter rains, so we do need a wet one.

the "early" shkaidia, almond tree in bloom

around the neighborhood

Here are a few late winter scenes in my Shiloh neighborhood.