Life Unplanned-- VICTORY Prayer Haikus #5

I've been writing haikus on Facebook every morning for years and have posted a variety on both my blogs, Shiloh Musings and this one. I label my haikus Morning Coffee Haikus, and you can use that title for searching. 

IMHO haikus are a fantastic writing medium, because of its restricting the writer to express a thought in just seventeen 17 syllables. Enjoy my haikus and try writing your own. Which is your favorite? Please let me know in the comments, thanks.

Passover countdown

adds to pressure during war

trying to stay sane

strange... seasons confused

raindrops greeted me at door

blessings, Gd willing

rainy dark morning

strange, cold pre-Pesach weather

still rain prayers, OK

Gd only saves us

when we follow His commands

We're not just puppets

can't lie, yes, worried

no peace without victory

next battles much worse

optimistic dawn

but sans VICTORY no peace

deals don't bring true PEACE

evil enemies

must be totally destroyed

deals total farces

war's far from over

Iran's a lot better armed

last spring we were conned

can't fall back to sleep

Iran bombed long before dawn

but thank Gd unharmed

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Orange Season, Now's The Time to Eat Them

Our tree's oranges are already bright orange

Perfect catch for "Orange" challenge, 52Frames

After almost a half a century in Israel, a unique country that is simultaneously agricultural/nature oriented and high tech, I religiously buy my fruit and some of the vegetables seasonally.

Years (decades) ago I read that fruits and vegetables are healthiest in the season they ripen. And as I remember the article stated that if you try to get around it, cheat, by eating imported fruit from a country in the opposite hemisphere, it won't have the same benefit.

Way back when, when one of my summer babies was a few weeks old, we got oranges very cheaply, so I ate a lot of them. Oranges are a winter fruit. Here in Israel I've learned not to buy them until a couple of weeks after the first rains, so they'll be sweet. The oranges were sweet, since they had been stored well. Suddenly I noticed that my baby had a terrible rash. None of older children had ever had a rash like that. Since the baby was fully nursing, I guessed that something I was eating must have been triggering the rash.

I experimented by cutting out oranges from my diet. Like magic the rash cleared!

In addition, we don't drink juices, even fresh juice. And I certainly don't drink orange juice. One of the last times I drank orange juice was a summer when visiting New York. I had orange juice in the break fast meal after the 25 hour fast of Tisha B'Av. I felt such awful burning in my mouth that since then I'm unable to have raw fruit when breaking a fast. But that's another story and the reason I try to make a good vegetable soup...

Season Change: Hot Coffee

I'm back to drinking my morning coffee hot. No more cold brew for the next few months or so from my French Press. I also deleted the nightly reminder on my cell phone/smartphone to remind me "Make Coffee."

back to hot coffee
no longer drink ice water
winter approaching
#morningcoffeehaiku

At the same time, I found myself drinking my water with lemon sans ice.

Nights are getting colder and longer. The water is coming out of the faucets much colder than just a couple of weeks ago.

I also set up the house's hot water boiler to go on for about an hour before we wake up. The very dusty solar panels aren't heating the water sufficiently anymore. Since it doesn't rain here in the summer, and I don't have anyone to climb on the roof to hose down the panels, it's just easier to use a bit of electricity. I just have to remember to turn off the automatic timer before Shabbat each week.

It's funny that the hot coffee, which didn't taste right a month ago, now tastes just perfect. I guess we, too, change with the seasons.

Mangos, Yum

Early yesterday morning, when I was in a Jerusalem supermarket looking for fruit to have with my goat yogurt for breakfast in Matan I noticed these mangos. I felt them, and they were soft, ripe, edible. To be perfectly honest there was something a bit suspicious about them. They seemed a bit too ripe, a bit too soft in some places and colorful to be fruit of the new season.

My guess is that they had been in cold storage over the winter, but I bought one anyway.  It tasted great!

Yes, We Israelis Get a Bissel Wacky Over Rain

I guess pretty much anyone with lots of Israeli friends on social media, Facebook, Instagram etc thought that some narcotic was raining down here in Israel. I'm not the only one who stood in the rain so my phone could "live feed" and show the world the black clouds, rain hail and thunder.

In Israel we barely get 5-6 months of rain per year, and we've been suffering from drought for years already. Rain starts around October, and in a "good year" we don't see sunshine for days on end. The last rain is usually early April, right before Passover. Some people swear that it always rains as soon as they wash their windows. Every few years it rains after Passover, and sometimes there are even storms. I remember one year when buckets of rain seemed to be violently poured on us from the sky.

Quite often those late rains are more like mud dripping. That's a pretty good description, because the rain sometimes ends those awful sandstorms. I learned the hard way that when the sky looks awfully yellow, it's not a good time to hang out the laundry, unless you are willing to wash it all over again. The weather is nothing like that in New York. How were we to know?

Yesterday's forecasts has said it would rain  around 10am in Jerusalem, so I didn't take my usual walk. Eventually I took a short walk, carrying my umbrella as backup. When I got home to Shiloh after three, it was still dry. But then I began to see rain posts on Facebook, as my friends sent out pictures and "live feed."

this is the color, I didn't make it black and white

The sky here began to get darker, and the clouds raced around. Usually I ignore the rain, once I'm safely at home, but I just had to send out my rain to the world. Isn't that what social media is all about? You can see more of my rain on Facebook and Instagram.

I guess all this "rain excitement" does seem crazy...

Just Peachy

The other day I was pleasantly surprised to find nice looking peaches at a decent price in Machane Yehuda, so I bought a few. Once I got home, I saw that they weren't 100% perfect, but they are exactly what I need for my breakfast.

Ginger "scrapings," apples, goat yogurt* and peaches are a great breakfast combination.

I guess summer really has arrived!

*In addition to the peaches, I found a nice supply of my favorite goat yogurt, the one from Susiya, in a grocery store on the same shuq street as the peaches.

Summer's Ending

There are just a few grapes left on the vines, and they're pretty sweet. Last sweet taste of summer.

The leaves are drying out, too.

And the days are getting shorter, the nights and early mornings are colder. I don't need the airconditioner on any more, and sometimes I turn off the fan.

At night I throw on a jacket when I go outside.

Yes, summer is coming to its inevitable end. We must plan for rain, Gd willing, and embrace it...

Sky Blue from Blue Skies

It doesn't rain in the summer here in Israel.  It's something we have to get used to.  The skies are beautiful, but the ground gets terribly dry.

 

Not a cloud in the sky.

And sometimes it's awfully dusty, which decreases the efficiency of the solar panels which we use to heat our water.  By the end of the summer, the water only gets hot if we've cleaned the solar panels and in recent years I don't have anyone around to do it for me..

But the sky is so beautiful...