It’s finally beginning to feel like autumn here!! Nights are cold and we’ve been getting lots of rain this week, the earth is beginning to smell alive and the hills are slowly sprouting flowers and vines and weeds. It’s hard ot believe that it’s almost Halloween, though – we might try to throw together a Halloween party, but we’re likely all going to dress up like farmers …
Right now I’m at Itzik’s house in Reut – he’s the guy who founded our farm, and we’ve been harvesting olives from the trees in a park near his house. Harvesting of particular foods is so valued here, there is a different word for each kind of harvest – olive harvest is called massik. We’ve been harvesting olives of all descriptions (I didn’t know they came in so many varieties!) – green olives, black, purple, speckled, blue, large, small, round, oblong, dimpled … it’s endless. We’ll take the olives today or tomorrow to an olive press housed at a Franciscan monestary nearby – we’re excited to see how our oil turns out! This morning we picked about 100 kilos of olives, which should produce about 10 gallons of oil, depending on the oil content of the fruits.
I had the most upliftingly woderful weekend a few days ago – I mailed off my absentee ballot (which cost 75 shequels!!! (about 20 bucks)), bought lots of yarn for new knitting projetcs, swam in the sea, and spent all day with new friends. We cooked lots of amazing food, played with teeny-tiny kittens and a puppy (one woman rescues kittens, and she had several days-old and week-old kittens she was taking care of), watched movies andate ice cream. It was great, especially because all of the women were gay, and it was so comfortable to be with them, since I’ve been made to feel like such an alien almost everywhere else in Israel.
Next week all of us on the program are going on a week-long field trip to the North, where we’ll see lots of great sustainability projects – very exciting.
Love! And happy Halloween!
Ele
