Observations about life in Israel from a Canadian immigrant's perspective.
A flatbed truck offloaded a hydraulic drill behind our property. It shuffled into position, cranked its beak high, then pounded the rocky ground with force, shattering boulders and all else that had sat silently beneath the earth’s crust for millennia. Boom. Boom. Then boom. Deep holes were dug and metal foundations were inserted, man marking… Continue reading “Grow, Grow”
Sometimes I feel like I am losing the plot. Be it my garden plot, the Israel plot, and the state of the world plot, nothing makes sense. And with no solution in sight, I am resigned to an interminable hope that peace will come. Someday. Somehow. These are the times that drive me into my… Continue reading Sisyphean Gardening
Come spring, our food forest is flourishing. Delicate, fragrant blossoms from March have since transformed, gifting us with tiny apples, apricots, almonds, plums, and juicy mulberries. Because the Torah halacha of orla proscribes no eating of the fruit for the first three years of a tree’s planting, we look at this fruit with great anticipation… Continue reading The Barn Swallows’ Picnic Lunch
It has been an active month in the food forest-to-be. Yuval, our food forest expert, calls this the infrastructure phase. I call this a mess. This work looks more like highway construction than forest development. A large bulldozer was joined by a small bulldozer and together, they gathered large rocks onsite to create terraces for the… Continue reading Our construction site
For those who love gardening, this shmita year seemed interminable. With Rosh Hashana now over, we can finally plant again in Israel! Not being able to do something I love for a year has fortified my patience. It forced me to sit back, research, and dream. Now, finally being outside and working on fulfilling those plans… Continue reading Our journey begins!
The quadruplets“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” As I walk across the land we recently bought, Joni Mitchell’s lyrics echo in my mind. This land is empty, save for jutting rocks and boulders. The gravelly, dry, and dusty ground crunches below my feet. A few hardy weeds grow in clumps, clinging on for… Continue reading They Paved Paradise
A food forest in Israel.With a June birthday, I have officially entered into a new decade. This decade felt more ominous when it was looming ahead; but now that I have arrived, waking up feeling exactly the same as in the previous decade, it is not so bad. I have arrived, determined not to ‘go there’… Continue reading A Farmer in the Dell
Life in Israel 