Tuesday, November 29, 2016
After the biting "bise" wind, a ray of sunshine
This morning at 8:50 the first rays of some rare sunshine illuminated the roof of l'Arche, the main chapel of the Community of Grandchamp.
"L'Arche," French for "the ark," because it looks a bit like Noah's ark.
It was built several centuries ago, but not as a church, of course.
I'll get some close-ups soon and try to explain what it was used for.
Meanwhile, I just wanted to show you how welcome a little sun was today, because yesterday we had the infamous "bise" wind blowing for a whole night and day.
It was like frozen knives piercing us.
Never been so cold in my life!
It even made it into the newspaper:
http://www.thelocal.ch/20161129/temperatures-drop-as-bise-wind-hits-switzerland
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Friday, May 30, 2014
Paying for pears from Patagonia!?
Israel has long been a leader in agriculture, so I was quite shocked to see foreign fruit in the supermarket.
Look at these stickers!
The code for the apple I think is from somewhere in Europe.
And the big pear?
All the way from Argentina! "Fruits from Patagonia" the sticker says!
The prices are high and the taste (of the pears, at least) is low.
What's going on?
Then I remembered our snow storm last December.
And the four straight days of heavy rain and damaging winds.
So much agricultural produce was doomed then.
Now I read that our Ministry of Agriculture agreed to abolish customs duties on apples and pears, beginning last March, for the entire year of 2014.
Lettuce, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, and cucumbers also enjoyed several months of being duty-free this year.
If not this, our cost of living would have skyrocketed.
I hate buying fruits and vegetables at Meitar's supermarket because they have a monopoly and charge way too much.
Next week I'll take the bus in to Beer Sheva and see what the price situation is at the big shuk, the open air food market.
Someday, some year, our farmers might get the promised government compensation for the loss of their crops last winter.
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
Humidity now 10%
Here's the view from the supermarket, i.e. from the little Meitar commercial center that I showed yesterday.
A few houses at the foot of the hill and some off to the north and a little forest.
And then the desert.
The nights have recently become cooler; good sleeping temperatures.
Then the days warm up to the low 30s C (around 90 F).
But the last few days have been abnormally dry, like 10% humidity, in much of the country.
Hard on the nose.
I've got a pan of water simmering and some wet towels hung around the house to moisten the air and ease the breathing.
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(For SkyWatch Friday.)
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Saturday, September 21, 2013
Parched earth but promising clouds
Normally Israel has no rain for half a year, from spring to autumn.
Summer is hot and dry and very l o n g .
Now that I have moved south to Meitar maybe the blog should be known as Desert Daily Photo?
Today I saw real clouds over the Negev!
The wind at sunset was actually cool!
How exciting.
Some light rain even fell further to the north.
I am so ready for this change of season.
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
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Saturday, April 20, 2013
Clouds on the water, water in the clouds
The cafe behind the sculpture could be a nice place to sip coffee and watch the reflected clouds drift by.
The Israel Museum is very spread out and offers various little restaurants along the way.
I myself prefer sitting outside and eating a PB&J sandwich from home.
Israel is having cold, cloudy, even rainy days this week--unusual for April.
Yesterday the top of Mt. Hermon had 2 cm of SNOW.
(A post for Weekend Reflections.)
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Monday, April 1, 2013
Dust in the eyes, nose, lungs
Today, Monday, Israel is suffering through our worst dust storm in years.
Here's how the sun looked in the haze over the Jerusalem Hills today at 4:00 pm.
An article all about the Egyptian dust blowing in says this:
Throughout the day, the presence of small respirable particles from 10 microns in size proved to be very high, the Environment Ministry reported. . . ..
Short-term peak concentrations were much more astounding, with levels in the North reaching 30 to 40 times those of a clear day, 95 times in Jerusalem, 30 times in Beersheba and 36 times in the southern coastal plain areas of Ashkelon and Yavne . . .
What a strange Passover.
First we had (and have) the plague of locusts (also coming up from Egypt) and now what looks like a plague of darkness.
What will be next?!
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UPDATE: The skies cleared on Tuesday and life is easier. We learn to be grateful for our normally blue skies.
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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Thursday, January 3, 2013
Jerusalem Municipality
The sky was a deep blue this morning over City Hall in Safra Square.
Not a cloud in the sky all day today.
But all that is about to change starting Saturday, as a new weather system heads our way.
Meteorologists predict extremely strong winds, cold days of maybe only 3 degrees C, and lots of rain and even hail for the next week.
Winter is finally coming!
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday and Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Friday, March 2, 2012
Dust storms, flash floods, rain, and snow
Hello--I'm back!
We have been four days at over 400 meters below sea level.
My Naomi flew in from Australia and I got to take care of her little one while Naomi lectured and attended an engineering conference, all at a big hotel at Ein Bokek on the Dead Sea shore.
Yesterday we started the drive home, passing this little airstrip (enlarge to see the planes).
Across the sea (which you could hardly see), the sky was black and the Kingdom of Jordan was being treated to a rare snowfall.
The road is between the Dead Sea on the east and tall cliffs on the west.
Eighteen normally dry riverbeds emerge from between these mountains.
When hard rain falls in Jerusalem or the Hebron Hills, the water collects in one or two or three of these wadis (you never know which it will be) and can suddenly come gushing out from the canyons under the little bridges built over the Dead Sea road.
But more often the flash floods rush over, not just under, the bridges.
The cars in front of us made it across just in time.
Naomi looked at the pole with potential depth markings of 0.5 meter, 1.0, and 1.5 meters, looked at our little toddler in the baby seat, and quickly (and wisely) turned the car in the opposite direction.
Luckily we did not encounter another flash flood; otherwise we would have been trapped in between two of them.
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The evaporating ponds where they mine potash and minerals from the Dead Sea water became visible way below, under a dramatic sky.
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What an adventure! It was our first time to see this powerful natural phenomenon with our own eyes.
Today, Friday, it snowed in Jerusalem. And even in my village for a few minutes.
March is acting like real winter.
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A post for SkyWatch Friday, of course!
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Thursday, February 16, 2012
Jerusalem's first snow since 2008 coming?
But that was the last we saw of blue skies this week.
The good news is that Jerusalem might have SNOW on Saturday!
The weather forecasters say snow may fall on peaks higher than 700 meters.
Too bad the hill of my village is a bit lower than that.
Jerusalem Municipality has fifty salt spreaders and bulldozers at the ready.
Buses do not work on Shabbat and religious Jews do not drive their cars; not much traffic.
So Saturday snow sounds perfect!
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Happy SkyWatch Friday wherever you are.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Ear- and earth-shattering thunder
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It is said that on this day, Good Friday, Jesus agonized on the cross for six hours and during his last three hours, from noon to 3 p.m., darkness fell over the whole land.
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Well, just before noon today the sky over Jerusalem and my village turned black.
For just a few minutes big tear-like drops fell from the heavens.
And then--a clap of thunder like I have never ever heard, its first part a shrill screech like a bomb falling and then a huge boom, right over my head!!
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"And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, . . . the earth shook and the rocks were split . . ."
So says Matthew 27:50-51.
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It is finished.
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Here is the tapestry icon of the Epitaphios ("winding sheet" or shroud) from the previous post.
It hangs in the Greek Orthodox Catholicon, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
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Has anything strange happened in your world this Good Friday?
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UPDATE 2018: See more about the Epitaphios here:
https://russianicons.wordpress.com/2018/02/25/two-plashchanitsa-inscriptions/
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Lady in white, welcome!
Monday, December 13, 2010
Wild weather in the Middle East
"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
. . . "
The events in Israel over the past twelve days sometimes made me think of Robert Frost's poem. A few days after our forest fire inferno, winter suddenly struck the country with snow, rain, gale force winds, and a sandstorm.
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The photo, albeit from December 2008, shows how weird and dark the sun gets over Jerusalem during a duststorm.
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From Friday until today I shut myself into the house, but still the fine particles entered.
They entered my eyes and nose and throat. Oi .
Jerusalem suffered with ten times the "legal" amount of air pollution until this morning when some rain washed our air.
Ahh, so nice to breathe again.
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The 9-meter waves battered the Mediterranean coast and did great damage.
A Turkish ship sank 8 miles from Ashdod Port, with all crew members rescued.
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Everything that could blow over did so. Huge damage to agriculture. And the hothouse flowers meant for Europe's Christmas markets.
Thousands of trees down. On people inside their cars, and on electric wires. Thousands of residents are still without electricity.
Trees on the railroad tracks stopped the trains. No visibility closed airports for a while. The waves were too dangerous for ships to dock. Winds gusting to 110 km/h were too much for cars on the highways.
Flooding of streets and houses.
Schools were closed in the northern Golan Heights due to snow.
Mt. Hermon already has 120 cm of snow.
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Land mines from previous wars in the Golan Heights have washed down or shifted positions.
Future hikers are warned to stay on marked trails.
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The homeless (2000 known to the welfare authorities and ~ 1000 not known) are being offered shelter and hot meals and showers to save them from the freezing cold.
Jerusalem, the coldest city, is down to 7-8 degrees C (about 45 F).
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But our neighbors are also suffering. We are all in this together!
The low pressure zone and SW winds blew sand from Egypt and wild weather into Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. In Egypt 18 are dead from the storm.
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May we all make it through this latest trial, and soon.
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Such is our world in the Middle East, these last few days, for That's My World Tuesday.
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Saturday, December 11, 2010
Dressed for winter
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But my grandson's layers of warm clothes show how it starts to feel again here near Jerusalem.
My radiator on wheels is now ON!
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Today is our first real winter day, with strong winds, cold, and a little rain (only 1 mm in Jerusalem in 24 hours).
Strangely enough, it also looks like a dust storm. The day is yellow and Jerusalem over on the horizon is not visible. The dust is painful to the eyes and throat.
Like we've forgotten how to do winter.
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(The shadows of my shutters are for Hey Harriet's Shadow Shot Sunday.)
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Friday, October 1, 2010
That drooping feeling
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Here it is October already and we are still sweating through temps of 36 C (almost 97 F) with 15% humidity today and tomorrow.
And that's in high-altitude Jerusalem where it is cooler than other Israeli cities.
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Even one of the Sabbath candles at a nearby friend's house was drooping.
I know how that candle feels.
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Shabbat shalom. Take it easy.
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Saturday, August 7, 2010
Heat loss
Instead of showing the usual JHDP's cute cats, today I give you our hard reality for Camera-Critters Sunday.
But this summer has been abnormally hot.
And this last week has been brutally hot.
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The farm animals are suffering just like the rest of us.
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