Author: Ira

A whole year hiatus: isn’t that what shmittah, the sabbatical year that the Land takes religiously, hunkering down under a thick blanket of weeds with a big “do not disturb” sign stubbornly barring you from coming in to clean things up, is all about? It took a lot of willpower for farmers in Israel to stand outside of that closed door, pruning shears in hand, counting down to Rosh HaShana and the first opportunity to barge in and tackle a year’s worth of tasks. In short: there was nothing to write about except our impatience, and no one wants to read about that. 

And barge in we did, with a fury. There is SO much to take on after a lengthy period of sitting on your hands, it’s hard to keep track. Disorder is the farmer’s enemy, and it’s nice to breathe again and get down to work. Here is a rundown of what’s been happening over the past month, ever since the new year has freed us to work the land once again.

Ira did a massive, down to the very bare-bones pruning of the olive trees before shmittah. Because we did not interfere at all this past year, the chazirim (suckers) pretty much swallowed up the trees and sucked nutrients away from the three main branches. So as soon as we could, we got to work on cutting the shoots down. Hopefully the rainy season will rejuvenate the trees. (We’re not doing a masik [oil press] this year, because heavily-pruned trees take a few years to regain their strength, and the oil from this year’s press would be kedushat shevi’it oil, making it very difficult to handle from a kashrut perspective.)

What started as a very modest flock has boomed into over two hundred fowl. The flock grows exponentially, and we’ve added some dogs to make sure that mongoose and other predators keep a wide berth. We’re regularly consuming all of this free-range goodness. Tonight’s Shabbat dinner, for instance, is turkey meatballs (made with our turkey and eggs), and soup made with stock from our chickens.

This year, we’ve sown over the field and planted tiltan (clover). Clover is nitrogen-fixing, meaning it draws atmospheric nitrogen into the roots. There’s no need for fertilizer or pesticides. This will hopefully help the earth regenerate and build up a thicker humus (not the stuff you sop up with a pita, but the term for the verdant top layer of soil that’s thick with nutrients from carbon decay).

Foraging is fun, but competitive, especially up here where many people are competing for the same resources. So Ira harvested wild blackberries and asparagus seeds to germinate. We’re hoping to bring some of that wild goodness into our garden as more luscious food sources. Why forage when you can grow yourself?

Now for Ira’s latest baby, the black soldier fly larvae system. What follows probably needs a trigger warning for “yuck.” I remember sitting in Paul Rozin’s Psych 101 class in Penn (way to go, core curriculum!) when he lectured on disgust, his speciality. He showed a video of a dead cockroach being slowly dragged along a plate of mashed potatoes. He then showed a video of a live cockroach scampering on top of the same plate. Both are gross, as is the subject of these next few paragraphs: Black Soldier Fly Larvae and You. 

This past month, Ira has been delving deep into the dark world of breeding black soldier flies. Anyone who lives in Sde Ilan, or has visited, would wonder why he seems to be bringing coals to Newcastle. Our moshav has a real fly problem, since most of the farms raise dairy or beef cows in confinement and the manure piles are prime fly breeding grounds. Why introduce more flies?

Well, you clearly haven’t met the wonderful critters called Black Soldier Flies. First of all, as larvae, they make the most nutritious, free, high-quality feed for all of our poultry. Secondly, the growing larvae plow through all of our kitchen scraps, transforming all of that organic matter into quality feed. It’s an efficient system that solves problems and produces free solutions: highest quality nutrient dense free chicken feed, and efficient use of kitchen waste. Thirdly, there’s the strange and wonderful benefit to us that the larvae busily munching on the organic waste repel those nasty flies that are the bane of our existence (scientists aren’t sure why — they think it might have something to do with a smell, undetectable by humans, that the larvae might be emitting). Fourthly, the black soldier flies drawn to the kitchen scraps are averse to humans, and aren’t vectors for disease. They live only 3-5 days as “adult flies,” and as flies they don’t eat food, only drink water.

This is how it works: adult black solider flies are attracted to the smell of organic waste. They lay their eggs on or above the waste, inside of a box that we are regularly filling with our kitchen scraps.

The eggs hatch in a few days into a couple thousand baby larvae. the larvae grow extremely rapidly over the next few weeks, eating approximately double their weight daily. At that point, they have a natural instinct to climb out of the waste to find a nice patch to pupate (which means to burrow themselves into dirt, where they’ll metamorphise into flies). But no! We have hungry chickens to feed. So instead, Ira’s taken advantage of their climbing instinct, and built a ramp in the bin which empties into a bucket.

And into that bucket fall all of the mature larvae, ready to be carted over to the chickens. Isn’t that a wonderfully efficient and elegant use of resources?

Finally, we’re waiting on the ishurim (permits) for the large aquaponics greenhouse (for more on aquaponics, read this older post.) Ira had built a small, experimental version years ago to work out the kinks, but now it’s time to scale up. (And P.S, the BSF larvae also make the perfect fish food for that system!) Once we get it up and running, it’ll be time for another blog post!

We really should have counted (for statistical accuracy), but we’ll round off the number of housing inquiries that we’ve received over the last three years to around 40+. These are by folks who are considering moving to the North, either as a permanent life change, as an aliyah destination or — and this is the majority — by those looking to buy a vacation home for themselves and their extended families. People want to know what’s involved. Is there land for sale for development? What are different communities like? Are there any English speakers so that I can feel comfortable? I want a cow and a few chickens; can I do that on a yishuv? (Spoiler: we have no idea about the livestock.) 

 

We love these kind of questions, but since at the moment we’re fielding around two of these types of inquiries a month and spending a lot of time with people reviewing the same basic information, we decided to write a post that will serve as a reference for those who are exploring their options. Consider this the most unscientific, probably inaccurate, highly anecdotal, totally unprofessional starting point for your search, written by two people who do not have RE licenses and whose only weak claim to authority on these matters is that we bought a farm in the Galil (as our permanent residence) and have done the research (and legwork) involved.  

 

On that reassuring note, let’s dive in!

 

(But first, two more qualifying points: Firstly this article is mostly about properties that have a nice chunk of land, either with or without a house. Almost all of the people phoning us are looking for a property that is at least a dunam. A dunam is 1000sq meters, about a quarter of an acre. Most people who “dream North” envision a vacation property or primary residence that is at least a dunam. Though there is a great deal to achieve with less than a dunam in terms of gorgeous landscaping, breathtaking views and communal feel, this article is mostly focusing on availability of properties that are at least a dunam. Secondly, this article deals with communities that have a religious element, as nearly everyone who has contacted us sees this as essential.)

 

Let’s break down the most popular inquiry: We’d like a vacation property where we don’t have to establish permanent residence and is large enough for our extended family/is private/has a pastoral setting/with great views/and pool/is at least a dunam/clocks in at under 4 million shekel/has an active synagogue. Does such a thing exist?

Well…maybe. We haven’t found that unicorn, but it might just be elusive and hiding somewhere. The name of the game is flexibility: the wider you can cast your net, the more fish you’ll have to choose from. We can start with the most basic issue: can you find a vacation property in the north where you don’t need to establish permanent residency?

 

To answer that, let’s review your community options:

1. City — You can definitely buy a pied a terre in cities throughout the north, and you’re free to visit or live in your property as you please. You might even find a house or empty lot in a city which is larger than half a dunam, but finding a dunam+ lot in a city is very rare.
2. Yishuv — These are communities (some are even small towns) with private homes, mostly ¼-½ dunam lots, all kinds of cottages and duplexes, etc. Usually well-planned and maintained, many with gorgeous views that give a sense of privacy and serenity from your backyard (depends of course on where they are situated in the yishuv). Not an option for those who aren’t interested in establishing residency as many have acceptance committees that will turn down applicants who aren’t planning on moving to the yishuv. (Larger yishuvim — over 350 families — might not have acceptance committees. In that case, it might be doable to buy a property that you plan on using as a vacation home.) Some yishuvim also insist on a trial period of living in the yishuv before buying a lot to build on (like Mitzpeh Netofah). An added wrinkle is that there is often a dearth of housing options. Some examples of northern dati yishuvim are Moreshet (small), Bet Rimon (small), Hoshaya (large), Hispin (also large). For those who want a suburban, pastoral, community-oriented life with gorgeous views and who don’t require sprawling, private lots, and who are looking to establish residence, these communities are wonderful. Highly sought-after for good reason. 
3. Kibbutz — Many kibbutzim have harchavot (new extensions) with ⅓-½ dunam lots. It’s like living on a yishuv. 
4. Moshav — Moshavim are a mixed bag of residential options, but we have yet to hear of one that is dati or meurav (mixed dati-masorati-hiloni) that doesn’t have an acceptance committee that will require you to establish permanent residence. There are some hiloni moshavim that do not have acceptance committees, so there might be wiggle room there to buy a vacation property.  A moshav is a community where you can get a large piece of land. This can either be a meshek (also known as nahala), or a meshek ezer. A meshek is divided into at least two different zones: you’ll have a few dunam on which to build residential structures (houses, zimmerim, pool), and the rest will be agricultural land. For example, on our moshav, the helkat megurim is around 2.5 dunam, and the rest of the meshek (50 dunam) is for agricultural use only. It’s important to note that on most moshavim, the agricultural land is not adjacent to your residential plot, or at least most of it isn’t. (Some exceptions that come to mind are Sde Ilan [where we live] and Sde Yaakov.) 

A meshek ezer is a plot that had been designated for non-farmers, such as the local teacher, butcher or rabbi. These are smaller lots, maybe up to 3 dunam. Additionally, many moshavim have harchavot of ⅓-½ dunam lots, just like on yishuvim. 

Moshavim were created in response to kibbutzim to allow for private farms while maintaining a collective economy. Nowadays, that means that all farm owners can do whatever they’d like on their own farms, while simultaneously sharing in a collective of the rest of the moshav’s holdings. This means that if you purchase a meshek,  you have “bought in” to the moshav, and therefore most (if not all) moshavim have really strict regulations about who can buy a meshek. For example, in Sde Ilan, a family that wants to buy a meshek must first live on the moshav for a period of half a year, and only then will the agudat hakhakla’im (farmers’ collective) vote them in, thereby legally allowing them to purchase their meshek. Note that this is not the case for someone who wishes to purchase a meshek ezer or home in a harchava — such buyers need only pass the acceptance committee. 

Tachlis: while a moshav seems like the best option for someone who wants an estate or lots of land on which to build private homes, the strict regulations on dati moshavim that require permanent residence make this an unlikely choice for those who want vacation homes.

5  Moshava — A moshava is a generic term for a settlement that predates the founding of the State and is not classified as a kibbutz, moshav or yishuv. Many moshavot have privately owned land, meaning that the land is not leased through the minhal (Israel Lands Authority), and so the lots are not tightly controlled and there is no acceptance committee to oversee residential requirements. Here you have an opportunity to buy a vacation home on an oversize lot. Some moshavot up north are Yavneel, Migdal, and Bat Shlomo. There are others that are much larger, such as Rosh Pina and Kfar Tavor, where you might find large plots of a dunam or more. 

 

In sum: your best bet for finding a large rural vacation property in a northern community is to look at the moshavot or in moshavim that do not have permanent residence requirements. 

 

Listed below are parameters that some folks view as essentials, and others consider as nice bonuses. The fewer parameters you require, the more likely you are to find a dream property:

• A very large property (over ½ dunam)
• Easy access to major roads; easy access to the center of the country and airport
• In close proximity to cities or towns with adequate shopping, health facilities, recreational facilities
• Other Anglo or English-speaking residents
• Local active synagogue; daily and/or Shabbat services
• Zoning for pool
• Privacy with few neighbors
• Property with beautiful views
• Under 4 million shekel including all taxes, fees, necessary renovations

 

So here are our suggestions for starting your search (this is how we did it):

 

• First, understand the heavy limitations involved. There are very few properties that are available as rural vacation homes, so patience is key when hunting for unicorns. 

 

• Second, try for as much flexibility as you can. Can you manage without a Shabbat minyan? Can you find happiness with a Golan property that is much further “afield?” Identify your red lines and budget. 

 

• Third, start scouring yad2. You can filter your search to suit exactly what type of property you’re looking for (location, size, price, etc). Don’t give up: unicorns are elusive, but there’s always hope that you’ll spot one. 

 

•  Fourth, if you find a few properties that seem viable, call the vaad mekomi (local committee) and learn more about that community’s residential policies. Additionally,  here’s a link to a very helpful resource to learn more about northern communities.

 

• Fifth, come up on a scouting trip(s) to get a better grasp of the lay of the land, of specific properties/lots and communities — to get a feel for the place and see if you can envision yourselves living there or owning a vacation property there. 

 

• Sixth, if you’ve started to get excited about a specific location, spend some Shabbatot in the community before pulling the trigger. Meet the locals, hear their stories, learn more about the community from the ground-up. 

 

• Seventh, if you’ve reached at least step four and want more detailed information about what’s involved in purchasing a meshek/nahalah, we’re more than happy to help by sharing our experience. We’re also super happy to talk with those interested in learning more about life in the Lower Galilee. Feel free to reach out via email or whatsapp. 

 

If you see any inaccuracies (or plain-out errors) in this article, please bring them to our attention and we’ll edit accordingly. Wishing you much hatzlacha in your search!

Sde Ilan is as quiet a place as you’ll ever find. There are far more livestock than there are residents. The most “happening” day on the moshav calendar is the Shavuot/Bikkurim festival where all the newest babies born in the past year are paraded around in a tractor. The old men will sometimes sit with their Circassian friends over the best coffee in the world and a promising afternoon of shesh-besh. And the narrow country road that winds its way here — the one where even the most hardboiled sabra who doesn’t know West Virginia from Manhattan rolls along, windows down, with John Denver belting out Country Roads—  is the most boring, quiet, country road of all.

Until today.

A car from neighboring HaZor’im (where you have to be REALLY devoted to land and kin, because to live there is to live in the hellish heat of the Yavne’el Valley) rushes into Sde Ilan a few hours ago, front windshield smashed. His car had been pelted with stones around 50 meters shy of the turnoff to Sde Ilan. The security committee had decided this morning to close our gates for now, until the “matzav” dies down, but of course he was let in and told his story.

It’s a story I just heard last Shabbat from my neighbor Yehuda, who was one year old when his parents pitched a tent on these fields along with a dozen other determined young couples. We were sitting over herring and chummus, and he was telling us of his parents’ journeys back and forth to Tiveria from their training farm (just about a mile from those tents they’d eventually pitch). It was April 1948, and his mother were forced into detours off this road to make it down to the Scottish maternity hospital in time for his birth. (His father would learn that Yehuda entered the world via morse code, signaling that he best hurry down to meet his son. From somewhere, a miracle — he procured a package of petit-beurre biscuits and a bottle of juice, and though the mohel had fled because of the Arab uprising, he found another one a few days later, and they were able to celebrate their sabra in true pre-State style. But I digress.)

These roads stopped being dangerous by summer 1948. That’s when Shibli surrendered and Lubia (right by Kibbutz Lavi) was conquered. But last night, this happened on the road, with a new generation of Shibli youths waving their Hamas green flags:

 

And then this happened, in nearby Kfar Kana, where the ancient nasi Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel is buried, where we go to press our olives alongside our Arab neighbors in the super-clean and modern olive press:

(do not watch if you find violence upsetting):

תיעוד הלינץ' ביהודי אתמול בכפר כנא, חיות טרף pic.twitter.com/xjmQ3z1rIA

— חיים גולדברג (@haim_goldberg) May 11, 2021

The poor man was saved from a lynching by some residents:

ערבים ביצעו לינץ' ביהודי שנכנס בטעות לכפר כנא, לאחר שפיצצו אותו מכות ושרפו לו את הרכב הוא חולץ ופונה לבית החולים פוריה. pic.twitter.com/RFyXPzTiBa

— אריאל אלחרר (@ariel_elharar_) May 10, 2021

And then Eliezer from HaZor’im gets his windshield smashed meters from the sweetest guy in the world, Zed from Kfar Kana with the jerry curls who works the gas station and fell in love with my mother-in-law during her brief visit and always asks after her.  And then I get another official message from Home Front Command informing all residents of the lower Galil that demonstrations will be happening soon here (Shibli, 5 km south), here (Tur’an, 5 km northwest) and here (Kfar Kana, 7 km west), and a half dozen other places, and who knows how bad it will get, so please stay home off your country roads and be extra vigilant.

I’m broken by this in a way that 73 yr old Yehuda who is as old as the State isn’t, because he’s seen this before, and if I ask him he’ll say he’s seen it many times — but I haven’t. We’ve lived here just shy of three years, and my Arab Israeli neighbors had earned my trust. I felt safe driving through their villages, which I do (did?) all the time, and I had NO apprehension having them in my home, going into their homes, shooting the breeze, learning from them, wishing them ahlan along the way. They are Israelis. I am Israeli. I thought that meant something.

But last night and tonight there are hundreds and hundreds with green Hamas flags out on the hunt, screaming that their Israeliness is made of different and awful stuff, and though I feel safe, I also see very clearly a dangerous fifth column setting fire to my quiet country road.

 

 

“I birthed a goat,” he said casually.

I was in the States visiting my parents, on the phone with Ira over my morning coffee. I could tell from the uptick in his voice (which rises one whole octave higher when he’s excited) that this was a studied “casually.” We had three goats in various stages of pregnancy, and not knowing anything about gestating goats, we were just waiting around to see what would happen.

“Yay that’s awesome! Did you know what to do?” (I have watched him watch dozens of YouTube videos on goat births, so I knew he came in prepared, but still…there’s nothing like your first time.)

“Well, the fetlocks were just sticking out of her, so I reached in and pulled the kid out. Cleaned out its airways, presented it to the mother to lick, and that’s about it.”

So while we didn’t get Lulu’s entrance into the world on video, Ira did manage to get some great footage of the newborn.

These remarkable animals are making their first sounds and taking their first steps within an hour:

The mother cleans her baby entirely, and then the baby intuitively searches for the udder:

During Temple times, and if this baby had been male, then he’d be gifted to a cohen [priest] (who would bring the kid as a sacrifice and enjoy a nice dinner — that is, if the goat didn’t have any blemishes rending it unfit for a korban). Luckily for us, Lulu is a girl, so there are no halachic issues with welcoming her into the family flock. Lulu’s aunts, though, are pregnant, so Ira hurried to the rabbanut, where Blimi Shtissel (the secretary whose name I just had to drop, because maybe she’s Gitty’s sister) helped him complete a rather complicated transaction involving shared ownership with a gentile. It’s a loophole that allow for halachically-observant Jewish farmers to hold on to male firstborns. Actually, all farmers raising kosher animals have to make sure to get this done annually, as it’s a necessary mechanism that ensure the kashrut of dairy and meat for the consumer.

A few hours after birth and feeding, and the goat is a fluffy smily prancing delicious addition to the world:

Why keep goats? Well, hopefully soon we’ll learn how to make cheese from their milk, and maybe other products as well. Ira tried goat meat a while back, but the kids and I couldn’t bring ourselves to taste it, so we won’t be eating these animals. For now, we’re raising them because they do such a great job eating all of the weeds in the grove and fertilizing the ground. A huge plus: they are ridiculously cute and friendly, a lovely bonus that has added a fresh energy to our farm this spring. Here’s hoping our flock increases!

 

It’s usually quite expensive — maybe that’s why asparagus is known as the King of the Vegetables. And it’s only available for a few months of the year. What Ira and I have discovered, though, is this: wild asparagus is free, abundant, fun to hunt for, more delicious than any asparagus we’ve had before, and can be a regular feature on your weekday winter table.

Foraging for wild asparagus elevates any winter nature walk into a sport, and encourages even the most apathetic, “I’m not really a nature person” person to see the grass under their feet as ripe with possibility. I’m not heading out on my hikes to find fennel or mustard; if I come across it, sababa, and maybe I’ll pick a few leaves or seeds. But asparagus? Those babies are worth planning your day around.

So here’s what to look for:

Notice the small, pointed and prickly leaves, with errant crazy neon-green shoots poking through (or often hiding within the bramble — wear heavy gloves!)

 

Sometimes you may just see a single, lonely stalk just waiting to be picked (but these will usually be near the green prickly bushes in the videos above):

I’ll tell you one of the best things about asparagus foraging: you feel initiated into a great, silent club of others who are also out hunting for asparagus. Often you’ll come to a promising bush to find that someone else has beaten you to the chase (if you can see below, the stalks here were harvested before we got there — maybe an hour ago? Maybe a week? Not much more than that).

But isn’t it wonderful? For maybe the first time, you feel deeply in tune with others who also wish to share in the bounty of this lush and boundlessly generous winter without jostling in the cashier’s line. I’m happy for whoever got here first, and I hope they’ve feasted well.

While Ira once brought home a quick and marvelous haul by just pulling over by the side of the road and harvesting the ample shoots he had spotted, that foraging experience can’t compare with going just a few minutes farther afield. We have abundant trails all over the Lower Galil chock-full of asparagus bushes. This time, we spent some blissful, quiet hours close to home, eating straight from the bush, and bringing the rest back for the kids’ dinner.

Would be great to hit the trails with you for some prime asparagus hunting during your next winter trip up north!

 

In constant pursuit of understanding natural processes, of working with nature to bring about the best possible results for land, trees, animals and humans, we’ve stayed committed to organically growing our olives and letting our birds roam freely.

Problem is that there’s no easy way to ensure a fertile crop and abundant eggs without spraying artificial chemical fertilizers and pesticides, or containing the chickens in a small pen. We’re not going to do that, which means that we have to spend many hours figuring out how the different elements within the olive grove — trees, poultry, soil, pests and the microbial ecology that links them all — can exist in harmony. It’s a lengthy course of trial and error, observation and implementation, failure and experiments. One thing’s for sure: our hands are dirty and our boots are worn down.

Sukkot has brought the great gift of transition to the Weissman Farm. We had been fighting an uphill battle against the weeds, which were engulfing the trees. Then Bat-Chen and her haShomer HeChadash friends, along with Kayla, worked through the chag, tackling each tree, fighting off the chazirim shoots that threatened the kashrut of the upcoming masik, transforming the space from a wild jungle to a tamed grove.

Just as the psolet goren v’yekev, produced as the ancillary products of a previous year, are recycled into the schach required for a kosher sukkah, so too is the cycle within the farm: the prunings and clippings from the trees and shrubs around the moshav have all been mulched and strewn around our trees, tamping down any future weeds. The old growth is being reused.

Things come full circle on Sukkot, the holiday of cycles. We encircle the holy  with our hakafot, we reenact the rain cycle with the nisuch hamayim ceremony, we sit in our transitional space of liminality in our sukkot, ushering out the past year and welcoming in the new year, drawing from the past as we look towards the future.  The end always leads to the beginning; decay and breakdown feed new growth.

You spend hours with trees and birds (really, the first time for any of us that we’ve been invested in something other than what’s in our houses, communities, books and screens), and you slowly start understanding the patterns of existence around you. You see how birds behave, how eggs behave, how trees behave, how predators and insects behave, and how systems don’t stand alone, but interrelate. Laminatze’ach: a song for the Conductor, who weaves together different parts into a perfect harmonious whole. 

What did King Shlomo do with the chochma (wisdom) granted him? He learned to speak to trees and imported animals to his zoo — לדעת מהות הנמצאים. To be fully adam, coming from the adama and returning to her, you need to understand your relationship and connectedness to the earth and all its creatures. 

We all feel more comfortable with our farm, more in tune with the seasons and the cycles now that we’ve been here for a few years. We grow on her, and she grows within us.

Let’s pray for a rainy winter, and all of the new growth and freshness — and abundant surprises, I’m sure — that will emerge come spring. 

 

If talk of animal husbandry and land regeneration doesn’t make your pulse race, skip on to the bottom for a cool video. Otherwise read on!

Life did indeed teem during corona lockdown. Our modest flock of chickens and turkeys took “sheltering in place” in a romantic direction, procreating like mad, and now we have hundreds of birds.

Some chicks and poults (turkey babies) hatched under their mommies, the old-fashioned way, but most of these corona babies were incubated as eggs, raised for a few weeks in the hatchery (a makeshift box that we kept in the machsan of our rental), and then released to the “tinokia,” a fenced-off area of the olive grove.

The tinokia was meant to protect the chicks from predators and getting lost in the huge grove, but it didn’t serve the overall purpose of our farm. We’re trying to have the animals serve the land, and have the land serve the animals: the birds (and eventually goats, sheep, and hopefully a cow or two, maybe even a horse?) are meant to forage for their food, and in turn their droppings keep the land naturally fertilized and tamed (from weeds and overgrowth).

So what Ira is fashioning is a “maze” of sorts, organized by the rows of olive trees. Turkeys in one aisle, chickens in another, babies in a third, maybe one day goats in a fourth, with a rotation of land that each is exposed to and rotation between the aisles as well. This means that each day, the animals get fresh pasture to forage and poop on, and no one piece of land gets mauled to exhaustion.

As for the babies, they need more protection from swooping predators and easier access to water and supplemental feed, so Ira fashioned a conestoga wagon for them that we call the Chick Mobile (I nixed “chick-magnet”). He’s moved the chicks from their old tinokia to their new digs. Here’s the chick mobile in action. Shabbat Shalom!

Spring has sprung at Meshek Si’ach ha’Sadeh (Conversations in the Field — our farm’s name!):

 

 

Ira’s trying out something on the farm — he calls it “layering.” Basically it means that we introduce different types of livestock into the kerem (olive grove), which he’s fenced off. They feed off the land through foraging, and in turn the land is “fed” through their “output.” Additionally, poultry love to pick through mammals’ droppings for fly larvae, cleaning the environment and ensuring pest control. Win-win that rejuvenates the grove naturally, obviating the need for any pesticides or chemical fertilizers! Goodness, the marvelous tidbits I’ve picked up on this journey…

They have the run of the place, and ten dunam is a lot of run. We started with ten chickens, 6 turkeys, and two very angry geese.  About two months in, the chickens started laying eggs in the nesting boxes that Ira built. Every day’s yield is exponentially larger. These are the real deal: totally free-range, organic, whatever other hip marketing term applies. But truly how chickens are meant to live, and how eggs are meant to be laid.

Some eggs we eat, others we put in the madgerah (incubator). Twenty-one days later, voila! Baby chicks (we hope)

Get this: you have about a week from when an egg is laid to “hold its development” in suspension. That means that 21 days from the day that the hen decides to brood (sit on her eggs, which hasn’t yet happened) or that you put the egg in the incubator, it should hatch. You can decide when to get that process started (again, within a week). Otherwise, you can just eat them as eggs (checking for blood, of course — but even if the egg was fertilized, it won’t usually form blood until it’s been incubated).

Meanwhile, one of the female turkeys has disappeared; we think she’s off nesting under a tree, which would be fantastic (turkeys notoriously have a hard time mating, but maybe we got lucky and one of them is sitting on her eggs somewhere in the grove). We’re planning on turkey for Seder night.

We recently added yet another “layer” to this experiment. Meet Liesel, Brigitta, Marta, Gretl and Kurt.

They are extraordinarily dumb animals who cowered the first day on top of the chickens’ nesting boxes. One of the hens was in the middle of laying her egg, but she seemed nonplussed by the goats and went on doing her thing.

The goats are a cheaper alternative to hiring paid labor to prune the weeds and trees, which have grown ridiculously fast since our olive harvest last November. Goats apparently eat EVERYTHING (except other animals). Let’s see if they can figure out how to get to work.

Ira also bought a breed that he’s tasted before and says produces less-gamey meat than even lamb, but it’s going to take a lot for me to try goat. I’m not there yet. Though making goat cheese and labane is a very simple process, and I’m totally on board with that.

Finally, the geese. Tupac and Notorious B.I.G., or Bernardo and Riff, whatever — they don’t deserve names. They are total gangstas and we don’t know what to do with them. Ira even got them a wading pool, for which they are spectacularly ungrateful.

Here’s Ira with my mother-in-law and brothers last month, warning them about the geese’s thuglife:

Trigger-warning: no one was hurt by the charging birds. My mother-in-law very impressively allowed me to share this with you all though:

Noah (my brother) suggested fois-gras might serve humanity better, and I think by this point we’re all in agreement.

He was born for this — literally. That was my thought as they handed him to me nineteen years ago, right after: thank you God for giving him to us, and for making me a mother. Second thought: one day he shall become a soldier of Israel.

As he got an aliyah and a special “mishebeirach” yesterday on the very section in the parasha where we read of Leah bearing her Reuven, I remembered when our Ruvi was born, and what my dreams were for this child, and they were very specific: through him we will finally belong to the People of Israel in a way that we just couldn’t up until this moment. 

It’s not that we’ve been biding our time from then until now; we’ve all been plenty busy growing, finding ourselves, discovering how we each contribute as individuals and as a family to Am Yisrael. We have lived, we have worked, we have borne, we have paid, we have planted, we have taught, we have walked through wadis and up mountains and down streets and through malls and swayed in prayer in living rooms and synagogues and olive groves and stood still at sirens and ran to safe rooms and sat through a hundred Bnei Akiva daglanuyot and danced wildly to the best of Israeli music — all here, for twenty years, learning from Israelis, watching carefully how to do things, stumbling through conversations and then speaking confidently in front of seasoned veterans, trying to weave our own unique thread into the tapestry of Israel so that it will hold fast and add its own special beauty to the emerging glory that is the greatest of enterprises: the return of Am Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael. 

All this time, though, I felt that we were waiting. Not impatiently, really — many months (maybe even whole years) would pass when of course I didn’t think of what was to come. And suddenly here we are, at the IDF recruitment center in Tiveria on a crisp Sunday morning. As firstborn Reuven served to secure Leah to the family of Israel, so too our firstborn Reuven’s service secures us to our People. 

Ruvi is the first of our seven sabras: a proud Jew without having been forced into the identity by a Diaspora upbringing that would have made him the other. Here, he is easily, joyously and organically part of the Jewish nation. His absolute conviction to serve Am Yisrael is the most natural thing about him, and he has the greatest merit to serve his people in a way that we never did. He is the first among our parents’ descendents to do so, and he and their many grandchildren who share this same ironclad conviction to serve make them impossibly proud of the honor they bring to our family and the whole of Israel. I don’t know that any of Ruvi’s grandparents had ever dreamed in their youth of where their grandchildren now stand at the cusp of adulthood, but I do know of their deep pleasure. They and we are joined by countless generations of our ancestors who, I imagine, are looking on today with an unspeakable joy. 

 

Our family’s thread, first spun those nineteen years ago, is now secure in this grand tapestry. It is fine, shining and strong, multi-colored and woven tight. May the Creator of all, the Mighty God of Israel who cherishes His people as the ראשית, keep the ראשית of our family — and the many chayalim and chayalot who defend our nation alongside him — firm and straight in soul, mind and body. 

אשרינו

מה טוב חלקינו

ומה נעים גורלינו

ומה יפה חיילנו

ומה מופלא מדינתינו

ומה קדוש ארצינו

ומה אדיר בוראנו

ומה היקר עמינו

 

 

The next generation of farmers finishes up the rush job (olives shouldn’t be left sitting for more than a night or two before going to the beit bahd).

There were thousands of public and private oil presses throughout Eretz Yisrael in antiquity, since olive oil served everyone as the primary source for lighting fuel and cooking oil (plus medicines, hygiene — more on that in a bit –, and sacrifices in the Temple). To learn more about this critical aspect of daily life in Yisrael’s earlier eras, click here for an excellent photo essay.

 

We brought our yield to the hopping beit bahd in Kfar Kana, around ten minutes away (I always hum “Od Yishama” as we drive through this town — vehameivin yavin). Mohammed, the super friendly manager who bonded with Chachi over their respective hearing aids, made sure that our gondola was on the “kosher line” — meaning that all of the yields on that line are from kramim that are orlah-free. And here’s how it’s done:

A huge fan blows the leaves off, and the olives then fall down into the washer.

Then they’re crushed, leaving a thick paste:

This is followed by a filtering process which separates the gefet (sludge solids) from the liquid. Mohammed told us that the Arabs use the gefet as smokeless fuel to warm their homes and heat their water. Years ago, we bought a huge tub of this stuff scented with lemon to use as an exfoliating soap — it’s messy, yes, but kind of like a mud treatment. Companies turn the gefet into fancy products like these. Nothing goes to waste!

Finally, the liquids go through one last filtering process, spilling our funky neon-yellow “liquid gold” into vats. The crazy color mellows into a green-tinged gold after the oxygen bubbles settle down.

Ma’aser is separated — a tithing obligation for all olive harvests produced on Jewish-owned land in Eretz Yisrael What a zchut to be able to fulfill this mitzvah!

A bracha (blessing) links human industry and endeavor to the Source of all creation. The root of the word ברכה is ברך — that which connects (like a knee [ברך] connects the thigh to the shin, and a huge collection of interconnected droplets is called a בריכה [pool]). So before a Jew partakes of his bounty, he pauses to connect sustenance with acknowledgement that God has provided. L’Chaim!