March 28, 2010
What a day on the farm! Of course, here, every day on this lab for life is a day of learning, but today was an extra - special day.
After waking up, I wrote a little (my new favorite pasttime), went down to the Israeli home, ate a couple of Loquats on the way for breakfast… (one of the many new delicious fruits in my life. (Unlike anything I have seen before.)) The wild carrots are in full bloom everywhere, next to wild barley, and wild oats and many others I cannot name…yet.
Lo and behold, Zehava our beautiful wild dog was in the middle of giving birth to pups!! Finally!!! What an experience, the pups were so CUTE!!!
After that, Yitchak the founder of the farm, and one of my many mentors here, asked to join him to learn how to prune a transplanted almond tree. The tree was being transplanted to the middle of a garden bed here because its previous home was being destroyed by developers less than a mile from the farm. Every day, the city of Modi’in grows larger, and the wild low forest shrinks. So the tree was brought to the farm, and pruned and cared for today in order to give it a new home, a chance at life again, (pruned in order for the tree to focus its energy to its roots.) Covered, trimmed, ashed, and aloed, the tree should do well next year or two. Not only will it have a chance to provide us with fruit, but also shade and microclimate to the surrounding garden beds.
The really funny part about the development of this “city of tomorrow’ as it is dubbed, known as Modi’in (translation: information) is that JNF, the Jewish National Fund, thinks that it is doing good when it plants Pine trees to the other side of the farm, the side not being razed - a planned forest!!… What a funny oxymoronic idea! What JNF does not recognize is the fact that pines are not native, nor are they animal or plant friendly, (they are more of pioneer tree, than a mature one, like the native cedar or oak) So while the natural low grassland / savanna is being destroyed on one side of the farm, a planned monoculture of pine trees is being created just meters away (the farm is quite narrow.)
Its such a shame, the wild is being destroyed on all sides here. Whatever is not a planned city, or a planned forest, is a planned plot of monoculture farming. I will miss the rabbits, deer, cows, mongoose, snakes, lizards, jackals, among the million of plants, animals, and insects that have inspired me over the last seven months. I will also miss the rock outcrops, their own stories of evolution, and their carvings- my own connection to the people living here whenever they were here, whoever they were. Whatever. Israel unfortunately, is still too Western at the moment for me… the city planning is so ridiculously outdated!! They should really call it the City of yesterday.. or the city for Americans circa 1960, or the city of cars and malls, or the city that sucks... whatever.
On a positive note: New life, that is what the farm of Eve and Adam is all about. But not just that, it is an educational farm, here to teach the public school system and community of Modi’in that we have much to learn when observing nature.
Take for example, Zehava. Zehava is a wild dog undomesticated, very different from your usual pet. Instinctively, she knows how to be a good mother. She is a strong. She really does not need our help.
Compare this to Big Momma, our oldest sheep. She gave birth to two beautiful lambs when I arrived in September. Us humans have conditioned Big Momma, and unfortunately, she forgot her instincts of how to be a good mother, and both lambs died. She never answered the lambs call, and she never offered her babies her milk. It is not surprising that Big Momma came from a human home, while Zehava is wild. Of course, Not all domesticated sheep are like this, another sheep here just gave birth to a beautiful lamb and she is as good a mother as I’ve seen.
To observe the subtle energy of nature, that is what I am here for..
I believe that this observation of nature is exactly what Adam was commanded to do in Eden. “To observe it and to guard it” That was man’s goal. Our fall from Eden occurred when we ate from the tree, when we started using and abusing nature, when we started distinguishing from right and wrong. I have learnt here to distinguish that part of the tale to the time when Man evolved from hunter gatherer to a farmer. No longer in tune with the migrational seasons…
We, of course, are no longer like animals in the wild, programmed by instinct to act. We have a choice, to guard it and watch over it or to suffer after abusing it. To “create” or “destroy” as it says in the story before the garden of Eden.
Passover is this week. I am very excited. For the first time, I believe that I understand why The Israelites needed to leave the civilization of Egypt to learn from the wilderness of the Sinai desert for 40 years.. Only in the desert, did God choose to give Moses the special book I call the Guide...
I plan on doing some wilderness training this Chol Hamoed, should be fun…
March 29th,
Actually, now that Zehava finished giving birth, I need to tell Zehava’s story in full, because it provides us with another example of Man’s fall. Yesterday, Zehava gave birth to two puppies, after an hour or so, about five of us crowded her, and one of us, while trying to help her by giving her some water, accidentally dropped water on her leg. She got scared and ran away… and we were left with two newborn pups with no mother’s milk or warmth to provide.. For two hours we searched for her, until C found her under the mud house with more pups.
What is amazing is that because of human intervention, Zehava gave up on two of her pups!!! I may be wrong, maybe she would have returned for them, but if we did not keep the pups warm, and eventually return them to her (C – amazingly crawled under the house just to give them back), then the pups could have died..
So the question arises, What is man’s place in nature? Do we ruin everything? It is really a hard question to answer. If Zehava did not have us to watch over her pups, (after we wrongfully abused her) then she would have lost 2 children! We are not supposed to control it, when we control anything, we destroy it.. We can try to fix our own mistakes..
This morning, storks migrating from Africa to Russia flew overhead once again, as well as a local eagle I cannot name… The eagle and the stork flew so differently. To me, it is clear who is more advanced, complex, smart, if you will. The stork flaps its wings (not as much as other birds, But) quite a lot compared to the eagle. This eagle, by using the energy of the wind, flapped far less, far more graceful than its cousins.
With that I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of life on the farm, I wish I had a camera, and could upload pics to show you all of these wonderful creatures I’ve mentioned, (I cannot describe them in words) … And I hope you enjoy your holiday as well…
Shalom.
