Lachish Pineapples

Since I’ve been looking at the life and times of Hezekiah and posting photos of fruits and vegetables that are in season, I thought it would be appropriate to combine the two ideas and post a picture of pineapples from Lachish.

It was from Lachish that Sennacherib sent his officers to Jerusalem to threaten Hezekiah (2 Kings 17:17). Perhaps Hezekiah would have enjoyed a fresh pineapple more than the visit by Sennacherib’s officers.

I’ve noticed that pineapples have been in the market now for several months, I’m not sure if they are a year-round fruit or seasonal. I know that some are local and others are imported from the Dominican Republic.

Home Remedies

For a couple of months now, our home has been afflicted with one type of sickness after another. Nagging coughs, fever, flu, nasal drip, deep chest congestion, earaches, and sinus problems are among the things that have been cycling through our home.

We’ve all been to the doctor with varying degrees of success in dealing with the various ailments, but we’ve also had an assortment of home remedies offered by friends. Some of them sound reasonable, others a bit hard to believe, and still others just too strange for words. Among the well intentioned recommendations were the following: For a nagging cough, apply Vick’s Vapor Rub to the bottom of the feet and wear a pair of socks to bed. Bites of fresh garlic washed down with a glass of water was the suggested remedy for deep chest congestion. And for the flu, we have been told to take 1000mg of vitamin-C each hour.

Seemingly every home remedy is accompanied by this caveat: “I know it sounds strange, but it really does work.”

The bites of fresh garlic to clear chest congestion fell somewhere between sounds reasonable and hard to believe. But desperate for some relief, we decided to make the purchase and give it a try.

I’m not saying that this particular remedy NEVER works, but I can say, it didn’t work in our home. And I knew the next time we saw the person who recommended the garlic bites, she would ask if we tried it, and how it worked. Furthermore, I knew her response would be disbelief when I answered, yes we tried it, and no, it didn’t work. I was right.

Why is it that people can’t believe their sure-fire home remedy doesn’t work for someone else? Lest I be thought to be throwing stones at those who cared enough to offer ideas, let me say thank you for caring. I’m not throwing stones, I’m just thinking out loud about how funny people are; and I include myself because I’ve been known to offer a home remedy or two myself.

Here’s a photo of an in-season, crate-full of home remedy for deep chest congestion.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor (I don’t even play one on TV), and the contents of this post should not be construed as medical advice – either for or against home remedies. I am simply telling my story; your mileage may vary.

Shapes: Circles

Little Foxes

Catch us the foxes,
the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
our vineyards that are in bloom.
Song of Songs 2:15

Our family decided to get out today and do some exploring. Grace got her camera, I got mine, and Colleen got the water bottle, and we were off to see what we could find. I wasn’t completely surprised to see this fox because I had seen him twice before, but never with a chance to get a shot like this.


Actually, I outfoxed him. I was up on a ridge about 40 feet above and 150 feet away from him when I unexpectedly roused him. He jumped up and went around the bend below the ridge I was on to hide from my view. But I thought that I might be able to surprise him by running across the top of the ridge to a point where I estimated he might appear. I was right, and he seemed quite surprised to see me.

I raised my camera and caught his attention. He froze long enough for us to make eye contact and for me to snap this shot from about 40 yards; then he was off to the races.


He ran much faster than I had anticipated, which made tracking him a challenge. The shot isn’t real sharp, but from 100 yds, I’m pretty happy with the outcome. You can see he is fully committed to his exit strategy.


At this point, he’s about 130 yds away and flying. I was shocked at how fast and far he would run to avoid the paparazzi.

Artichokes

Artichokes are in season now, and can be purchased in the markets and at the grocery stores.

In past years, I have seen fields and fields of artichokes that were not harvested. Apparently, there was such an over-production of artichokes that it wasn’t worthwhile to harvest them.

This particular field is along the Yarkon River near Petah Tikvah and Hod HaSharon.