The First Three Days

Hey guys.

So I'm in Israel now. I'll be here for the next three months. If you want to know what I'm up to, this is the place to be. I'm not promising any specific frequency of updates, but I'll post as often as I can without really putting much effort into it. Because that's how I roll.

I'm currently volunteering on an organic farm north of Tel Aviv, near the city of Netanya. They grow a bunch of different vegetables and fruits here - lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, limes, etc. - and I plant and water and weed and wash and pack produce. It feels more like gardening than farming, except that it's a full time job.

We start work at 5 am. This sounds unpleasant, but fortunately I'm quite jet lagged, so I've decided to pretend that 5:00 is really 10:00. So I've been getting up at "9:30", working until "6", and staying up until "2". This strategy is serving me well.

The farm is owned by a secular Jewish family, and is also home to a couple of permanent workers from Thailand, another volunteer from Germany, two dogs, innumerable fish (sold as pets) and a veritable plague of kittens. The most notable of which is an incorrigible black cat who has made himself the scourge of my lettuce washing station. He's evidently resolved to spend as many moments as possible on my chair, lap, arms, or sink, and is undeterred by even the most pointed rebuff. Hey, pushy black kitten: no means no.

In addition to cats, I am also beset by swarms of very small ants. They have an knack for getting into everything, including my laptop, which I left closed in my bag today but opened to discover ants swarming in and out of the cracks in my keyboard. I am hoping this has more to do with my habit of eating while typing than with the ants' predilection for expensive silicon. I wonder if my warranty covers damage inflicted by tiny insects.

By the way, happy Yom Kippur! I'm not sure if that's an appropriate salutation. Miserable Yom Kippur? Remorseful Yom Kippur?

Update: apparently it's "Tsom Kal" - "easy fast". Which, I mean, seems to kind of miss the point.