Busy days mean Martin hasn't had time to write about his ruminations. Because there isn't anything this time, doesn't mean he hasn't been ruminating. He's always got something on his mind and will share with everyone when he has a minute. | The construction of the new store is done, and we can focus on farming. Yay! And Martin's moving up in the world. He got a Lamborghini! Well, not the luxury sports car version. But it does get around nicely and makes him happy, like the real thing probably wouldn't. He's too much of a farmer. You can see Martin's Lamborghini in this video. | OUR NEW STORE IS OPENING SUNDAY, MAY 12 AT 10:00 AM. | Jeannie's been busy stocking the store with exciting new products. Look for these all-natural, non-GMO cleaning products by BK Naturals, a small company in BC. There are new additions to the excellent personal care Andalou line. Reducing the amount of plastic used is important to us, so we've brought in Abeego Reusable Food Wraps and Organic Fairtrade Cotton Reusable bags. You'll need to take your time when you come in because there are lots of new food stuffs, too. Have fun! | Boneless Chicken Breast- Sale $14.79/lb Reg. $15.99/lb (See Recipe Box) Top Sirloin Steak- Sale $13.49/lb Reg. $14.99/lb Lamb Garlic Sausage- Sale $10.99/lb Reg. $12.49/lb Beef Onion Sausage- Sale $9.49/lb Reg. $10.99/lb Turkey Wings- Sale $3.49/lb Reg. $4.79/lb Carrots- $1.99/lb Reg. $2.49/lb (See Recipe Box) Frozen Wild Saskatoons -Sale $5.49/lb Reg. $6.29/lb (See Recipe Box) Kiju Organic Pomegranate Cherry Juice Boxes, 4/200 mL -Sale $3.99 Reg. $4.99 | Please note, all ingredients in our recipes are organic. | Grilled Chicken Breasts with Barbeque Sauce 4 Harvest Haven chicken breast halves Coarse salt and ground pepper 1/3 cup Barbecue Sauce Heat grill to medium-high. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Clean and lightly oil hot grates. Place chicken on the grill. Grill chicken, without turning, 6 to 10 minutes. Flip and grill until cooked through, or a thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the meat registers 160 degrees, 8 to 10 minutes more. About 1 minute before the chicken is done, brush with barbecue sauce. | Carrot Salad with Lemon Dressing 1 pound Harvest Haven carrots, rinsed, trimmed, and peeled 1 bunch parsley, rinsed and finely chopped 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 2 teaspoons Harvest Haven honey 1 pinch salt Fit a food processor with a shredding blade and shred the carrots. Place shredded carrots in a serving bowl and add the parsley. Set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together the mustard and lemon juice, then drizzle in olive oil while whisking. Whisk in honey and salt. Drizzle dressing over the shredded carrots and parsley and toss well to coat. Top with sunflower seeds if desired. | Saskatoon Berry Muffins 1 3/4 cups flour 1/3 cup sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1 Harvest Haven egg 3/4 cup milk 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt 1/4 cup sunflower oil 1 cup Saskatoon berries 1 tsp lemon zest Mix all dry ingredients and make a well in the bowl. Add in the beaten egg, milk, yogurt, oil, Saskatoon berries, and lemon zest. Mix until just combined. The dough will be quite thick. Line a muffin tin with liners and spoon in batter. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center of one muffin. If it comes out clean, the muffin is ready. Cool for 5 minutes and serve. | If you have already red about our adventures in Israel, please go to the end of this essay to read the addendum. | What a wonderful trip we had to Israel! And what an amazing country…overflowing with energy; incredible accomplishments in its seventy years. Huge changes everywhere, for the better, not just for Israelis, but for the world. The most challenging part of our trip was getting there. Calgary Airport was not so bad – clean, efficient, and Jonathan knew his way around like the back of his hand (he travels out of there a lot). Then, there was Frankfurt, Germany. We were tired from a nine-hour flight overnight and two hours of hanging around the airport before we went through security to fly to Israel. Now, that was security! We each had a couple of carry-on bags full of camera gear. And each bag had to go through the scanner and then, get torn apart for a hands-on inspection. Security lady to me, "Is this your bag?" "Yes." "What's this?" as she holds up a kind of rod thing. "Uhm…a gimble?" Thanks, Jonathan, for giving me the weird pieces that look like pipe bombs. "A what?" she asks me not sure she heard me correctly. "A gimble." "What do you do with it?" "It's used to hold a movie camera steady as you walk around." The guy at the scanner is carefully looking it over and then, nonchalantly hands it back to the lady. Phew. Looks like I've passed. As my stuff is being piled into a tray, the lady leans over to me and asks again, "What did you say this was?" "A gimble." Leaving this security area, it's not hard to notice numerous "Polizei" fully equipped with bullet-proof vests, automatic rifles, and other gear strapped to them. Security is NOT taken for granted here. Arriving at the Ben Gurion Airport, we rented a car for our excursions around the country. Victor and I knew where we wanted to go and what we wanted to show Jonathan, so all he had to do was enter our destination into his phone and off we would go. When we told people we were staying in Ramla, their mouths dropped and their eyes widen as they incredulously asked us, "Why there?!" "It's close to the airport, central to the country, has easy access to the main highways, and our Airbnb is reasonably priced with everything we need." "Well, that city doesn't have a very good reputation. Gangs, drugs, crime…" It turned out to be a nice place to stay and we felt safer there than in Lethbridge. Our trip was eleven days of jampacked sightseeing, visiting with local residents, eating great food, and looking for coffee (Jonathan's excursion first thing every morning and whenever he needed a boost). Here are a few pictures and brief descriptions of some places we visited. | This is a drone shot of the Dead Sea coastline. You can see the high water line and how much the sea has shrunk in recent years. We drove on steep winding roads through sections of the Negev that were like the hills you see in the distance. To understand the scale of things in this picture, there are two vehicles on the beach in the foreground and the main road is a thin yellowish line between the high line of the sea and the hills in the background. It was overcast with showers on the day we were there, which was much better than the 57°C it can get in the summer. | On the other side of the Negev is Sderot, a small city with the most bomb shelters of any city in the world because of rocket attacks from Gaza. When there are incoming rockets, residents have barely 15 seconds to scramble for cover. When we asked what we as visitors should do in an incident, a lady in Sderot told us the best thing to do is just drop flat to the ground and cover your head with your hands. (As an aside, one of the bedrooms in the apartment we rented in Ramla was used as a bomb shelter. It had reinforced walls and a heavy door for keeping the occupants safer if something hit the building.) This picture was taken from the top of a small hill overlooking the construction of a new residential area in Sderot, which is growing despite being in a war zone. Turning 180°, we could see Gaza. We were told it should be safe to go up on this hill that day because it was kind of misty. Otherwise, we could be targets for snipers from Gaza, which is only a mile away. On the top of this desolate knoll, we met a young reservist standing guard. He was somewhat disgruntled that he had to be there instead of at his job in Tel Aviv working as a computer tech. Every citizen is called to do their share of military duty, having to lay aside occupation, family and everything else not conducive to that duty to protect the nation. We told David that what he was doing was important for the safety of his country, that the hardships he and his nation were experiencing were necessary to strengthen them, and to be encouraged because peace would eventually come for everyone. As you can tell, we made it back safely. No big deal. All the time we were in Israel, there was no incident that we were aware of. A very peaceful, vibrant country everywhere. | The Damascus Gate is one of the entrances in the wall surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem. We took a bus from Ramla to the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem and then caught a cab. As we were stuck in traffic, we had time to talk with our driver who was an Arab living in Silwan, an Arab community close to Jerusalem. He worked in Jerusalem because there was nothing for him in his town and he wanted to have a house big enough for his children and his parents. "What do you think of the political situation in Israel?" Victor asked him. "The ordinary people just want peace. It's the leaders who cause the trouble," was his reply, which is what we heard from others answering the same question. A young man, Hananya Naftali, who works on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's media team told us of his frustrating experience with the "peace process." He was a soldier in a tank division stationed on the Gaza border a few years ago. Orders came for them to stand down because there were peace talks going on and both sides agreed to stop fighting. Those on the Gaza side didn't pay any attention to the directive and continued firing on the Israelis, who held their fire even under severe attack. Hananya shook his head and sighed. Israel wants to live at peace with their neighbors. The neighbors, not so much. Another malicious lie told about Israel is that it's an apartheid state. Talking with our Arab cab driver, it was obvious that he wanted to work in Israel and earn a living for his family and had the freedom to do so. Arabs, Jews, and Christians live and work side by side and we couldn't tell who was who unless they were wearing their religious garb. Here's one of many incidents that demonstrated that there is no apartheid. We asked a South African Jew who had lived in Israel forty years for a place to have dinner. His first suggestion was a Lebanese restaurant. "It's in an Arab community, but the food is excellent and it's a great place to eat." He was right! We even went back the next night it was so good. | The street vendors in the Old City of Jerusalem are mostly Arabs. We talked with a young man at one of these stalls who said he was from a Bedouin family. Because he hadn't finished school, he said his best option to make a living was working in the market in Jerusalem. Victor attracted no shortage of smiles, chuckles, and thumbs up with his T-shirt as we made our way through the narrow streets of the Old City. His shirt says, "DON'T RUSH ME. I'm waiting for the last minute." | This is a very interesting picture because you have the bustling city of Tel Aviv in the distance with its modern architecture contrasted with Jaffa, an ancient port city with a lot of Biblical history. | While we were looking around Jaffa, we met a lady walking her dog (in the picture). She had lived in the building you see behind "Gym" (the dog's name because he got her out walking) for about forty years. During our visit, her friend came along and took us to her art studio home, which was also in this same area. Because her home is an historic site, it had to be renovated keeping the ancient and original architecture. It was beautiful. | There are ancient structures everywhere in Israel. This Crusader castle was at Moshav Habonim, a socialistic community where Victor and I lived for four months as volunteers in 1979. At that time, it was a beautiful farming community right on the Mediterranean Sea, which you can see over the trees. Now, it's a bedroom community for the cities nearby. | Old world; new world. The shepherd was standing faithfully tending his flock and the young fellow was sitting faithfully tending his phone. | There are many memorials to the blood, sweat and tears it has taken for the Jews to have their own country after 2000 years. God promised by His prophets millennia ago that He would return His people to their land and after 2000 years, He's doing it. "And it shall be when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and when you shall call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, "and shall return to the LORD your God and shall obey His voice according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, with all your heart, and with all your soul, "then the LORD your God will turn your captivity. And He will have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. "If you are driven out into the outermost parts of the heavens, the LORD your God will gather you from there, and He will bring you from there. "And the LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. And He will do you good, and multiply you above your fathers" (Deuteronomy 30:1-5). The Jews have had to struggle and strive to build a country from scratch. And they've done it in just seventy years. It's amazing! And we got to witness it firsthand, both thirty and seventy years after Israel's rebirth. The change is astounding. Addendum Since writing this account, the Palestinians in Gaza attacked Israel with close to 1000 rockets, which killed 4 Israelis and wounded many more. We were in those areas where the rockets landed. Having been in Sderot, we contacted someone we met there, the city close to the Gaza Strip and one of the main targets for the rockets. This is his account of the situation. English is his second language. Hey everyone! So my name is Eran. I'm reading this Email on a strange morning, after 2 days of heavy attack on us from Gaza.. 4 people in Israel died by rockets during this 2 days, and of course that more palestinians have died on the other side by IDF attacks back... But what strange on it is the fact that in the last 2 days we were running repeatedly for the bomb shelter, and now, 2 hours ago, it's been decided to go back to normal routine... come back to our daily life... It is the 9th time the past year that it's happening... 2-3 days of emergency and then an hard shift for the normal life.. Victor i want to say that i am glad that you all werent here arround these days, because i don't believe anyone need this experience.. You might felt it before if you had visit Israel in the past.. here in the surrounding area of Gaza, it's a common thing.. I hope you had the chance to visit more places in Israel that shows more than what Sderot have to offer, although I like Sderot very much! (hope you all got the chance to taste the Humus Of Tchina as we suggested!) I've told many friends of ours (Me and Maayan that talked with you) about our meeting, there on the grass, between many youth that also came for a quick visit in the ciry. About the differances and the similarities between you and them.. As you, that were their first time here in this strange city... As you, they also have a strong connections to this land.. But different then you - they are staying here. | |