I hope I am at the tail end of this feeling sick thingie.. I feel so useless when I am sick... no energy to do the things I should do or even the things I love to do. (walking in the hills, for example...)

But Chava and I did go for a beautiful walk in the hills on Friday.... We went off of the main trail and climbed the hill we see from the mirpeset (balcony) - climbing over walls like mountain goats, (OK.. OLD mountain goats... but still!!!), and through the thistle (actually, I don't know that it is really "thistle", as I'm not quite sure what thistle is...  but it is this scrub brush that is everywhere and is filled with little needles that poke at you when you walk...) 

Our town has a clearly defined border, and beyond that border is the "hills" or the "brush" or the "fields"... actually, I don't have a name for it...  In Spanish, it would be chaparral...

One of the ancient winepresses we came upon, Chava identified as Byzantine... She knows this because the Christian wine presses had moziac inlays whereas the earlier (2nd Temple period) presses had no mosaics... And this did have a number of mosaic pieces left in it, in the corners where it would be less likely to erode away.

On our first walk, Chava took me to one of her favorite spots...  She calls it the "factory".  It is an area comprised of exposed limestone slabs which in ancient times were worked into wine presses, cisterns, and channels...  The place has natural caves which, I imagine were used to store the wine..  Of course water was necessary for this production, and this was drawn from some of the many wells dug in the area... 

We walk on ancient paths that were used even in the time of the 2nd Temple...  Pottery shards are everywhere...  The archeologists have left their "marks" but haven't really done any major digs here...

I won't say it is "untouched" though.  Man has left his garbage not only in ancient times, but in recent times as well...  We are not the only ones who go out on these trails.

Locals go camping in these hills and are likely to leave the area relatively clean.  Unfortunately, this cannot be said for the construction crews who see this as an easy and nearby dump site for their garbage, or for the local arab workers, who walk from their villages to various jobs, leaving their water bottles stewn along the way.  Certainly, there is not as clear an ethic regarding preserving our natuaral settings here as I have grown used to in the States.  On the other hand, I can remember it being so much worse in the past....  So time will tell...

I wish we had a few friends, with botanical, and archeological knowledge, who would walk with us! There is so much to learn up there...  I can recognize the carob, the almond and the fig trees easily enough (yum) but I don't know all of the names of the trees.  The land is filled with herbs and probably with an equal number of harmful plants...

My friend Eliezar tells me that the second row of hills has some large caves that you can actually get inside... Most of the nearby caves are pretty limited...  But I want to climb into some anyway...  If the jackals will let me!