An update from Nimrod :)

Hi everybody. First of all apologies for not posting for a while. Computer access has been somewhat sporadic at the lodge over the last few weeks. So, here's an update on what we've been up to here in the sunny Golan Heights! Firstly, Carolyn and Jehn left 2 weeks ago. I was a bit gutted to see them go but I've no got 3 more volunteers to keep me company :).

A personal update first though. My cooking skills have also been coming along nicely, I now know how to cut up a whole chicken into the seperate bits plus general cooking is coming along well. 

Me and a fully cut up chicken :)

 I've also been keeping up with writing my journal, I usually take some time in the early evening to write it in my favourite spot on the lodge; the swing seat by the pool. The early eveing views are great :).

Wriritng my journal in my favourite spot :)

 

Anyway, enough about me. The last two weeks have been full of work both at the lodge and the building site. Alex, Dan and Dom have been a great help and work has flown by :). A recent day of work involved us sorting, painting and sanding some planks for Guy to take to the building site. Took us all day but a Bob Marley playlist from Dan got us through it :). 

 

Dan and Dom get some more planks from the lumber yard

 

"Need a hand there?" Dan cuts open a new wood pile whilst Dom and Alex look on

Dom and Alex get cracking with some plank painting

Job Done :) 164 planks painted and ready for sanding

Red enjoys her new favourite shady spot

But as is always the case, the weekend is never far away in Nimrod. On friday afternoon last week, we spent an afternoon by the pool soaking up the sun and catching up on some reading. Its a great way to relax after a hard week's work. Saturday saw us have a lie in until 10 in the morning before taking a walk into Mas'Ade for some much needed supplies. Shower gel and cash being chief amongst them.

Dom and Alex chill by the pool

No Saturday night is complete without an Eagle Beer :)

 

But sadly, the weekend doesn't last forever and it was back to work on Sunday. The routine is for our volunteer team to split up each day. On sunday, it was mine and Alex's turn to head to the building site. Dan and Dom would stay behind to do some gardening work at the lodge.

The morning briefing from Guy

Work at the building site has really come on. All the walls are up and the roof supports are in place. It was time for me and Alex to help with the final roof section.

The house, looking more homely now :)

Guy ponders his next move......

 

 

 Alex was put to work sanding some roof supports whilst me and Guy headed to the roof to put together the framework for the last section of roof.

Alex sands

Guy, Alex and Farras (a neighbour's son) assemble the last roof framework

 



 The day ended witht he roof ready to be put in place. Me and Alex headed home to find the latest batch of shopping ready to be unpacked. Its a great morale boost whenever the shopping arrives, kind of gives us hope for the next few days :).

 

The essentials :); beer, humus and Pita

 

The campsite has ben very busy these past few weeks so every evening we're dispatched to give it a quick tidy up and to restock the toilet rolls. Luckily, its not a hard tasl as Guy has given us free use of his pick-up to help us around the lodge and the campsite :). Its great to have wheels to help us with the heavy lifting :).

Me and Alex depart for the campsite in Guy's pick-up

 

The work on the garden is beginning to show aswell, regular watering by the volunteers has meant there will soon be tomotoes and lettuces aplently to eat at the lodge. New planting continues all the time, no doubt fresh peppers and a variety of herbs will be on offer over the next few weeks or so. 

 

Me watering the lettuces and peppers we planted last week

 

And last night, Guy gave us a special treat. A BBQ with plenty of beer :). It was great to take a break from cooking for a night and enjoy some time to get to know each other. Guy grilled diced chicken and beef well into the night and we didn't get to bed until 12:30!! 

(from left to right) Dan, Alex and Dom at the start of last night's BBQ

Me and the obligatory Eagle Beer

BBQ master Guy grills up chicken on the grill

Wow, we didn't drink that much did we?!

 



To finalise then, I've been thoroughly enjoying my time at Nimrod and the last few weeks have flown by. Alex, Dan and Dom will be leaving on Monday :(, it only seems like a few days since they arrived and I'll miss their company. I'm approaching the end of my time here in Nimrod, only 2 weeks left on Monday. There's plenty more work to do at the lodge so I won't be sitting still over my last few weeks :). Best I crack on then.

 

Thanks for reading everbody and I'll see you again next time.

Building a house, Israeli style!

Hello again everybody :), I had a great day at the building site yesterday and we took loads of great photos. We also made good progress on the actual building and its beginning to take shape. So, i'll give you a run down on what has been the best day of the trip so far!

It was surprisingly cloudy yesterday morning, the sun's normally fully out my around 9 in the morning, but today it was hidden behind clouds until about 10:30. Luckily it provided a welcome relief from the worst of the morning heat. Our task for the morning was to get the slope (now cleared) ready for planting. We dug the holes for Carolyn to plant in the afternoon whilst me and Jehn were at the building site. After lunch, me and Jehn packed up the truck with a new load of wood at set out around 2:45.
When we arrived we were quickly put to work destroying what's left of the old bathroom (I now know we're extending a smaller structure into a proper family home). Guy set us up with electric hammers/drills and left us to it. It was hot work even at 4 in the afternoon! After 10 minutes I was bathed in sweat and dust and had to let Jehn have a go.

Me with the first of the electric drills, we used it to remove what's left of the tiles on the wall :)

What is that?! You know its hot if your sweat is soaking through your shorts.......

After removing the wall tiles we had "afternoon-tea". The owner brought out fresh black coffee (surprisingly good even in the heat) and chocolate pastries. We all had a good chat for twenty minutes before work resumed.

Afternoon tea, Israeli style :)

The face says it all :) 

As I said before, the house is beginning to take shape. The first of the wall frames went up around mid-afternoon. Guy and the rest of the builders are sticklers for precision, even if getting it sometimes means using a hammer! After the wall frames are cut and nailed together its time to lift them into place. With four of us holding it steady Guy went round and drilled it EXACTLY in place. I have to say, seeing someone's house take shape like this is a real privilege.

The first of the wall frames in place in the left of the picture 

Me holding a wall frame in place whilst Guy puts its inner framework together 

A builder in the making :) A great photo of Jehn and Guy

So, after lifting the wall into place it was time for me and Jehn to return to our work in the bathroom, this time to remove the old flooring tiles. After using a crow bar and a limitless amount of brute force the last of the tiles were gone. However, one problem still remained.The old shower bottom was a solid slab of concrete and we couldn't remove it with a crow bar alone....

It was time to open Guy's treasure chest of building tools. What we found was a MUCH bigger and more powerful version of the electric hammer we used on the walls. Let me tell you, this was fun to use! We soon had the shower bottom removed :). Throughout our afternoon work, the local radio station had been pumping out classic rock tunes. Everyone was singing along to the words and having a great time. It sure helped the time pass quickly!

Me removing the floor tiles around the shower bottom

Me with the big electric hammer :)

After we had cleared up in the bathroom, the latest wall frame was lifted into place and soon it was time for dinner. The owner brought down salad and meat slices with pita and rolls for a "make your own feast" under the stars. We all had a great time, chatting about life and getting to know one another. We sure are working with some great people :)

Another one bites the dust :) the next wall frame in place 

Me taking a pre dinner break on the roof of Guy's pick-up 

Me and Guy load up our pitas for dinner :)

Group photo :) i'm talking with Guy in the background whilst the rest enjoy their dinner 

The owner and her kids left soon after dinner to leave us to finish up for the day. Our last task was to lift the third wall frame of the day into place. After some encouragement (mainly on the blunt end of a hammer) it was drilled into place and the day was done.

You da man! Me and guy towards the end of the evening's work

Job done :) 

We left the building site VERY late, we set off for home at 10 in the evening under a clear night sky and amazing views of the towns surrounding the Sea of Galilee. As we climbed up towards Nimrod however, the fog got thicker and thicker. Soon visibility was down to only 5 meters or so and Guy was forced to take it slow on the road up to Nimrod. We arrived home in one piece though around 11, Guy dropped us off at our accommodation where we promptly fell straight asleep. 

Whilst I had a great day at the building site it was also the last day of work for Jehn and Carolyn :(. Today is the start of the weekend and Carolyn leaves tomorrow whilst Jehn leaves early Sunday morning. Its been great to get to know these guys over the last two weeks and I'll be sad to see them go. But hopefully some new volunteers will be joining me sometime next week so I won't be lonely for long :). It also means i'm now a third of the way through my time at Nimrod. The time has passed quickly and I'm still having a great time :). 

Well, that's it for a another entry. Thanks for reading guys and see you next time :).  

A day in the life of Nimrod

As it's the end of my first week of volunteering in Nimrod I thought I'd give you guys a run-down on on an average day of work here at the eco-lodge. Let me tell you, no day here is the same and everyday you learn something new :). So, here's what we did yesterday, I would have posted last night but I fell asleep pretty much straight after dinner!!

We woke up at 7:45 so we could take our time getting up (the beds here are SO comfortable after a day's work) and making breakfast (I had 2 slices of toast with an egg and locally made cherry jam, Yum!). After we filled up our water bottles and found our hats and sun-glasses, we headed out to the vegetable patch around 8:45 to continue the planting we started the day before.

Jehn and Carolyn working near the vegetable patch. Jehn is planting and Carolyn is
doing the morning watering. 

Soon after, Guy came out and asked me and Jehn to do a bit of pruning on the driveway. Managing the plants on the project is an ongoing task for us so weeding and pruning are regular pieces of work. Not sure the dogs like us taking away some of their favorite shady spots though......

Our daily work is accompanied by the "Golan backing track" (as we call it) of booms from the border or the odd IDF training exercise nearby. We can tell the difference because the IDF are usually firing heavy machine guns rather than artillery, the booms of which come from the Syrian border. 

Jehn clears up after the morning's pruning, "Red" (the dog in the shade) eyes up the biggest
branches to chew on. 

After clearing up the pruning, Guy called me into his workshop to show off his latest purchase, a screw and nail box where everything has its place. I've never seen him so excited :). We quickly organised a few tools to take to the building site later on before I went to find Jehn and Carolyn at the vegetable patch. I found them taking a mid-morning break enjoying the sunshine with the dogs. 

My new best friend :) me and Red taking a mid-morning breather 

We continued our work at the vegetable patch until 12:30. This is the start of the hottest part of the day so we like to have lunch between 12:30 and 2 to avoid the blistering heat. We made our usual lunch of Pita and Hummus with tomato and cucumber salad. We're eating very healthily here! At two o'clock, me and Jehn helped Guy load up his truck with wood to take to the building site. The small lumber yard across from the swimming pool is stacked with ready cut, locally sourced timber ready for whatever project Guy is working on.

After packing the truck, me and Guy departed for the building site around four o'clock. As we drove south we chatted about life and traded funny stories of times gone by. He's a great person to talk to and he's got plenty of stories and life lessons to share.

Guy and Jehn just after packing the pick-up with wood

We reached the building site around 4:00, we left late to avoid the worst of the heat down by the Sea of Galilee. Our first job was to remove the wooden frames for the concrete foundations of the house. After an hour trying to remove them with crow bars and hammers, Guy and the other builders working on the site decided to get radical. They drilled a bracket into each piece of the wooden frame before attaching a line to the tow-bar of Guy's pick-up. I'll leave the rest to your imagination!

If all else fails, use a pick-up :)

After a few hours of removing the wooden frames, we moved on to preparing the floors of the building for the bases of the wooden walls. We started by chipping away the rough edges of concrete with hammers to create a straight edge. Then we measured out where the bases would go. Under Guy's EXACT specifications, the bases were hammered into place and cut to length. I "re-learnt" Pythagorus Theory to help the guys place the bases. So GCSE maths wasn't all as useless as I thought!!

You know its hot if your sweat starts soaking your wallet through your shorts......

Guy drilling the final holes to nail the wall bases into the foundation

So, after laying the bases and hammering them into place it was time for a late-afternoon snack around 6:30. The lady who's house we're building made salad and chicken sub sandwiches, just the ticket after a hard afternoon's work. Lilach arrived around 8 to take me back to Nimrod, Guy would stay overnight so he could continue the work in the morning. We drove back through thick evening fog (whilst dodging the crazy drivers and cow's blocking the road) before getting back home around 9:30. I got home to find a late dinner of spaghetti and chicken in a sesame sauce made by Carolyn (we rotate the cooking every night so we all get plenty of practice). We all talked about what we'd been up to that afternoon before I promptly fell asleep at around 10:30 (with Jehn and Carolyn still wide awake!). 

So you see, no day here goes by without learning something new or seeing something completely different. All in the company of great people and plenty of sunshine and laughter. Its such a great place to be :)

That's it for another entry, I'd like to take this chance to thank all of you guys who are reading for your great support of the blog. The page views are growing all the time and its great to see so many people from all over the world tuning in. So thanks to all you guys, both to by loyal readers back home and to everyone else who's reading. 

Cheers everyone and I'll post again real soon :). 

New skills and an "interesting" drive to work

Back to work today, but luckily for me this would be no ordinary work day. Today was my first day helping Guy at his latest eco-building project. I was up bright and early at 5:45 (trying my best not to wake Jehn and Carolyn who could sleep for another 2 hours!!) so that I could get ready to pack the pick-up and trailer full of stuff to take down to the building site. 

The early morning view looking towards the Syrian border

After a quick stop-off in the outskirts of Majdel Shams to pick up bags of gravel, sand and cement mix for the last foundations (the sand was simply lifted in its bag into the back of the pick-up with a forklift!) we set off. What followed was a drive to the building site (on the slopes of the Sea of Galilee) through some of the most "interesting" territory in Israel. But more on that later. 

Soon after we arrived on-site Guy put me to work by showing me how to make concrete. We spent the morning making batch after batch of concrete (we were soon well oiled, concrete making/pouring machines!) and pouring the last of the foundations in the corner of the house. Instead of using steel to shore up the foundations we simply threw rocks dug up from the site to strengthen the concrete. Now that's using local materials! From now on, Guy will be building here using locally and sustainably sourced wood.

The building site

"Building guru" Guy mixing the perfect cement

We took a break for lunch at around 12:30, just when it was getting too hot to work (I'd drunk 5 liters of water in a little over 4 hours!). Luckily the lady who's house Guy is building lives just across the olive grove, so we had a cooling dip in the pool followed by amazing sandwiches made by Guy. To finish the day we tidied up after ourselves before hopping back in the car for the mid-afternoon drive back to Nimrod. 

Now, I mentioned the "interesting" drive to work. It was "interesting" because for about half of it we were driving no more than 500 meters from the Syrian border (300 was the closest we got and you could see over the UN zone into Syria). Guy told me a lot of fighting had been going on recently in the towns just over the border. I never thought I'd ever be this close to the border so it was a complete surprise for me.

"On the road again", driving south parallel to the Syrian border
(about 400 meters from the left of the photo)

 Whilst driving through this area I was reminded of how active, both in the past and the present, the military has been/is in the area. On pretty much every side of the road were fenced off fields with mine warning signs every ten meters. The tank crossing points on the road were also a very current indicator of how active the IDF is in the area. We passed a number of IDF bases with tanks parked outside on the journey to and from the building site.

Mine field warning signs along the road 

Tanks definitely have right of way in this area! (one of the tank crossing warning signs)

 So, a truly unique commute to work today and a new skill learnt :). Can't say the project has disappointed me so far :). Thanks for reading and see you next time.

A day out in the Golan

We reached a first milestone today, our first day off! And with it we decided to do a little local sightseeing. Luckily for us a lovely British family with a car was visiting the hostel and they wanted to do exactly the same :). So we all piled in the car to see what the local area has to offer. Luckily we weren't short of places to see on yet another beautiful day.

Our first stop was Nimrod fortress. This is the largest castle in Israel and is truly an amazing site to see. The site has been very well excavated and preserved by the National Park Authority.

Me by the entrance to Nimrod Fortress, in the background is the southern Golan Heights 

The castle is named after the biblical hunter Nimrod who is said to have stood on the mountain and reached out to drink from the Banyas stream in the valley. It's location is ideally situated, both from a picturesque and military point of view. Recent studies have suggested that it was built at the beginning of the 13th century to control the upper part of the road to Damascus. In the latter half of the century it was enlarged by Sultan Baybars (who famously ousted the Crusaders from the Holy Land for good!). It remained in use for the next two hundred years before being used as a prison for rebels in the 15th Century. It was later to be deserted completely until excavations on the site began. Many believe that large portions of the fortress were destroyed by an earthquake in the past.

The main entrance to Nimrod Fortress

We're staying there :) looking up at Nimrod from the fortress walls 

The excavated main hall of the fortress

View of the ruined eastern wall of the fortress (many believe it was destroyed largely by an earthquake)

The fortress's water tank, specially designed to collect rainwater through
an outside collection system and then stored in a stone "tank" under the fortress
to prevent it being lost by evaporation. 

Group photo :). Me, Jehn and Carolyn at the top of the Keep. 

The view of Nimrod Fortress from its Keep, looking south 

After a couple of hours wandering around the fortress our next stop was the Banyas Waterfall. After driving down roads surrounded by fenced off fields with land-mine warning signs we reached the site just after 1 o'clock. Situated in the Hula valley below Nimrod Fortress, the waterfall and the stream it feeds is a beautiful oasis in this very dry landscape. The source of the waterfall is the snow melt from Mt Hermon which trickles into the mountain and finds its way out down in the valley. We got a group ticket from the fortress which allowed us to have discounted access to the waterfall site. There were welcome water taps on the route along the stream to the waterfall but the water turned out to be WARM! Not the best thing to be drinking on the hottest part of the day. After an hour or so enjoying the cool surroundings of the stream we headed back up into the mountains to our final destination.

View of the stream leading down from the Banyas Waterfall

The Banyas Waterfall, a little oasis in a parched land :)

So, our final stop for the day, the famous Mt Hermon Ski Resort (the only Ski Resort in Israel!). Obviously we couldn't go to ski but luckily the resort is open in the summer for hiking and mountain biking. Located on the south-western slope of the mountain, it has long been popular for skiing in the winter time. Unfortunately, recent years haven't been so kind and last year there were NO skiing days at all at the resort!! They have been steadily declining in recent years from 15 days a year around a decade ago. We all saw it as global warming in action and it is a great shame that Israel's only ski resort wouldn't have been open due to a lack of snow...... 

That being said, I don't think i'd like to ski here even if it did snow. The crowds would be horrendous and the chair lift prices extortionate (it was 49 shekels for a ride to the top of the chair lift and down again today, can you imagine them in the ski season?!). Not to mention that I could only really see 3 decent runs down the mountain, so its kind of limited on space to ski. Regardless though, the views from the top were truly staggering as the pictures show.

The view up the slopes of the Mt Hermon Ski Resort 

Going up! Jehn and Carolyn lead the way on the chair lift

At the top of the chair lift, looking east to a neighboring peak

Looking north from the top of the chair lifts, towards Lebanon 

On the way down, looking over towards Syria 

All in all, we had a great day out with our fellow travelers and got to see most of what the area has to offer. Although now I'm kind of worried that I've seen everything at once which leaves me little to do on my days off for the 5 and bit weeks I have left here. It's great for Carolyn and Jehn though, they saw everything on the one real chance they had of seeing things (they leave a week tomorrow). Oh well, i'll just do some local walking (plenty of that to do) or enjoy the view with a good book :). 

That's it for this entry, Guy might be taking me to see his latest eco-building project tomorrow so I'm looking forward to that. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time.