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 :).