Quote Originally Posted by chickwhorips
oh ya i have to do something with those fish..... .
Know the one.

We went up to the Blueberries farm/orchard to pick a year's supply yesterday. Thought it was a lovely idea till we got stopped at a roadblock by a 19 yo female soldier who said a rocket fell on the town up there. So we said "Well, we are going past there to ___ to pick blueberries" and she let us thru. (Those 70's-80's non-violent-activist-training-weekends paid off again!!)

So we picked 5 kg of blueberries (11 pounds) and 1 kg (2+ pounds) of big blackberries to the background sounds of tank and cannon-fire, with smoke all across the northern horizon from the fire and the fires on both sides of the border.
Just me and the SO in the whole orchard. The trees were just laden. All the different shades of blue and purple with the occasional not-yet-ripe pinks, and greeny yellows

On the way there was no one and nothing on the road.
The apples and plums still on the trees, the grapes (for wine) nearly ready and noone to pick them either.In the fields the wild fig trees are full of fruit and the wild olives, though still bright green and hard as river pebbles, are promising a bumper crop in October . But not a movement - no people, no animals, very few birds.
At the blueberry place the same.
On the way back there was a continuous stream of traffic going east (the opposite direction to us).
Cars full of Reservists going to their Military Meeting-up Points. Groups of men everywhere.
(Note to those of us feminists who tend to see men as a group. When you see so many of them actually in the process of collecting together in one place, before they have got the group-feeling - you see how individual they each are)
Men trying to turn themselves into soldiers at a few days notice - most less than successfully in terms of physique and fashion. Not to mention "operational capability".
Do you laugh or cry?
Both at the same time

Then at 10 pm , after a family dinner and "the news" (15 dead and the injured in the hundreds and that is just on "our" side of the fence for which I have the numbers and some names and faces) I started to make blueberry jam

shalom salaam peace pax