Our Indian Summer is definitely over: Fall has set in; gone
are the beach days. Here in the mountains it has rained pretty much 24 hours on
end. In Beirut it’s been a little drier.
I am doing the 10K next Sunday during the Beirut Marathon,
and I hope it’ll be dry by then. Aregu Sisay, my famous housekeeper, is running
her very first marathon. She finds herself between a rock and a hard place on
this run. She usually wins when competing in Lebanon; 5K, 10 K, 21K, she wins
them all these days. The Beirut Marathon however is an international event; she
cannot run as a Lebanese, and thus has to compete with the professional runners
coming out of Kenya and Ethiopia. She stands little chance against these guys;
these athletes run for a living, have personal trainers and do nothing but run:
She only runs in the morning, before her works starts. She doesn’t know what
type of food makes her run better, refuses to take the multi-vitamins that her
trainer prescribed for her, and doesn’t eat breakfast before a race because it
makes her vomit while running.
Shaggy Ink Cap (Apparently a very common mushroom in the mountains in fall. Edible (they say) |
I had wanted to help a friend in the south with the olive
harvest. “Don’t bother,” was the reply, “we had so little rain last year, that
we have almost no olives. We’re not even harvesting what we have, not worth the
trouble.” They don’t live off their olive groves; they happen to have them. But
there are plenty of farmers who exist from their olives. I wonder how they get
through this year because our Ministry of Agriculture does not provide
financial aid to farmers who suffer setbacks due to seasonal conditions.
There are few olive groves here, east of Beirut; it’s mainly
apples, cherries (their harvest has passed) and persimmon (kaki). According to certain
folklore, you can predict
what kind of winter is coming by cutting open the seeds of a persimmon. You
see a spoon, lots of snow. A fork indicates a light winter and with a knife
you’ve got a cold and icy winter coming up. I might give that a try next week.
Personally, I am hoping for a long and snowy winter. Granted, that will not be
very nice for the many refugees that are currently living in tent cities in the
Beqaa valley. Winter in the Beqaa is much more severe than here on the coast
line anyway: it’s a land climate versus a marine climate. It’s amazing what a
change one mountain ridge can make on weather patterns.
Up here in the mountains, it was cold enough to light the
first fire of the season. Some years ago, a friend of mine and I were
discussing about things we really wanted, but couldn’t get because our husband
vetoed them. For her it as was dog, for me it was a fire place in the house. So
the discussion went; what’s the first thing we do after our husbands die? But
then her son brought a dog into the house, and we bought a mountain house that
had a fire place, which was a good thing; now we no longer had to wait.
So Friday night was cool enough for the first fire: The dogs
and the pre-teenager in my household all curled up in front of the fireplace.
5 comments:
Good luck to Aregu Sisay!!!
Cool blog, lovely pics, I really enjoy reading u :-)
As always, wonderful photography. Reminds us that Lebanon is still well and alive!!!
Thank you all for your lovely compliments :) And Aregu made it to the newspapers today. She's ready for Sunday.
I thought Persimmon was kharma. If not, what the heck is the english word for kharma? This is literally a debate I've been having for years.
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