Browsing All Posts filed under »Spring«

Tipping the Seasonal Scale

June 6, 2014

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In the Galilee the year is divided about equally into two seasons.  The first, which starts in the fall, can be called the rainy season, although it is more accurately described as the period during which rain may or may not come.  In the second season, quite surely it will not. As one would expect […]

Wheat, and Zaatar, to the Mill

May 2, 2014

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I’ve started to research in earnest for the paper I’m going to present at the Oxford Symposium this summer.  The subject of the symposium is markets, and I will talk about the market in Nazareth as a site of pilgrimage, not just for Christians visiting the site(s) where the Annunciation is believed to have taken […]

Relating to Wheat

April 12, 2014

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These spring days, the roaring of combines rumbles in the background – rending thick fields of wheat into neat rows of shorn stalks.  In the pre-industrial order of local agriculture, not only would this method of harvesting be unfathomable to a farmer watching from the side, but also the timing.  Why would anyone cut down their good wheat […]

Spring Fodder

March 22, 2014

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How to catch an acute dose of spring fever – open the bedroom window at 4 AM; when the chill, citrus blossom-drenched air surges into the room, inhale deeply until intoxicated.  Winter is my favorite season here – the magical emergence of new seasonal growth that we experience from December, in other parts of the […]