Hi everyone,
Autumn is coming. I can tell it from the morning mists. Soon there will be great flocks of birds migrating from Eurasia to their wintering grounds in Africa : storks, cranes, hawks, eagles, other raptors—thousands of them sometimes. Some plants, stirred by the shortening daylength rather than by rain, which won't come for months yet, begin to flower. September is the season of the Sternbergia crocus and the Madonna lily (Pancratium maritimum) here in Israel:
Autumn is coming. I can tell it from the morning mists. Soon there will be great flocks of birds migrating from Eurasia to their wintering grounds in Africa : storks, cranes, hawks, eagles, other raptors—thousands of them sometimes. Some plants, stirred by the shortening daylength rather than by rain, which won't come for months yet, begin to flower. September is the season of the Sternbergia crocus and the Madonna lily (Pancratium maritimum) here in Israel:
This coming year is a little unusual, as a "shmitta" year, when Jews in the Land of Israel are not supposed to cultivate the ground. This Sabbath year happens every seven years, and we have to perform all kinds of gymnastics to keep the food supplies coming in such a year. (For example, agricultural land is nominally "sold" to a non-Jew for the year so that agriculture can continue normally on the land, and then "resold" back to the Jewish owners at the end of the year.)
Gardens are a different story, and there is now frantic landscaping and gardening activity around Jerusalem in advance of Rosh HaShana (Jewish New Year, 13 September this year) when all such activity must cease. Not sure what professional gardeners will do for a year; construction work, I guess. I was amused when driving to work to see that a whole line of date palms suddenly appeared on the landscaped divider in the road approaching our office. Poof, fifteen mature date palms! Must have been planted in the middle of the night, or our mayor has a contract with genies. I love date palms (an ancient symbol of Israel and a most beautiful tree) so I am happy about these new arrivals, even though the fruit is going to be a mess all over the road).
I called my gardener, who is in fact as frantic as every other contract gardener right now. We have to go over the things to do in my yard this autumn, but since I am a Gentile, we can put it off until the shmitta year begins and he has lots of empty time. I'll have him paint the trim on my house and some similar maintenance work; I know he will need the income after the shmitta year begins.
I have enjoyed a beautiful, peaceful week and recovered good health in the last days. Health is something I take for granted and I shouldn't. The time will come (unless somebody shoots me) that I will not have good health and then I will miss it. Alertness is important in my work; I am a troubleshooter and problem solver, listening to other scientists and helping them develop a strategy for either collecting data or analyzing what they have. Unless my wits are sharp, I can't do my job right. (For the same reason, I have to be careful to get adequate rest and come to the office refreshed and alert, otherwise no point in coming to work.) So with my brains back, interesting things start to happen.
I have a new project with the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (a government office up the road with whom I keep good relations). We will together analyze the twenty years of waterfowl census data my office collected on a national scale, in which years nobody really knew what the heck to do with it. Our current object will be to identify sites of high quality for conservation and see if in fact they are protected, which means evaluating the rarity and endangered status of the birds who stop in the ponds all over Israel , and comparing them. More to it than that, of course, but that is the idea.
I've also been asked by the international Society for Conservation Biology to help write a report on key conservation issues in Asia for publication in "Conservation Biology", the society journal. My task is assessment of the water problems in Asia, of which we have plenty, being in overdraft in most of the western half of the continent (just google " Aral Sea " if you don't believe that). In 500 words or less. Sheesh. Okay dudes, I'm on it.
I was also googling our new web gateway for data sharing with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (http://www.gbif.org/) which now connects with Google Earth. The data were always there, but the web maps were primitive. In the new gateway, we can map on Google Earth and get all the remote sensing bells and whistle, spinning globe and zooming in, all that boy toy stuff. I was spinning the globe on my screen when the guy who does public relations passed my office and stopped dead in his tracks, so I gave him the short version of what we are doing. He was awed, and promptly called a newspaper reporter for the Israel national rag "Haaretz" to come and do a report on it. So I got a call from a reporter last night and gave him the web site; I assume he is in his office spinning the globe right now as well. He'll come by next week for me to fill in the gaps on how we got to where we are and where we are going with it.
Cripes. I've been working on this stuff since 1988, with international projects in Europe . I landed two big grants and kept pegging away on the development (yes, I'm one of the original developers of that site, via the BioCASE (http://www.biocase.org/), which is a connected project). For eight years I heard little more than kvetching in my organization about how I'm wasting my time on this work. They hassled me every step of the way, and ignored the intermediate achievements. I really got a lot of flak and zilch appreciation. But I knew the work is important and I kept at it anyway, more or less telling the kvetchers to go diddle themselves.
Now, if it gets in the newspapers, I am SURE the brass in my organization are gonna take credit for supporting this very important work and proud Israel is a member (we ain't yet, haven't gotten our Ministry to sign an MOU on it yet), and yada yada. After 13 years in the service, I know these clowns. They gotta pick up crumbs to justify their company cars and company mobile phones and company GPS systems and company laptops (while of course I drive my own car, use my own mobile, and my own laptop, etc….)
This is government everywhere, I guess—the civil servants who actually do something are the guys you never see in public, who live very modest lives. Ah well, if they at least stay out of my way in future projects (and there are some in the pipeline) I won't ask more from them. And while some folks hate my guts because I get things done (despite being a cursed Gentile female), making them look bad, deep in their hearts they respect me for it. Which means later, I'll lean on our Ministry of Environment to sign that damned MOU.
The holiday season here (Rosh HaShana until end of Sukkot) is a season when nothing really gets done. Actually from July until mid-October nothing much gets done around here, what with summer vacations on top of religious holiays. So I've been able to beaver away all month in peace. No meetings at all in Agust, and the big professional meetings scheduled for September also got cancelled because so many people will be abroad.
I have a manuscript to write, but have gotten on top of my work and can look forward to a few days off in September to just enjoy life while the weather is nice. Next week I will travel to the north to go to a concert with a friend, go to the Volcani Institute to attend a conference about trees, and a few other nice things. I hope my health continues like it is now, so I can enjoy the season. July in Holland and Denmark was not as nice as it could be because I was sick all the time, and I've had enough of that.
By the way, for those who are interested in what is happening in the global environment, here is another nice website:
http://www.peterrussell.dreamhosters.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Births exceed deaths, population skyrocketing, deforestation rapid, etc. As a data analyst, my only comment on this is, thank God I didn't have kids. I wouldn't want anyone to live in the world they will inherit, due to the selfish stupidity of my generation and the one before it.
Shabbat shalom,
Linda
Gardens are a different story, and there is now frantic landscaping and gardening activity around Jerusalem in advance of Rosh HaShana (Jewish New Year, 13 September this year) when all such activity must cease. Not sure what professional gardeners will do for a year; construction work, I guess. I was amused when driving to work to see that a whole line of date palms suddenly appeared on the landscaped divider in the road approaching our office. Poof, fifteen mature date palms! Must have been planted in the middle of the night, or our mayor has a contract with genies. I love date palms (an ancient symbol of Israel and a most beautiful tree) so I am happy about these new arrivals, even though the fruit is going to be a mess all over the road).
I called my gardener, who is in fact as frantic as every other contract gardener right now. We have to go over the things to do in my yard this autumn, but since I am a Gentile, we can put it off until the shmitta year begins and he has lots of empty time. I'll have him paint the trim on my house and some similar maintenance work; I know he will need the income after the shmitta year begins.
I have enjoyed a beautiful, peaceful week and recovered good health in the last days. Health is something I take for granted and I shouldn't. The time will come (unless somebody shoots me) that I will not have good health and then I will miss it. Alertness is important in my work; I am a troubleshooter and problem solver, listening to other scientists and helping them develop a strategy for either collecting data or analyzing what they have. Unless my wits are sharp, I can't do my job right. (For the same reason, I have to be careful to get adequate rest and come to the office refreshed and alert, otherwise no point in coming to work.) So with my brains back, interesting things start to happen.
I have a new project with the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (a government office up the road with whom I keep good relations). We will together analyze the twenty years of waterfowl census data my office collected on a national scale, in which years nobody really knew what the heck to do with it. Our current object will be to identify sites of high quality for conservation and see if in fact they are protected, which means evaluating the rarity and endangered status of the birds who stop in the ponds all over Israel , and comparing them. More to it than that, of course, but that is the idea.
I've also been asked by the international Society for Conservation Biology to help write a report on key conservation issues in Asia for publication in "Conservation Biology", the society journal. My task is assessment of the water problems in Asia, of which we have plenty, being in overdraft in most of the western half of the continent (just google " Aral Sea " if you don't believe that). In 500 words or less. Sheesh. Okay dudes, I'm on it.
I was also googling our new web gateway for data sharing with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (http://www.gbif.org/) which now connects with Google Earth. The data were always there, but the web maps were primitive. In the new gateway, we can map on Google Earth and get all the remote sensing bells and whistle, spinning globe and zooming in, all that boy toy stuff. I was spinning the globe on my screen when the guy who does public relations passed my office and stopped dead in his tracks, so I gave him the short version of what we are doing. He was awed, and promptly called a newspaper reporter for the Israel national rag "Haaretz" to come and do a report on it. So I got a call from a reporter last night and gave him the web site; I assume he is in his office spinning the globe right now as well. He'll come by next week for me to fill in the gaps on how we got to where we are and where we are going with it.
Cripes. I've been working on this stuff since 1988, with international projects in Europe . I landed two big grants and kept pegging away on the development (yes, I'm one of the original developers of that site, via the BioCASE (http://www.biocase.org/), which is a connected project). For eight years I heard little more than kvetching in my organization about how I'm wasting my time on this work. They hassled me every step of the way, and ignored the intermediate achievements. I really got a lot of flak and zilch appreciation. But I knew the work is important and I kept at it anyway, more or less telling the kvetchers to go diddle themselves.
Now, if it gets in the newspapers, I am SURE the brass in my organization are gonna take credit for supporting this very important work and proud Israel is a member (we ain't yet, haven't gotten our Ministry to sign an MOU on it yet), and yada yada. After 13 years in the service, I know these clowns. They gotta pick up crumbs to justify their company cars and company mobile phones and company GPS systems and company laptops (while of course I drive my own car, use my own mobile, and my own laptop, etc….)
This is government everywhere, I guess—the civil servants who actually do something are the guys you never see in public, who live very modest lives. Ah well, if they at least stay out of my way in future projects (and there are some in the pipeline) I won't ask more from them. And while some folks hate my guts because I get things done (despite being a cursed Gentile female), making them look bad, deep in their hearts they respect me for it. Which means later, I'll lean on our Ministry of Environment to sign that damned MOU.
The holiday season here (Rosh HaShana until end of Sukkot) is a season when nothing really gets done. Actually from July until mid-October nothing much gets done around here, what with summer vacations on top of religious holiays. So I've been able to beaver away all month in peace. No meetings at all in Agust, and the big professional meetings scheduled for September also got cancelled because so many people will be abroad.
I have a manuscript to write, but have gotten on top of my work and can look forward to a few days off in September to just enjoy life while the weather is nice. Next week I will travel to the north to go to a concert with a friend, go to the Volcani Institute to attend a conference about trees, and a few other nice things. I hope my health continues like it is now, so I can enjoy the season. July in Holland and Denmark was not as nice as it could be because I was sick all the time, and I've had enough of that.
By the way, for those who are interested in what is happening in the global environment, here is another nice website:
http://www.peterrussell.dreamhosters.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Births exceed deaths, population skyrocketing, deforestation rapid, etc. As a data analyst, my only comment on this is, thank God I didn't have kids. I wouldn't want anyone to live in the world they will inherit, due to the selfish stupidity of my generation and the one before it.
Shabbat shalom,
Linda
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