Preoccupied

I didn't get going on my posting as quickly as I thought I would. I have been preoccupied this week....

• Preoccupied with the fact that we still don't know what the government will look like, and the varying news reports about it are seldom more than gossip.
• Preoccupied with the cold and the continuing rain..until today that is, when the sun came out for a few hours, and predictably the temperature climbed into warmth.
• Preoccupied with emerging spring flowers and trees decorating our sidewalks and alleyways.
• Preoccupied with the Iryiah (city hall) "nature terrorists" doing their extreme spring pruning, felling flowering trees and shrubs right and left, unconcerned with the stark gaping holes left behind.
• Preoccupied with REAL terrorists who read the Koran in the cabs of bulldozers, then wield their front loaders as the weapon of choice in a rampage to try to destroy a busload of young Jewish girls on their way to Hadassah Hospital to cheer up the patients with a little Purim fun.
  
  I even wonder ... could the cadre of "nature terrorists" be in training??
  
  Jerusalem...City of Intensity.

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I went in search of wild cyclamen, and either they are finished blooming or shyly hiding behind the rocks, because I could find none this week. I did find the trees that have had berries all winter now taking on a new spring look against the summer-hinting blue of the sky - even though they are the same old berries on the tree, and non edible ones at that!

One less such tree on my block, thanks to the iryiah workers.


I found bushes in shades of purple, shrubs dressed in buttercup garments, and Israeli style dandelions lining the walkways.

Just the beginning as spring emerges from the long cold winter.

A Surprise

...but just as I was about to put away my camera, I stumbled upon the treasures I had been looking for.... right behind my building on the terrace slopes to the streets below.

There I discovered countless clumps of wild cyclamen...and in the midst of them were bright yellow and pale yellow butterflies

cavorting in the sun. Alas, my camera decided to relinquish it's battery charge just as I was shooting the butterflies.

Most amazingly, while I know nothing about butterfly mating, it appeared to me to be a courtship dance between a bright yellow and pale yellow butterfly. It was very sweet. I'll be back to photograph more, but the courtship may in fact be over. :)