We traveled to Galilee to stay at Adnan’s home in the north. He and Khawla have amazing gardens. Everything seems to grow here. We were encouraged to help with the olive harvest from their two olive trees. It was a bit early for the harvest, but they are leaving to travel to Vancouver to see their children and grandchildren so they had to do it now.
The work is dusty and hard. Adnan is very agile climbing up very high in the trees to trim the fruit-laden branches. Khawla supervises closely from the ground. Over two days we harvested four bags of olives. The picture below only shows less than half of what we picked. It was pressed into 14.5 liters of olive oil. Not bad for our first effort, but David and Kathi dreamed about missing olives on the branches.
There are numerous citrus trees, figs, pomegranate, and all sorts of other plants on their land. They are all delicious.
A critical and somber part of each of our visits to this special land is time at Abie’s grave. Abie was their amazing son who was killed in a tragic car accident in Iowa right before completing his medical doctor training at the University of Iowa. We knew Abie well, as he was our neighbor in Des Moines at his sister’s Rasha’s home. His grave is a place to pause and reflect on the impact he continues to have on so many people. We love you Abie, and you will always be in our hearts.
