Outdoors -- cancel the milk carton picture

"My" robin has been missing in action.
Until yesterday.
Actually, there were three robins sitting on my fence.
None of them were vocalizing -- "my" robin comes and calls at me when he wants food.
When I opened the door to throw out some chokeberries, they all flew away.
So either "my" robin has gone wild
or he was seeing them off and planning to sneak back alone so he got all the chokeberries.
Maybe hanging out with the crowd has protected him from our Cooper's hawk.
At any rate, the berries have been disappearing,
but the robin eating them has been doing so on the QT.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Garden -- and DIY

Here's some planning for how to water your garden next year.
This will only work if you plant in mulch.
It will only work if you hand-water or drip water.
It will NOT work if you use sprinklers or spray water into the air from a hose, which is a wasteful way to water anyway as I have already said.
And it will only work if you use soaps instead of detergents, which is where DIY comes in.

You see, first you have to replace your shampoos and body bars with soap, such as Castile soap.
Or you have to start using herbal cleansers, such as a yucca/amla/fenugreek hair cleansing mask from an online recipe or yucca cleaning bars (recipe also on line).
You also can't use clothes washer water if you use commercial detergents or have to soften your water with sodium or borax.
Sodium and the boron in borax are bad for your plants so cleansers that contain them will make it impossible to use greywater.
But if you were going to use clothes washer water, you would have to re-do your plumbing to get at it so I think it's safe to assume you're not going there.
The same thing is true with a dishwashing machine.

Anyway, you can put a bucket in your shower and catch both the water that rinses you and the water that doesn't, and use this to water your garden.
You can put a tub in the sink when you wash dishes and catch the rinse water, then put that on the garden.

THE RULE.
You must use the greywater within 24 hours.  So do your dishes and showering at night so that you can water at the right time, which is morning as I have said before.
Actually, showering at night is a good thing.
It's relaxing and anything that helps you get to sleep is good.
It saves bed changes because you get into bed clean instead of dirty.
It leaves time in the morning for both watering the garden, and fixing breakfast.
And breakfast is the most important meal of the day, it will help you lose weight and hit the ground running at work or at school.
You see!
This is an example of what goes around comes around.
Doing the environment some good, and saving water, comes around to keep you healthy and wise.
And wealthy since you will cut your water bill.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Leviticus 12

Your assignment for this week was to read Leviticus 12.  By the time we’re done with this subject you should have read Leviticus 13, 14, and 15 as well.

The word tameh is usually translated as “unclean,” while its opposite tahor is translated “clean.” 

Of course you realize that I wouldn’t bring this up if it wasn’t an urban legend.

I’m going to argue that tameh means “unsuitable for the normal purpose of the subject” and tahor means the opposite.

Leviticus 12 is about a woman who gives birth and it also refers to “her niddah.”

Niddah in most cases means a woman’s menstrual period.  In Jewish law she is tameh for 7 days, then goes to the mikveh and after sundown she is tahor.

If my definition is correct, what is a woman unsuitable for when she is tameh through niddah?  For enjoying onata, her conjugal rights that I discussed in a previous post. 

The urban legend is that she has to be put in seclusion and is considered dirty.  That’s because of the mistranslation.  That’s where we get the urban legend that women are second class citizens in Jewish culture.

The truth is, she has to refrain from intimacy with her husband, the classic example of which is handing him his goblet of wine at dinner.  She is not exiled from her home.

If a man has sex with a woman who is niddah, the man is liable to karet if he does it willfully with no witnesses to bring him into court; that is one of the big 36 in Keritot.  The man is liable for a sin offering if he transgressed mistakenly, ignorantly of the law or the fact, or in a fit of absent-mindedness.  He is liable to flogging, according to Talmud, if he transgressed willfully with witnesses and hatraah.  The woman is not liable either to karet or a sin offering, and also not to flogging – unless this was adultery and that’s a capital crime.

The man who had sex with the woman in niddah becomes tameh.  If there were witnesses who tried to stop that, as per due process, and he then enters the tabernacle or temple, he becomes liable to flogging.  It is prohibited to enter the tabernacle or temple while in a tameh condition, no matter what the cause. 

Any priest who is tameh from any source is also prohibited from entering the tabernacle or temple, as well as performing services there, and he can be liable to the death penalty.  All priests are men so this is one death penalty never inflicted on women, who cannot be priests.

The concept that a woman is tameh while in niddah only means that she has to sacrifice her conjugal rights.

The man who has sex with her may be subject to flogging, but the woman is not punished if niddah is the only thing involved.  The man is penalized more than the woman if he transgresses.  Get it?  Got it?  Good.

For next week, read Leviticus 13 or as much of it as you can get under your belt.  It will illustrate two principles in Jewish law.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Bit at a Time Biblical Hebrew -- Genesis 2:9

Genesis 2:9

 

ט וַיַּצְמַח יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים מִן־הָאֲדָמָה כָּל־עֵץ נֶחְמָד לְמַרְאֶה וְטוֹב לְמַאֲכָל וְעֵץ הַחַיִּים בְּתוֹךְ הַגָּן וְעֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע:

 

Transliteration: Va-yitsmach **** elohim min-ha-adamah kal-ets nechmad l’mareh v-tov l’maakhal v-ets ha-chaim b’tokh ha-gan v-ets ha-daat tov vara.

Translation:    **** Gd made sprout from the earth every pleasant tree to look at and good for food and the tree of live in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

נֶחְמָד	pleasant
לְמַרְאֶה	To view, for looking at
לְמַאֲכָל	For food
חַיִּים	life
בְּתוֹךְ	In the middle of
דַּעַת	knowledge
רָע	Evil, bad

 

Notice the difference between “to view” and “for food.”  This emphasizes that the prefix l can mean either “to” or “for.”  I could have said “for eating” and because the Bible uses lots of parallel phrases, that might be preferable.  But it sounds strange in English because you might think it meant eating the twigs and branches and all, when we would normally only eat the fruit.  OK cinnamon is different because then we use the bark but you get my point.

 

The only way you won’t know how to pronounce “life” right off the bat is if you’ve never seen Fiddler on the Roof.  L’chaim is a toast meaning “to life”. 

 

Notice that va-ra has a kamats under the vav and not a shva.  You can’t use a shva because of the resh and you can’t use a patach.  That’s just one of those pesky spelling rules in Hebrew.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Knitting -- meanwhile

Before starting on that argyle sweater, I tried an experiment with some new yarn.
5/2 yarn is like a heavy crochet thread.
The product I tried is Perly Perle, which is 100% mercerized cotton.
I thought it would make some nice sleeveless tees to wear out shopping and so on.
That means I wouldn't worry about my old sleeveless tees which have all kinds of dirt on them that won't wash out.
I can just wear them out gardening and what not.
And I didn't need to learn any new skills, YMMV if you haven't tried a Fair Isle pattern.
The pattern is:
Cast on 336 stitches for a 40 inch chest to a size zero circular with a 24 inch tether.  For other sizes, calculate about 7 stitches per inch.
Do k2/p2 rib for at least 4 rows.
Switch to a number 1 circular on same length tether, and do 160 rounds.

For armholes, put 7 stitches on a holder from the start of the next round.
Knit half way around and starting 7 stitches before the next armhole,
put 14 stitches on a holder. 
Knit around and put the last 7 stitches of the round on the first holder.
By the way, the holder can be a thicker piece of yarn pulled through the stitches with a crochet hook.
To keep the stitches on, double this yarn over and then run the free ends through the loop.

Keep knitting in the round, and when you finish knitting the steeking, knit the first two stitches of the body together.
When you get to the next armhole, stop two stitches before the steeking.
Slip the next to last stitch onto the needle, knit the last stitch, then pass the slipped stitch over, before you knit the steeking.

Do this for 7 rounds, then stop decreasing.
Knit a total of 90 rows from the bottom of the armhole.
Knit to the middle of the steeking on one side.
Turn inside out and use a third needle to knit off 35 stitches for one shoulder.
Turn right side out, knit to the middle of the opposite steeking, and then turn inside out and knit off those 35 stitches for the other shoulder.
Turn right side out and do k2/p2 rib for as deep a neck as you want, and bind off.
Now change to a #1 circular with a 16 inch tether.
Cut up the middle of the steeking.
Knit up the underarms off the holder, and pick up 181 stitches around the armhole.
The steeking will fold back as a facing.
Do k2/p2 rib around the armhole for as many rows as you want, probably 5-6 and bind off.
OR knit 45 rows in the round, decreasing at the underarm every other round for a short sleeve and finish it in rib so the bottom of the sleeve doesn't curl up.
I know that's a quick and dirty pattern, if you need any of it explained better, email me.


© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Outdoors -- not long now

I love this point in the year.  I can look at the Jewish calendar on the Chabad website
and I see that Shabbat starts the same time this week as it did last week.
Next week, it starts later.
The sun is about to turn around in the sky and start showing up earlier and leaving later.
There's a good time coming....

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Garden -- good for something

Most things are good for gardening.
We have had a lot of rain over the last week, and that's good for one thing.
Getting rid of ivy.
Whether it's poison ivy or English ivy, wet soil is good.
You buy those heavy black plastic trash bags.
You wrap your arms in them and be careful to keep your head back.
And you pull on the vines until the roots come out of the soil.
With the poison ivy, you then carefully wrap the bag around the vines.
And you throw it in normal trash. 
DON'T recycle it with your leaves.
The people who try to compost those leaves or use them for compost are going to get poison ivy if you do.
What's more, English ivy doesn't break down for compost.  It just dries up.

This is going to work off some of the desserts you've been eating.
And that's the other thing this rain is good for.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved