“Red Storm Rising” in the Northern Negev desert.

דרום אדום” -השבוע בנגב המערבי”

 

I hope Tom Clancy will forgive me for using the name of his great book for this post.

Israel is not all Roman ruins, religious pilgrims, security issues and Hi-Tech.

Our nature is special and beautiful, even though we are a country with only a small yearly rainfall and over half  of it is desert.

There are six climatic regions in Israel – one of them is the Northern Negev desert – today a green area due to the massive water projects from the early years of our state.

Usually the spring starts in February or March but this year (and last) – it seems as if the Boss wanted to surprise us. Everything is early.

The first sign of spring is the red flower (Crown Anemones) spreading from horizon to horizon.

You will see that there are already white (Watercress) and yellow flowers (Jerusalem Spurge). The Marigolds were barely out so their picture below is from a previous year. The pictures are from this month – January.

The area is called “Darom Adom” which translates into “the Red South”.

All the pictures were taken in this area – the Northern-Negev-desert, along and around routes 232, 334 and 34. They are all within a small triangle stretching  from Yad Mordechai in the north-west to Sderot in the north-east and all the way south to Kibbutz Be’eri  – along the northern part of the Gaza strip. See the map .

Enjoy the pictures and come next year and see it in person…