Pine Harvesting - Something to Do for Liberation

Last Wednesday, May 25^th, was Liberation Day in Lebanon. And while my father and my sister-in-law had work, my mother, my brother, and I were celebrating a different kind of liberation, one that includes hard labor and nature's beauty.

Dad's car (Until recently, this was my car on the weekends)

We took Dad’s car and went to Mom’s village. There, the pine trees needed to be harvested and this isn’t an easy affair. While one of us had to climb the trees, certainly not Mom (nor me), the others’ job was to find and collect the cones once they hit the ground (and avoid getting hit on the head with a fallen one).

The old shaky ladder that my brother bravely used for climbing

But the problem is that I took the camera along, and the place was so fascinating that it was craving for photos. And who am I to ignore the call of nature. I was too busy snapping photos that I lost most of the pine cones between the bushes.

Mom's village viewed from under the pine trees

The day was a well needed day off, and the little work I had to do, and the cuts and bruises, were greatly rewarded by the serenity of the place.

However, two things fascinated me there; the first is the number of wild flowers found in this little spot. And the second was a huge rock with old eroded inscriptions on it. Mom told me that this rock has been there forever even her grandparents didn’t know who wrote on it.

This rock with the fairly visible writings. And it's around 4 meters tall

So I put some dirt on the rock in an attempt to make it readable. Did it work?

Same rock with dirt revealing the inscriptions

My guess is that it says PIADA (which may mean Lebanese Bread in Italian or Greek - Wikipedia) followed by a circle (the shape of the bread). What do you think?

In the meantime, I leave you with some photos I took that day...