MIRABEL

There is a castle, with substantial remains survived, very close to our home, about a 15 minutes drive away, which makes for a nice and easy Saturday afternoon outing. Located 3 km southeast of the town Rosh HaAyn it stands up high on a hill, visible from far away. It was built by crusaders over Byzantine ruins in the beginning of the 12th century C.E. and named by them "Mirabel", which is of Latin origin and means "beautiful sight", and that it is. 

Lovely details, isn't that olive tree branch gorgeous?

A Greek inscription can be seen over one of the doorways, which could be called recycling, because it dates from the 4-5 century and was probably taken from somewhere else and reused.

Most of the visible ruins there are Mameluke, which means Turks who preceded the Ottomans, but a lot of architectural elements typical to the crusaders way of building are noticeable. It is exciting to walk around the ruins, to explore them inside the walls, which are more than 2 meters thick, to step into room after room, admiring the architecture and enjoying the view through the arched windows on the surrounding hills, which are dressed right now in beautiful spring green, dotted with red anemones and other flowers.

In the vicinity of the castle lies a tomb where probably an Arab sheik is buried and which can be reached by a short walk. 

And there I spotted this stone - just an ordinary stone, even not very pretty, but somehow it called out to me and I took it. 

Oh, of course not just so, I had something in my mind!  Engulfing stones with crochet can be found now in many creative blogs on the Internet. There is a woman called Margaret Omen, who is "the leader of the pack" - she makes absolute wonderful stone art. After seeing her beautiful work I felt the urge to try it by myself and this modest stone was my first "victim". I did not have fine yarn at home and made it with what I had at hand.

In the meantime I went hunting for more stones, some I already had at home. I bought supply, very fine yarn in light colors, and a small size crochet needle, and I "dressed up" several more stones.  I got quite hooked - this is really a very addictive way to create small wonders.

Try it, it is not difficult at all, after you start, the stone will tell you what to do - believe me, this is exactly what happens!