My friend Nancy came to see us for the midwinter holiday, and after learning to make a traditional Moroccan bean soup (secrets: buckets of garlic plus paprika to keep the beans from clogging the pressure cooker),
 

we drove six or seven hours south to Demnate, stopping at the Cascades d’Ouzoud on the way.

We were amazed by the massive water pipe snaking down the mountains near Beni Mellal,

by the fertile plains it irrigated,

and by the river and dam that fed it:
 

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I want to be a bee-keeper right here:

We were weary by the time we got to the Cascades d’Ouzoud.  It was cold and the insistence of the guides wanting to give us a tour made us a little cranky.  But the falls were beautiful.  We thought the rainbow appeared specially for us, but it’s actually a reliable feature of the cascade.

The intrepid father-son team went all the way to the bottom of the falls and we met them coming up on the other, calmer, less touristy side.
 
Then James climbed out into the middle of the falls to take this kind of photo from “a perfectly safe place.”  All I can say is, it didn’t look that safe from where we were standing.

Then we jumped back into the car to drive another hour to our eco-farm hotel in the hills above Demnate.  The rolling hills were beautiful in the early evening.

After we dropped our bags in our rooms, as Zoe and Nancy settled themselves in, Jeremy and I went to explore the farm and James came along to play with his new camera.
 

I love my boys, both big and small.

One of the many facets of happiness.