Our Olives Are In!

Our olive harvest this year in mid-November took a couple of days. And here are the crates of olives after our first day of picking:

…and here is the abundance at the conclusion, the day after, crates ready to be loaded into Pino’s truck to head for the mill for pressing:

Serenity spreads out over the undulating hills rising behind our house: a view to relish while we picked the olives on the smaller, young trees (planted by Pino some years ago):

The younger trees flank the vineyard, the grapevines now bare and reaching skyward. Pino had transformed the grapes into buonissimo vino in September.

I preferred the harvesting method del passato (of the past): a strap around the neck attached to a red bucket. Branches are grabbed and sliding hands pull the olives off the branches with a steady rhythm, the olives landing with a “plunk, plunk” into the bucket.

Olive-picking like this is almost a therapeutic activity: the steady physical rhythm of the arms lifting up, the hands pulling down the olives, coupled with the gentle reverberating sound of the olives hitting the bucket.

That plunking sound is the only infringement on the serenity of the surrounding hills.

Our son Keegan used a more modern and rapid method of harvesting, pulling the olives off the tree with an olive shaker-rake onto nets laid out below the trees:

Pino worked below the trees, folding up the nets holding olives so as to channel the olives into the crates which would soon head to the mill for olive-pressing: