In late November, nets had been spread out under our olive trees as preparation for our harvest.
One of our maremano sheep dogs surveyed the scene:
In this video, you can see our son Keegan working with his abbachiatore (the olive harvester) – and the Italian term defines its task: “that which knocks down”..
Picking took just a couple days as our 100 trees yielded not quite just 400 kilos this year: 800 kilos 2 years ago. Brutal heat this summer – hottest summer ever on record – was the culprit.
The crates of olives would soon head to the mill for pressing…
After a week-end of harvesting, we delivered our olives to the olive mill near Assisi Sunday evening. Pino unloaded our olives from his truck, dumping them into the mill’s huge gray crates for pressing.
A loader hefted the crates and they were taken inside and all around us, others were unloading their olives:
Inside the mill, small groups awaited the pressing of their olives. The event is a serious one: each grower is given an appointment for the pressing and will be there to view all: no one wants even a drop of another olive oil mixed into theirs!
Crates of olives were dumped into the apparatus which cleaned the olives….
….washing them under a spray, after separating out the leaves:
..and then into the frangitore (the olive press – literal meaning: “that which breaks up”). Out of the press, then flows that precious “green gold”:
Our milling appointment was for a couple days later as the mill is working until about midnight these days to handle all the orders.
We arrived right on time with our canisters for our 6 30 pm appointment:
All around us, others were awaiting their turn..
…or watching carefully as their new olive oil flowed out the spout:
Steel canisters filled with oil would then be loaded into cars or trucks for trasnport home:
It was soon time for the pressing of our olives (now nearly 9 pm) and a tired Pino surveyed our olives before they were loaded into the press:
I watched our olives roll out under the water spray, enroute to the frangitore:
….and what joy to see – finalmente! – the arrival of our olio nuovo – and to enjoy that first whiff of such a pungent perfume..
Our canisters were soon full…
Loaded crates flanked the back office in the mill where we paid our milling fee, Days of pressing were ahead…
Late as it was on our arrival home that night, impossible to resist a taste of that olive oil on bruschetta:
Postscript:
Our two Workawayers, Neli (from Poland) and Kristiana (from Latvia) had pitched in, too…..and here they are heading up to the trees to pick:
So sorry, Neli and Kristiana, that you had to head on to your next spot before tasting our olio nuovo: thoughts of you both as I savor it these days.. Mille grazie for your help those days and during your weeks here with us.
Read about – and see! – our olive harvest years ago
Read about how to purchase our son Keegan’s buonissimo organic olive oil.
See another YouTube video of our harvest (and do see others as well…)
See a blog note on our olive harvest not long ago.
Here’s another note (of many more on my blog..)
(Read about finding a Workawayer here)
