All other chores and obligations are cast aside – our olives must be harvested! Some of the black olives are already soft and falling to the ground, while the green olives – a different type- are swollen but could do with a couple of weeks more to flesh out and produce more oil.
We have to
find the middle ground and harvest now before the black ones begin to spoil. First
we walk round the trees and pick up any windfall berries that are in good
condition.
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Then we lay the nets which are doubled so we can catch the fruit there and avoid it falling through the mesh. The nets are a real attraction for Prunella who loves to tunnel in between the two layers. She also loves playing with the olives - rolling them with her paws, then chasing after them. Keeps her happy for a wee while!
From the branches we can easily reach, we comb the off olives and let them fall on the net – being careful not to tread on them.
Those
higher up get felled either by Z climbing up and picking them off or by him
wielding a big stick and bashing them off – hi-tech stuff (staff?) this!
Mr Mao is, of course, also present but is not nearly as active as Prunella.He finds the most comfortble, sunny spot where he can stretch out or curl up and relax. Now, if this happens to be on top of the nice, warm berries in a half-filled crate- so be it!
Here we are
proudly displaying the 260 kilos we collected – just the two of us.
And below are the plastic drums containing our golden harvest. All in all, our trees produced 36 kilos of oil which should keep us going for a couple of years.
Our liquid gold!
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