Gio

We have had stonking weather here. Hot and sunny with clear blue skies. The olives on a mates land are calling to be picked. Last chance before we leave for the yeuk. I love picking olives. The camerarderie, the banter, the door stopper sarni's slipped in as an energy booster about 10 keeping us going till lunch at 1. The raking them off the tree & the sound of them clinking and plunking their way down the metal ladders . The laying out of the nets and the hauling in of the black gold...The bagging & lugging and driving them off to the nearest Frantoia...and then the wait to watch the screwing down of the press and the green and bitter liquid running out. The old lady who then at the Frantoia beckons us over to a littered wooden table and takes some crusty bread and dips her bread into our oil.....yum. Another Autumn, a season of mists and mellow fruitfulnesss...

indiebird

ohhhh sounds lovely Ernesto!! Here it is freezing fog this morning. I drove the kids to school as we couldn't get our bottoms onto gear and all those mirrors that are supposed to show you round corners are all fogged up, noone uses their bloody headlights and so you can see nothing. Glad to be back home in the warm tbh!! Sounds much nicer to be out in the fields picking olives to me!

Gio

You must be North..I havent any idea where you are...I'm so bad with places here. Still, all toasty and warm at home sounds good too! Enjoy.
Ern

Lorna at Vicenza

Sounds like fun though I've heard it can be back breaking work too. Do you get free oil every year then Ernesto ?

indiebird

I am, north west, at the bottom of the alps. How far south are you Ernesto? My geography's rubbish!! Free oil sounds good. I brought some fantastic oil from my ginastica teacher last year as her family are from somewhere near Naples and have olive trees there. Better than anything I can buy in the shops and was €5 a litre.

clint

Ernesto if you like you can come to our place and pick our olives too, we have 70 olives tree for you to have fun with

I agree with you though we have a deal with a local guy he picks our olives I like to help him and his family out and in exchange we get a share of the olive produced, last year we ended up with 70Lt and it is nothing like the one in the shop, so much better

The only pain is looking after the olive trees with pruning etc every 4 years but at least we get wood for the camino out of it

Gio

Hardly free!! Just got back, neck aching, fingers torn to shreds but very happy and tanned...Picked 100kilo today. About 15-20 litres of green & peppery beautiful oil. It's the way we make our oil for the year and give to our family in the U.K. It's cold pressed, extra virgin, one grove, picked in the foothills of the Gran Sasso & it's all mine!!!!!!!!!!Yum. Roll on tomorrow.

hereandthere

I live in Australia and it's heating up here big time right now - 34 at 10 in the morning and 43 forecast. But there are a lot of olive trees round here in people's gardens. You certainly sell Italy well in your description. I recall being in Rome in November on year and sitting in shirtsleeves on a balcony drinking local red wine while back in the UK of course it was armegeddon weather. If I move back to Europe I would think Italy was a more suitable location than Britain for what I want in life.

Gio

Here's the oil from 1 days picking. 17 litres. Not as good as last years but still great....

indiebird

Brilliant Ernesto!! Well done you. 17litres sounds like a lot but I suppose it depends on how many olives you picked (I really have no idea but I am guessing that it takes a heck of a lot of effort) and how many of you there were. How does it taste??

Gio

Would you believe it took 97kilo of olives to make what you see. Yes, it's green & glorious.......It took 3 people 7 hours

davehornet6

WOW thats a lot of olives, 97kilos.
how many trees needed for that lot?
sounds like a great day though, iv'e picked daffodils in corwall and grapes near Perpignon ,France. absolutely loved it.
the pay was terrible but we didn't care. got some nice plonk from the family in france.

indiebird

It must be worth it though or you wouldn't do it surely.

Gio

Yes, we love it....We do it every year, for anyone who needs a hand. We have a great community spirit here & we all muck in....
We only picked 6 trees to get 97 kilos of olives and this year has been a bad crop with the wet weather we had in May & June. Last year we got 95 litres of oil from 4 trees!
Off to Blighty in a weeks time with our oil not looking forward to that, there's been floods & storms we hear

Lorna at Vicenza

You were up early this morning.

Have you got your shopping list ready?
Floods and storms where?