Olive nets

Darren has gone out to start laying out the nets under the olive trees to catch the first olives of the season. We intend to do the harvest in a couple of weeks’ time so now is right to start collecting the windfalls. Any longer and they would be too far gone by the time we go to press.

Una quindicina di giorni (15 days) should be just the right amount of time before we go on to full on collection mode in the week of 10th November (weather permitting) That week we also have another family here to help us. They have a little girl a bit older than Mickey so it should be fun to get them involved, too.

Ever since our first harvest 4 years ago I always fantasised about collecting the olives as a family. Maybe because the act of climbing and shaking trees take you back to being a child anyway. It is always a fun, if exhausting, week.

In my current pregnant state I find any physical activity lasting any more than 5 minutes utterly exhausting so I’m not sure how much help I will end up being this year. We didn’t collect the olives last year as we had had our trees pruned so in fact the last time we harvested I was also pregnant.

That year we had a good friend from the UK over to help out and he worked so hard on the first day - climbing to the very tops of the trees and shaking around like a mad monkey – that for the rest of the week he was ill in bed. A lesson in pacing ourselves. I will keep you posted on how we get on this year.