THE OLIVE HARVEST

 We are home safe and sound and full of some great memories.  I just thought I would have to tell you about the olive harvest which we did on the last few days at IL MOLINO.  This is a picture of just one level of the olive trees.  The entire hill is terraced and, believe me, it is a long steep climb to the top.  Pino and Caroline have about 320 olive trees, most of them on that hill.  This year was a bumper crop.  Of course I would be there to pick when the trees were full of olives.  In fact on the first day we got more olives that the whole harvest last year.

Here is a view from the top.  Those trees in the foreground are olive trees.  The building to the right is IL MOLINO.  The green you see is just a small portion of what I mowed.  I had a Snapper rider with about a 30" cut and a power push mower.  It was fun.  No, I am not being sarcastic, it really was fun for me.  Not to mention the good exercise to burn off all the pasta and olive oil and salami.  As Pino always says: This is my paradise on Earth.  I agree with him.

This is one method used to get the olives off the trees.  Here you see Pino laying a net around the tree.  The olives are kind of raked off the tree and fall into this net.  There is also a tree shaker to help the olives to fall into the net.  Of course, Pino doesn't have one yet.  He did promise that he will have one by next year.

 These are some guests who know Pino and volunteered to help on the first day.  Here they are pulling olives off the tree and into the net.  The two people in the foreground are from Naples, Florida and have been to IL MOLINO before.  Once you stay at IL MOLINO you become Pino and Carloine's friends.  Many people come back once they have been there.  It is truly a great place.  Hope you go there sometime.

More picking of the olives.  You can see the red rakes in their back pocket.  This is what is used to rake the tree branches.  You do get some leaves and small branches in the net, but we try to pick as many out as we can.  Once the tree is finished the olives are poured from the net into plastic boxes that hold 25 kilos.  That is about 55 pounds.  It feels like 100 pounds when you are carrying the box down the hill to the trailer.  It would be difficult to get a vehicle up that hill.

Each day we would stop for lunch at about 1:30.  Brenda was the cook and would ring a bell when lunch was ready.  I don't remember what we had that day but I am sure pasta was involved.  And, of course, wine to drink.  You can see the bottles on the table and in the background.  This is Pino and his mother Anna (Nonna).  This harvest is a family affair and everyone gets involved.  We would go back to the grove at about 2:30 and work until at least 5:30 or 6 P.M.  At about 6:30 we would gather again for supper.  Finish eating, shower and usually bed.  No problem sleeping here.

Besides using a net we also did what we call hand picking.  That is mostly what I did.  You can barely see it but I have a basket tied around my waist.  You have gloves on and run your had along the branches hoping the olives will fall into the basket.  Some have to be picked individually.  It's a long day, but an extremely satisfying day.  You do a lot of thinking while your up there picking and a lot of talking with whom ever is picking with you.  I did a lot of picking with a person named Michael.  He is from El Passo Texas and a great guy.  We had a lot of fun.  So he asked me where I got that shirt.  When I  told him I got in the the states he kind of cracked up.  So did every one else.

This is the next day and more picking.  Those green boxes on the right are the containers we use to transport the olives.  This day we had help from four people from Sidney, Australia.  They were with Pino and Caroline the week before on their trip to Sicily.  They were spending the second week here to rest up and see the sights.  This day, however, there was no rest.  They worked from morning until evening.  We had a lot of laughs that day.  The guy in black is Pino and in back of the tree where you can't see her is Caroline.  Everybody helps out.

Here is Pino serving chicken soup made by Brenda.  She has made that soup several times at home, but it just didn't taste the same there.  I think it is the fresh ingredients including the chicken.  I told her I would get a live one at the market and slaughter and dress it.  Back when I was 15 I used to do that on the chicken farm where I worked after school and on Saturday's.  You can probably guess what she said.  The chicken in the soup that day came from the grocery store.  One thing is that the chickens there do not come from a corporate farm but from individual farmers.  Frank Purdue does not exist in this part of Italy.  Neither does Tyson or any of the others.  Believe me there is definitely a difference in the taste. Those stainless steel containers you see is where the olive oil is stored.

Here we are at the factory where the olives are pressed.  Those two bins represent less than half of the harvest.  They hold what we picked in two days, 500 kilos.  One kilo is 2.2 pounds.  All carried by hand in 25 kilo containers off the mountain.  This is the first step in the process.

Here the olives are transferred onto a conveyer belt where they are lifted to the wash section.  We still tried to get as much of the leaves and branches out before the went into the wash process.  There more of the leaves and stems are removed.  I am using the hydraulic lift to get the olives onto the conveyer belt.  Each of the containers had to be unloaded from Pino's van and loaded into there larger bins.  Oh, my aching back.  Actually, I had no back problems the whole time I was in Italy.  I don't know why, and we didn't even have a memory foam mattress.  So much for spending a lot money on a mattress.  Thanks, Amy for making me those great orthotics. They worked.

This is the washing process.  The olives go through several washes before they are transferred to the unit where they are pressed and turned into a kind of mash. In case your are wondering, the pits are also pressed.  I am told they have a lot of oil in them.  One of the things I noticed is that you can follow your olives through the whole process.  There are no signs telling you to stay out.  The workers just go around you as they are doing their job.  It's incredible. At home you probably wouldn't even be allowed in the factory, but would probably have to wain in a waiting room.

Here is the mash.  It is turned in this machine for at least an hour.  There are five of these in this room all going at once. From there it goes to another machine where it is spun so all the water is removed.  This takes quite some time as it is done over and over again until almost all of the water is removed and everything else is filtered out.

After that process, it is piped to another container where it is spun again to get the last of the water out.  What you see coming out of the vat is olive oil from olives picked that day and the day before.  There with Pino is one of the workers at the plant.  Contrary to what a lot of people believe, most Italians are slim.  That person is typical of Italians in Italy.  That is what you see on the streets and in stores.  If you see an overweight person, it is usually a tourist.  Most of the time from the United States.  We didn't see any fast food restaurants.  The snack shelf in the super market only took up a small part of an isle.  They might eat pasta often but it is only at the beginning of the meal and a small portion.  After that they have meat usually called the "secondi" followed by a salad with olive oil and a touch of balsamic vinegar.  They do a lot of walking everywhere and most of the time it is up hill.  I guess that works.

Ok, so I had to get in there to have a taste.  The taste is nothing like you have tasted from oil bought in the store.  It is said that a family in Italy uses at least one liter of olive oil a week.  We certainly had our share while we were there.  When you buy olive oil here in the US, read the label.  The best oil is from anywhere in Tuscany.  I am told by Pino the oil from Luca is the best.  If you see it buy it.  That is if you like olive oil.  Unlike wine, olive oil does not get better with age.  It's best young so check the dates on the bottle.

Here we are at the processing plant drinking wine and waiting for the first of the oil.  Caroline, you can see her hand at the bottom of the picture doing needle point to pass the time, brought some fresh Italian bread some salami.  We got the first of the oil and had it with the bread and salami.  The guy with the hat on the right side of the table is Michael.  That's who I picked with most of the time.  I don't remember all the names but they were great people.  We not only worked hard, but we had fun too.

Well, this is the end of my blogs for now. We are back home with many found memories of our stay in our homeland.  We went there hoping to find some information about my family, but what we found is a new extended family.  Here they are: Pino, Caroline, and, of course, Nonna.  We love you guys.  Thank you for making us feel like family.  Guess what.  We're going back.  Yep, come April we will be back in Italy taking care of IL MOLINO while Pino and Caroline are taking a group on another one of their tours.  I am also going to help get the vegetable garden started. Addio per ora.