Olive Picking

The gap in our diary is because we have been hard at work olive picking; at last we were able to try our hand. A friend has seven trees that she was ready to pick; and we have offered our help, it was a gentle start.

With a little guidance from the builder of our friends’ house, we started work on the trees. A Greek neighbour was picking just over the fence next to us so we all felt a little self-conscious if were doing the job correctly. There was much discussion between the husband and wife team, many smiles and a few words of help, concerning the number of leaves that we could leave in the sacks with the picked olives. It turned out that out of the seven trees only four of them had olives, so by mid afternoon we had finished and felt we had achieved something. Then we realised that five of us had managed to pick four trees, while next door the husband and wife team must have cleared at least a dozen trees. We hoped that with a bit more experience our picking rate would improve.

The next day we started on another friends, they have a dozen trees, so more experience to come. At least working in the warm sunshine is far better than being behind a desk from 9-5. Sorry to all of those we left behind, just couldn’t resist that!!

At the end of two days we have a total of two and a half sacks, not a lot for two days work for five people. We all decide we should get them pressed while fresh, really meaning we would like a break. About 5.30 whilst returning home we passed an olive press, we stopped and asked if they were open, there were two men working there moving sacks of olives. They didn't know if they were open??!!, but if we went back at 10.30 in the morning they might be (this particular press takes 10% in payment). We drove a bit further down and noticed another press, we stop as there is a light on, our friend knocks and asks if they are open. We have never seen any activity at this press, and there is no sign of any bags of olives waiting to be pressed. There are three or four Albanian guys sitting round a table eating a plateful of potatoes whilst watching television, there's a couple of beds. Come back in half an hour they say, now we are worried, will they start up the works just for our two and a half bags, will they charge us a high percentage for a small quantity maybe 50% or even 75%? We have a good laugh about it and decide not to risk two hard days work, we'll see what tomorrow brings. Later a friend passed and said that the whole place was lit up, we hoped they hadn’t fired up the machinery in anticipation of our return.

Friday, all five of us go to the press, it’s a big day and we are all excited. Immediately we arrive we feel a little self-conscious, most of the pallets are holding upwards of eight bags. We put our two and a half bags to the side and wait and wait and wait. Whilst we were waiting we had a look around the press and laughed our heads off when we saw the contents of the hopper. There were half as many leaves as olives! We had painstakingly removed almost every leaf from our olives, which had added hours and was the most difficult part of the picking.

Eventually our bags were taken and weighed, 95 kilos, not bad, then they were tipped into a hopper and the process of extracting the oil begins. This process took longer than we imagined as the extraction machinery is more sophisticated than we thought. Each of the four sections of the process can be isolated and each able to hold a separate batch, so we had to wait while other batches completed. Finally our oil trickled out, we had 10 litres. Not a lot for all the efforts, but we all went home to sample it for lunch. “Itan poli nostimo” That was delicious!

Today, Saturday, we steamed ahead, having learned an important lesson. Now we are experts, we finished the remaining six trees before lunch. Tomorrow we start picking our own olives, only about 40 trees to go!