Earthquakes, a daily event

Since the first earthquakes we felt on February 14th, there have been at least two or three every day. The total events in the area to the south west of us in the sea is now 125.

Fortunately, there have been only three quakes of magnitude greater than 6; ones that we could feel. The remainder have all been less than 5, mostly in the range 3-4.

A few days ago I thought they were dying out, but still they continue. How many more can there be?

Shake, rattle and roll

It's now a week since the first earthquake that we felt here. That one occurred on the 14th February just after midday at 12:09. Later the same afternoon we felt another, the feeling being very similar, the ground seeming to move from side to side, very little vertical movement, similar to being on a boat in harbour when another passes by. Yesterday we felt yet another, this time it lasted a little longer that the previous two, maybe around 40-45 seconds.

Checking on the activity in the area I discovered that there have now been 52 "incidents" since the 14th. These include 3 earthquakes over 6 on the Richter scale, the rest being mostly in the range 3-4. They are in an area directly out to sea from us, about 30-35 miles away. You can have look at these using the "European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre" web site at http://www.emsc-csem.org.

What is happening in this area? Are we about to see a volcano or new island rise up out of the sea as Surtsey did back in 1963? I very much doubt that, hopefully the activity will just die down in the next few days.

Neatly pressed

Well, finally after promises from different people about opening we ended up back with Dimitris and pressed the olives. As we picked early this year, the yield per kilo of olives was down a bit, but we were still pleased with the result. Only 57kg of oil this year, but that was plenty for ourselves and the rest was taken by the people leaving for Germany, so everything was finally completed successfully.

Now we have a little more pruning and clearing to be done over the next few weeks.

All picked

After a full day on Saturday, we had completed 26 trees. That's very quick and gives an indication of how bad the harvest is this year.

Saturday evening Lainie phoned our friends who had volunteered to help us on Sunday to check they would still come. "We've found it very difficult this year, only managed to pick 2 trees yesterday and 2 more today!". I think they almost believed her as they arrived just after 8am on Sunday morning to help us finish.

With their help, we had everything finished by just after midday. Jim wanted some tape and filler for a job he’s doing in his house, so we went to the village to get them from Dimitris. Dimitris not only is a builders merchant, but also runs one of the local olive presses, the one we have used for the last 3 years. When we had seen Dimitris earlier in the week he had told us the press would be running by the weekend. So, while we were there I checked if the press would be open on Monday. “No, not until Wednesday or Thursday.” When Jim and I looked inside the press building we could see why, a piece of the plant was dismantled and lying on the floor. Wednesday or Thursday could easily turn into next weekend!

Luckily last night while we were out for a meal we saw another man who runs one of the olive presses just outside the village who we had used the first year we were here. He said he would not be open on Monday, but should be running on Tuesday. So, hopefully our problem may be solved.

Picking

Well, after a bad start with a small shower, the rest of the day was mainly sunny and very warm. Sad to say the olive harvest this year is not as good.

By the time Lainie arrived back from language classes I had picked 6 trees. These were the poorest trees, the olives were small and not many on any of the trees. There were still some of the branches that I had cut from the trees to be stripped of their olives, but that's the job that Lainie prefers. By the end of the day we had finished 12 trees, but still had less than 2 sacks of olives. Last year we had just over 4 sacks for the same trees.

The weather forecast for today is warm and sunny, but Sunday and Monday are now showing possible rain.

Instant sucess

Well, how was that? Managed to get everything out ready to start and it's rained! Only a shower, but enough to be inside for 15-20 minutes to let it dry out again.

Oh well! Another of my great decisions.....

Olive picking dilemmas

It’s time for olive picking again! This year we’re faced with a new set of problems.

• The olives are quite small due to the long, hot, dry summer.
• They’re mostly turned dark blue and are starting to fall from the trees.
• Some people who will leave for home in about 10 days want to take some of our oil.
• If we leave the olives for another month or two the oil content will improve.
  
• As our total harvest is quite small for a batch to be processed at the olive press, we like to pick everything in one go.
• If you leave picked sackfulls for more than 4-5 days the olives deteriorate quite rapidly.
• The weather is fine at the moment, but the forecast shows showers for today.
• Tomorrow is sunny, but then we have two days with rain.

Should I start picking? Lainie is at language classes this morning, so it’s up to me. What to do?

Let’s go for it!