Olives for Olive Oil

In early October friend Joan Pont sent out a notice that she would be picking her olives on two dates this fall, I opted for Sunday 26 November, thinking that would be a more fruitful time for the olives. I was correct.

In October they picked about 50 pounds of olives. Today we picked more than 200 pounds. We were told to aim for 80% blue (some folks called them black) and 20% green. To begin with I didn’t collect any green, so when I heard about the percentage I was pretty happy!  This is what that looks like when they are loaded into 5 gallon buckets.

I went up to pick olives after stopping by to visit JoAnne at the hospital. She was very peaceful, breathing shallow breaths more rapidly than yesterday. This led to her Hospitalist Dr. Cooper to up the morphine from 9mm to 11mm. Dr, Cooper has been on for the whole week and be off tomorrow for three days. She deserves a break, and has been great throughout.

It has been raining, and showering. We all got very darn wet. My jacket proved to be “water resistant” not “waterproof” so like several others I  was wet to the skin. Below is Joan and her special collecting container (I need for next year) that allows more stability in picking and having the little rascals drop into the collector and not the ground. Nothing that lands on the ground is kept.

We all eventually went inside to get warm and to eat some goodies prepared by Joan – including a superb savory gallette – the recipe for which I intend to get. Just before I left Joan got a call from her barn (she keeps her horses at a Barn about 20 minutes away). They wanted her to come and ride the horses. …. I thought – really?…