One sunny Saturday in early December friends gathered at our house for our annual Fête des Olives. That's a fancy way of saying that we bribed people with free organic olive oil if they would come help us get the olives out of the trees.
Our house has 10 trees (and Tiny House has 25 - yikes!). We spend the day combing the trees and then sorting the olive berries from the leaves in stems that often fall into the nets as well. Once we had clean buckets of berries we called it a day. The following monday, E took the olives early in the morning to our local mill, the Moulin de la Brague in Opio. There the mill, though small, is fully industrialized where the olives are crushed, pressed for juice and then the oil is separated from the water centrigues.
This year we harvested 200 kg (440 pounds) which gave us around 40 liters of oil - enough to pay our friends and see us through the year.
Finally! The kids are getting big enough (almost!) to be put to work...
...while the Papas rested (and drank).
The foreman overseeing the sorting work.
Whew! By the time we were finished the sun had set and the cold set in. We moved indoors to enjoy an aperitif of cheese fondue and gewurtzraminer.
p.s. Many thanks to R who took many of the pictures above while I was scrambling around in the kitchen.
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