Olive Oyl Time

 Olive harvest has begun

This year Vaso's son has an electric gadget which shakes the higher branches bringing down the olives.  It means less work for more olives and he's very pleased. The lower branches are still hand raked

They're all bagged up and once a week the harvest is taken to the press. The bags are taken inside at night in a secure shed. Unfortunately sacks of olives have been known to disappear under cover of darkness 

It's still quite warm and it's a sweaty job. By afternoon he's got 7 tshirts hanging out to dry off

The trees are not always on flat ground. It can be a difficult job, sometimes on very steep slopes or in fields of thorns or rocky outcrops

Further up the road other neighbours do it the hard way with long ladders 

Our nephew George brought us two 17 litre cans of his olive oil, straight from the olive press. He says it's some of the best oil they've produced with a very low acidity. 

At the beginning of the season the were getting 1 litre from 7 kilos of green olives but now the olives are riper and plumper it's only takes 5 kilos to produce 1 litre.