may, 2nd - the view on the ground....

day 1170 / 269:

Claya's view from the picnic blanket.

may, 1st - the simple things in life....

day 1169 / 268:

we had some chores to do at a friend's house in Italy and they have a beautiful garden so we took the girls up to enjoy the fresh air. while Claya tried to escape the blanket and eat the dandelions....we taught Limi how to shell the fresh peas that we bought from the market in Rome {see day 1168 / 267}. i do remember doing it once or twice as a child and loving the process of breaking open the crunchy pod and dislodging each small pea......

she did brilliantly and managed to shell almost half the bag before her attention was distracted by the cat and the tricycle.....living such an urban existence in London, i think that it's wonderful that she is starting to get a better idea of how our food grows and gets onto the plate (and that it's not just a delivery by a man in a van once a week).....it's a good reminder for me, that i should take her to more of the amazing produce markets around the city and get her to help me pick out our fruit and veg.

nov, 13th - home from home.....

day 274:

it's always amazing to stay at my sister's place in Italy.......

big comfortable beds, layered with local white linen....

[pic from this Summer - day 173]

monastically simple ensuites.....

sink-into sofas and in winter, fires crackling in each room. 

back in England today and breathing in the  olive firewood scent on our clothes as i do the washing..... 

nov, 12th - olive picking in hipsta-pics....

day 273:

1. beautiful sunshine in the groves

2. me

3. working and singing. singing and working

4. blue skies

5. beautiful trees more than 100 years old

6. the nets

7. green and black

8. my sister's restored cinque, luigi

9. dreamy landscapes

10. limi and i....she wasn't much help with the picking this year

11. spotlight on.......

nov, 11th - pressing the olives....

[the first golden droplets]

day 272:

today was our final day of olive picking. at 4pm we loaded up our hard work and headed to the mill. there are smalls mills throughout Umbria but choosing one is like entering into marriage....once you've made your choice, there's no messing around with other mills.

most of the Umbrian mills now use machinery but extracting the molten gold from these tiny fruit is still a long process....

crates are unloaded onto a huge scale and then emptied into the press......

the olives are then washed and tightly squished and squeezed into a paste.....

snacks are served, wine is poured and conversations are had......

the olive paste is then wrung out like a towel to remove every last drop of water.....

and then finally.......small droplets of oil slowly turn into a trickle and then a stream.....

bread is brought out....freshly pressed oil is tasted.....it tastes of grass and sunshine.....

liquid is carefully measured out and everyone takes their treasure home to be....splashed onto salad leaves, dripped onto pizzas, tossed through pasta, drizzled onto meat and rubbed into dry skin....

until the next time. x

ps. the press is too loud for baby ears so Limi stayed home with her Lola.

nov, 10th - harvesting olives....

day 271:

i always imagined that olives were harvested in bright sunshine (probably because the oil looks like molten sunshine in a bottle) but in fact you pick in the colder months...sitting in a tree, covered in layers, breathing fog, with hats, gloves, scarves and on Thursdays, something red, so that the hunters don't mistake you for a cinghiale (wild boar)....

there are various techniques for harvesting the olives and some places now use machines but on my sister and brother-in-laws place in Umbria, we mainly pick by hand (with a little bit of raking). it's called "milking" the olives...as it's very similar to the action for milking a cow (which gets you wondering whether you could move onto a dairy farm and whether the farmer would say...."your milking technique looks like you're picking olives"

picking by hand reduces the bruising of the fruit which leads to a better oil.

the first step is to drape a net around the tree. 

these catch the olives as we pick

next...is to hoist yourself up some branches or climb the ladder or stand and pick the low-hanging fruit.

finally, once you've plucked every olive, you gather them in the net, and scoop them into a crate.

and then for the crunch......those olive-laden crates needed to be hoisted up a steep hill and loaded into the truck.....at least you can stop every now with the excuse that you need to admire the view......