Being a UK work day I started my harvesting a lot later than planned and finished a bit earlier. Well that is my excuse anyway. It won't wash tomorrow. But by late morning I had arrived at the hovel with my 5*10 metre mat and my olive tree basher. I was ready to go.
Harvesting was damn hard work when I was part of a team of pros. On my own it is worse. I found it hard to lay out the mat to catch what few olives I could smash down from the trees and it is harder still dragging it along between trees. having only one mat I can only do one side of a trees so must swat the olives on the other side towards the mat.
From inside the hovel I retrieved my trusty hacksaw and some branches, sadly all too few, which had a decent yield of fruit I chopped off and beat on top of the mat. After a couple of hours I had dealt with eleven of the 150 trees. My yield was - as you can see below, not great. I now have about a quart of a 50 kg sack full. You will remember that my minimum target is two sacks. That would be enough to allow me to take 15 litres home at no cost.
That oil really will be my oil, hand produced it will taste even better than usual. Tomorrow there is no excuse for not putting in a longer day and - as an added treat - the builders are promising to lay the first bit of concrete on the, currently, earth floor of the bat room. Progress on all counts.
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