The olive harvest

Nothing quite beats harvesting in the dark. And not the usual crop of Swiss chard either (which I did pull up). But the olives on the tree near the house. One of my tasks this month was to lag the trunks with straw to protect them from winter frosts. Poor trees, they really are at their climatic limit here in the Aeche mountains. I think M. Reinhart planted them as an experiment in survival. And they do thrive of sorts, but I has so few olives to harvest. And I don’t think I want to plant any more trees. It’s that sort of thing that Nicolas says. People up here want to plant lavender. But we aren’t Provence. And up here its chestnuts, walnuts, and fruit trees. But the fruit of the olive isn’t going to be a major new industry.

Harvesting the little blighters was quite a challenge as I had to creep around the scaffolding poles on the house. All the tiles are off now  and things up there are flapping madly. But M.Darriebere is making great progress. He thinks it will take two weeks if this north wind keeps up. (Most people would call that the mistral. Roofers seem to call it a good drying north wind)

I did my plumbing supplies penance  and only made it back up to the farm at 5pm. Time only to marvel at our new tennis court sized terrace, goggle at the new track, and chat with Nicolas. He is in good spirits. Despite running through a brand new pair of gloves in this fetching stone work in just two days. That’s granite for you. And today won’t be a gardening day either. Time goes so quickly here. I need to greet the long-awaited chimney sweep, measure the potting shed roof, turn over the water taps with Bernard (we are running out of spring water), and then race off to a builders merchants to buy wood for all our bookshelves to come. Plus extra insulating material, and a page full of little chore tasks.