The Olive Harvest

Pat had mentioned to several of us at the end of the last week that he planned to harvest several of his 54 olive trees in his back yard this weekend, so naturally all of the American teachers, who had no idea what they were getting themselves into, all jumped on the opportunity!  Actually it wasn't that bad.  For me the hardest part of the day was getting to Pat's house on my bike.  It's about an 8-9 km trip with the last 1/2 km straight up hill.  We're talkin' about a 30 degree incline (or what seemed that steep).  I hadn't seen a hill like that since biking around Wolfeboro, NH last summer (which seemed like a whole lifetime ago)!

Today was supposed to rain all day....well, 80% chance is good enough for me to make that statement.   But as most weather reports here have proven to contradict themselves, today was no exception.  It did rain but it held off until we were just putting everything away, around 2 p.m. this afternoon.  How convenient!  And you're don't want to pick wet olives, according to Pat.  I guess it has something to do with the time they're harvested and when they get to the press is short and wet olives messes up the process in some way (or at least something like that...I can't remember exactly what he said).  So without further ado, below is kind of a pictorial of how my morning and afternoon went.  After my morning workout on the bike, I arrived at Pat and Linda's house around 9:45-ish.  I was put to work right away.  Pat put a hand rake in my hand and off I went raking olives off the tree.

Here's Linda displaying textbook form on laying out the netting under the next olive tree.  The nets catch the olives that fall from the tree to make it easier for gathering later.




On the left is Mario.  He's been Linda's and Pat's mechanic in town for the past 8 years, and now helps them out each year during the olive harvest season.  Here, Mario is on the ladder about to saw off a limb that is unreachable from the ground, even with a long hand rake.  On the right, Julien (Pat's and Linda's son and currently and SYA student) shows how to capture high olives from the ground with the long hand rake.


After enough olives are captured in the nets, it's time to gather them.  Part of the gathering process includes removing any branches that may have fallen during the raking process. Leaves are fine but I guess the machine that presses the olives into oil doesn't take too kindly to tree branches and twigs (go figure)!

Even the kids got in on the action.  Here's Cellie (left), Brad's and Amy's youngest (Brad's the English teacher for SYA), putting some 3 year-old muscle into it.  Go Cellie!!  After four non-stop hours of harvesting, it was time to stop, give thanks, and break some bread.  Here's Mario (right) holding up a handful of the olives we caught out of the several hundred kilos in front of him.  Go team! The team included Pat and Linda Scanlon, sons Julien and Simeon, daughters Mary and Katherine, Brad and Amy Park, their daughters Savannah and Cellie, Richard and Jesse Davis (Richard is the Latin and Greek teacher) and their daughter Caroline, Whitney Hermann (SYA College Counselor) and her son Max, Mario and his wife Gabriella, Gorgio (Mario's brother and fellow mechanic/partner) and his wife Ana, and yours truly. In all, there were 20 of us out there harvesting olives.

The meal to follow was fit for a king!  It began with an apperitivo, which consisted of crustini, olive oil (their's of course), salt, onion chutney, radicchio cheese, followed by grace (a Hail Mary in Italian), followed the primi (or first plate).  The primi, made by Gorgio (left), was a home-made spaghetti with pieces of red peppers, olive oil, and pepperoncino spice.  Also pictured with Gorgio is his wife, Gabriella (behind him), and Mario's wife, Ana.  Interesting fact: Gabriella and Ana are sisters and they married men who are brothers.  Makes it easy around the holiday season, right? In the above-right picture, that's me with Whitney enjoying the primi with a little wine, well-deserved I might add!

The secondi (second plate) consisted of Italian sausage, pork, olive-oiled potatoes, and stuffed red peppers.  We wrapped things up with some homemade peach gelato and a small cup of espresso.  Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.  The only part I wasn't looking forward to was the ride home.  I really wanted to get more horizontal after the food engorging that had just transpired!  Many thanks to Pat and Linda for opening their home to us and letting us in on a little Italian culture.  Who would-a-thunk you guys were from New Mexico??