Olive harvest 2017

Maybe for someone born in the countryside of Italy it is normal to harvest your own olives but for me, born and raised in Belgium, it was something extraordinary! More than 10 years ago we started looking for our own place in the sun. We had a long checklist... But there was always something wrong, too expensive, too remote, too far from the see,... On a sunny spring day we visited a plot of land on the Italian Riviera. It was love at first sight! All the boxes were checked! So we bought it not really knowing what to expect. But this is a completely different story maybe to be told later!

Anyways, many years later we are the proud owners of our own home surrounded by olive trees, lavender and many other Mediterranean plants. The past years we weren’t able to be present for the olive harvest so this year was a first for us. The first morning we were awake early, too excited to sleep. Luckily we had our neighbours to help us. I better say we helped them because they had to explain us literally everything. How to put the nets, how to harvest the olives,...But next year we will be pros (at least we hope we will be!). The second day while the rest of the crew were still harvesting the olives, I had to start removing the leaves from the olives. In my mind I already planned some night work but luckily there was “ la chitarra”. La chitarra, the guitar, was a small machine to remove the leaves. After some explanation how to use it I was made ‘capo’ head-leafremover. Thanks to the neighbours dad who was so kind to borrow us his self-made machine. So no night work for me, in a few hours it was fixed! Day 3 we went to the local mill. Bad luck, the mill broke down and they were waiting for a technician. We had to be patient for a few hours, but then finally we saw our extra virgin olive oil flowing out of the press. A magnificent moment! Proud also because we had a very good yield. This fine oil we are not only using in our kitchen, but it is also the base for all of our handmade olive soaps. Next year we will certainly be back for the harvest 2018, but for now we will enjoy the harvest 2017 and so will you when you try our handmade olivesoaps!