Happy Christmas!

It is a windy day in Greece.  The olive trees are shivering in the wind, and showing the pale white undersides of their leaves.  On the upside, our laundry flapping wildly on the clothesline is completely dry in spite of the overnight rain.

Last night, Christmas Eve, we did our best to capture some holiday spirit. We started a game of Risk (which will likely last right into the New Year,) watched YouTube videos of Christmas carols, and made our own eggnog with fresh eggs from the chicken coop.

Nothing says peace and joy like world domination.

Keeping the fire stoked (for warmth AND a festive backdrop) is a full time job. 

This morning we had a visitor - neighbor Bob. Such a pleasant surprise to hear the doorbell ring! He came bearing gifts, and a tiny bottle. The three of us sat and chatted and sipped some delicious Courvoisier.

Although we are far from home, we are sending our thoughts to friends and family, wherever you may be. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and blessings for the New Year.

With love,

Donica and Michael

Vassaras, near Sparti, Greece

For those readers used to hearing from us in blog, email or otherwise, you may have noticed that we have been conspicuously absent from e-communication. That is because we have been IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, Vassaras, Greece.  “Bear House” is a small two story building on the corner of two narrow cobblestone streets, between the church and the square.

The village of Vassaras is a windy 11 kilometers from the main road between Sparti and Tripoli. A small collection of houses, many of which are uninhabited most of the year.

There are 145 permanent residents, but it seems we only see the same small handful over and over again. To call it a quiet, sleepy village would be an understatement. A taverna, a cafe, a convenience store, all of which are open only sporadically (9-noon, 4:30-7, or maybe not.) At least seven churches, if not more, each seeming to serve its own function. There is the clock tower church, up on the hill which rings the time on every half hour.

Several smaller churches are strewn about in the vicinity, dedicated to specific saints which hold services only one day a year for that saint’s day. 

The church up the block from us is the main church, holding regular Sunday services, and clanging it’s bell with a fervor we have never before witnessed. Instead of chiming, “Come to church, time for church,” this bell clangs, “RUN! RUN FOR THE HILLS YOU CRAZY BASTARDS! SINNERS! REPENT! FIRE! OH MY GOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD! BLARGHGHGHGHHGG!” Seriously. First at 7:30, then again at 8:00, 8:30 and 9:00. So, what did we do? Well, after the third time, we got up and went to church!

With the exception of Sunday morning, we’ve been sleeping in and generally relaxing. Walks to collect firewood break up the monotony of sitting in the sun, drinking coffee, reading books, and listening to our back catalog of NPR podcasts.

One day while collecting firewood we came across this goat herd:

God bless chainsaws. This hand-sawing is not easy work.

We had to haul the wood a long way from where we scavenged it and sawed it.

The shepherd, baffled that I would want to photograph him.

What a motley crew!

Sorry to tell you folks, but I have taken A LOT of pictures of goats. We'll have an entire Goat Slideshow when we get home. Yay!

Newsflash: We have arranged to stay in Greece until the New Year! Our hosts took us up on our offer to house-sit for them while they are away for Christmas. Very exciting because not only do we get to spend the holidays in a lovely hillside villa in Greece, we also get to extend our trip by a couple weeks at very little additional cost. Woo hoo!

Week Two, Kitrini Farm, near Stasio, Greece

In between long days of whacking olive trees (not quite dawn to dusk) we do manage to have a good time.  Like the night we went to the local taverna, To Geranio, for drinks with the other British expats in the village.

Bob, a retired jockey, demonstrating the proper jaunt of a tweed cap.

This ain't no IPA

The next round.

A pitcher of rose all to himself.

Donica dancing with the taverna owner to traditional bazouki music.

 Then there was the time that Michael decided to hike up the mountain and Donica relaxed by the fireside, probably completing an entry on this very blog.

The view of the mountain from the villa

The view from the top - you can just make out the yellow villa above the trees

Announcing our summit

Within an hour's drive are many, many attractions worth seeing, both natural and constructed.  One Sunday Donica and I set out to hitchhike down the coast to Methoni, where the ruins of an old fortress extend spectacularly into the sea (we took a ton of pictures, expect a full post to be devoted to it in the future).

We've also been to several weekend markets in the area.  These are very practical markets.  In addition to produce, beans, nuts and sweets there are also a range of tools for sale, everyday linens, curtains, carpets, underwear (aka pants) and socks, new and used clothes, and old and new junk.  The one pictured below is the Kopanaki Sunday market.

Man cannot live by bread alone.

The market was just the morning excursion.  From there we drove to a beautiful beach and set up shop in a seaside taverna that is only open during the summer high season.  In the back of the van was a charcoal grill, table and chairs, and the kids served us drinks from behind the bar.  The nine of us had the taverna, and the entire beach, to ourselves.

Setting up the buffet table.

Best seat in the house.

Seriously, all to ourselves.

 It's not all glorious days off, though.  There are the more tame distractions in the evening, such as backgammon at the old men's taverna, or an after work beer around a bonfire of olive boughs. 

 

 

Greece, and especially the Peloponnese, continues to exceed our expectations.

About Harvesting Olives

We have been pretty enthralled so far by the process of harvesting olives for olive oil. For those of you interested in how olive oil gets from the tree to your table, it goes something like this:

1. Large nets are spread out below the olive tree

2. With long (and surprisingly durable) forks, we mercilessly whack the trees to get the olives to fall off. The tree gets its revenge by flinging a few olives straight into our eye, and taunts us by dropping most of its olives, but leaving a few hanging here and there which we pick off by hand.

3. Periodically the olives are gathered up, the large sticks are picked out, and they are put into huge burlap sacks. In our case it took six or seven trees worth of olives to fill up a sack.

()

(You may notice that there are green, red and black olives here. Apparently there are different schools of thought about which makes the best oil. But all the trees had olives of various sizes and various stages of ripeness, so inevitably it was a mixture that went into our bags.)

4. The 30-kilo sacks are taken down to the nearest processing plant...

...loaded onto pallets, and given a place in line with all of the other harvesters' hauls.

5. The olives are crushed up into bits! Mwuah ha ha! Pictured above is an olive crusher that was used right up until the 80s. Cool! The machinery is a bit fancier now:

The olives are separated from the leaves and an Archimedes' screw pulls them up the chute

olives travel down the ramp

into the Masticator

And spun in a centrifuge to separate oil from water

Voila! The filtered oil is ready to go

either in 50 liter barrels

or into 5 or 10 liter tins

which are conveniently for sale at the factory.

Interestingly, the Greek government sets the per kilogram price paid for olive oil. There is some subsidization going on, but like all agriculture, it seems that the growers are hardly able to break even. Processing plants across the country pay 2.20 euros for 1 kilo of oil (approximately 1.2 liters).  At Villa Kitrini we harvested 140 trees for 600 kilos of olives and ended up with 210 liters of oil minus the processing plant's 10% off the top (all numbers are approximate).  This oil weighs 175 kilos and would fetch a price of 385 euros.  Not exactly getting rich.  A local taverna owner told us that if he hires workers to harvest his trees and pays the mandated wage of 30 euros per day he needs them to pick about 240 kilos each, per day, to break even.  Crazy.  He'd need to provide them with a branch stripping machine and a mechanical branch beater, both powered by a noisy generator, which altogether run about 1,300 euros.  There are very few olive farmers.  Most people do other jobs and have an orchard or two that they attend to part time.  Some have even said they wont bother with the harvest next year if the government set price is reduced as rumored.

A bit of beauty after after the ranting.