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.

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(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.

Like no Thanksgiving you've seen before

In honor of us Americans, ourselves and another wwoofer couple from Michigan, our hosts' 9 year old son set out to cook us an authentic Thanksgiving meal. He made a detailed diagram of the feast including recipes and table placement of each dish.

On Saturday we were instructed to arrive at 730p in fancy dress, assembled from costume options found in the basement.

A cowboy, a princess, an American tourist, two cavemen, a knight, and the queen of the mountain with her royal guard dogs.

That's Louis, the chef, dressed as a knight.

As the night went on our cave personae disintegrated and our inner 80s hairband rockers came out.

The evening ended in a rousing game of Roulette. A thorough washing was necessary before bed - that's real mud on our faces and arms.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope your travels went off without a hitch, your meals together were grand, and your football teams won.

Week One, Kitrini Farm, near Stasio, Greece

After a cold and rainy detour for few days in Koroni, we made our way to Kyparissia to meet up with our hosts Heidi and Patrick.  We arrived on a Friday afternoon which meant the next day was Saturday and a day off for all of us.  That's right, a day off before any work.

On Saturday, after the Kyparissia morning market (apples, oranges, nuts, grain, honey, shoes, discount clothing, underwear, household goods) we had a picnic on the beach at a sheltered bay.

 

Across the bay, on top of a steep hill, was a castle that we decided to climb up to.  Here's the view from the top.  Yes, that's right , that's the bay we had our picnic on.

Wow! Seriously.

A herd of goats grazing in the castle ruins. They're cute, but boy do they stink.

High on the hill was a lonely goatherd.

Old Navarino Castle ramparts.

If I may be candid for a moment (this is Donica speaking,) I absolutely ADORE this family right from the get-go. They are warm and caring, laid back, and so fun. I am deeply inspired by their frequent picnics in scenic locales. This is something that all of us could easily incorporate into our lives; many blankets spread out in a patchwork, drinks, bread, fruit and cheese, in a beautiful peaceful place; smiles and genuine happy attitudes; a willingness for adventure, however small. I think I am going to like it here.

The group of us, nine in total, began harvesting olives on Monday. The whole process is pretty fascinating, and surprisingly lo-tech. Stay tuned for a farm-to-table post.

Souvenirs

You know how when you’re traveling no amount of space you’ve left for souvenirs is enough? So, you break down and find a cardboard liquor box on the street that someone is throwing out, buy a roll of packing tape from a nearby stationary store, and jam pack that box full. It’s reenforced along the seams, has additional support bands along both axes, and the shipping label affixed. Great! Now it’s off to the Hellenic Post to send that baby home, except the office you go to doesn’t deal with parcels over 2 kilos and yours weighs 5.45 kg. And the main branch that does handle packages is closed because it’s a Saturday, or because the building is an active construction site, who’s to say. To top it off, you’re leaving Athens for Kardamyli that morning via a taxi and two buses that represent about 5 and half hours on the road. What do you do with a box of assorted souvenirs and gifts (that no one will be getting in time for Christmas)? This:

In the Kalamata bus station.

Kardamyli

(WARNING - The follow entry depicts an experience so idyllic that we even hate ourselves a little bit. Readers may experience feelings of envy and an intense desire to quit their jobs and strike off for lands unknown.)

Kardamyli, Greece: It was a straightforward bus trip from Athens to Kalamata to Kardamyli, save for a three hour layover in Kalamata which, in spite of it’s olive-y fame, isn’t much to look at. We arrived after dark with no place to stay. We had the name of a possible lodging, but found it to be shuttered and dark. We eventually worked up the nerve to knock on the door of a house that advertised “domatia,” rooms to rent, but was also very quiet and shuttered up. Thankfully a round and friendly woman came to the door, let us have our pick of the rooms, and then spent 5 or 10 minutes cleaning up the room and making the bed. At 30 euros a night, we felt we had scored. Then we woke up and found ourselves here:

Upon exploring this cute seaside village we immediately fell in love. Cobblestone streets, sidewalk cafes, turquoise blue water and white stone beaches.

As I type this blog I am listening to opera music from the balcony across the way. Every day the man who lives there blasts his record collection, sometimes singing along and sometimes entertaining comments from passers by. Our days here go something like this: wake up, throw open the shutters and marvel at the view out the window, breakfast of yogurt and fruit on the patio, stroll down to a cafe for coffee and internet, return home to make sandwiches and prepare for our afternoon adventure (to the surreal music wafting in through the window,) strike out to the beach or the hills, come home, watch the sunset, prepare Greek salad for dinner, and go to bed early. Yes, life is rough right now. Sigh.




Our first full day in Kardamyli we had a relaxing time exploring the beach north of our domatia.

On our second day in Kardamyli we ventured off into the hills on a long hike that took us to the teensy-tinsy villages of Petrovouni and Agia Sofia, across a gorge and to the site of “Old Kardamyli.”

Our third and final day in Kardamyli we swam from the port to a small island with our picnic lunch afloat in a Mickey Mouse raft. (Don’t be fooled by the sunshine. The water and the wind here are fairly cool. Thankfully we are of hearty north-west stock.)

We're definitely coming back.  Maybe after harvesting olives in Kyparissia to WWOOF with a fellow we met or maybe next year or maybe some June in the future.

Keepin it Real

Confession time - We have really only been posting blogs about the remarkable experiences of this trip, and highlighting the best photos. While it is true that we are pinching ourselves most of the time and amazed at our Traveler’s Luck, we have deliberately omitted many of the less glamorous bits. For example:

What would go really well with our nightly Greek Salad, made from local vegetables, is a glass of local wine. We discovered that many of the local wines are bottled in clear plastic bottles. Like, water bottles. We gave it a go, we really did. It was awful!

Just because we’re staying in a domatia all alone, with a kitchenette, and a view of the Messinian Gulf out the window, doesn’t mean our lives are easy. We still have to do our laundry by hand.

Greek showers are a bit of a mystery to us. The faucets are all thigh-high with a hand held shower head, a two-and-a-half foot square basin, no shower curtain, and there is always, ALWAYS, a stool. When do you sit down? The beginning of the shower? The end? In between while you’re soaping? Who else has sat on that stool in a similar state of confusion?

Also, we smell. Well, actually, Michael smells. Specifically, Michael’s shoes smell like wet grass and stinky feet.

Also, today Donica decided to do another load of wash, which is still dripping wet outside on the line even though we leave Kardymyli in less than 10 hours.

Also, we thought we would send home a box of souvenirs, but today discovered that it was going to cost 52.20 Euros. That’s right. Approximately $75. So, we will just keep carrying it.

I know, I know, you've pulled out your tiniest violin and are playing the saddest song you know for us.

Politics in Athens

Many of our friends and family were concerned with the political/economic goings on in Athens. True to form, we heeded no one's advice. However, we were cautious and aware of our surroundings at all times.

 
There was nothing really going on to give us cause for concern. Around Syntagma Square there were police, and there was a truck present there at all times that contained riot gear. But the police presence wasn't overbearing. Nor were there any protests in evidence with one exception. By pure coincidence we ended up being in Athens when Papandreou resigned and the new PM/IMF patsy was sworn in.

On the Friday that the unelected official was scheduled to be sworn in at the Presidential Palace there was a line of policemen blocking off the road:

There was also a large, but very civilized protest march through the city to the front of the Parliament building. Being that they were chanting in Greek, and their signs were in Greek, we were unsure what the cause was. One bystander told us that they were "saying against capitalism," and a woman who seemed to be involved with the march said that they were students "fighting against closing our universities."