November 2023 the year of olives

           

 November is going fast and the hard work of the last two weeks collecting olives will not be easily forgotten.

As promised in the last post, we want to update the situation with this year's olives. The trees have produced the most abundant crop that I personally can remember. We started collecting olives on Thursday 2nd November and the weather was good all the way through for two weeks that we helped. Sunny and warm  with the occasional breeze. So far we have collected 300 kg of olives but they still have probably another 300 kg to go if not more.

Team work;  Andrea performing acrobatics to collect the out -of-reach olives; though he prefers to let the trusty Panda help by providing battery power for the 'olive tickling' appliance, called, apparently, an 'abacchiatore'.

We decided to maximise our team's potential by carrying out the major pruning and the olive collection at the same time.  So Tonino went ahead, climbing into the trees or balancing on the broken ladder, to remove unwanted branches and shoots that would in future complicate, but not improve, the production.  This  involves the removal of substantial quantities of timber which are collected for household use.  The remaining branches and foliage have to be burned.  Until recently he would have been using a pruning saw or a chain-saw.  Now he also has a very handy battery-powered handsaw and secuteurs, which make the task (a little) less arduous and definitely quicker, though probably just as risky......

    

My brother Tonino lying on a bed of olives and Lesley and me working on pruned branches.

Reflection:
The most amazing thing which touched me was a comment from one of our elderly neighbours. He is from Orgosolo and he has a piece of land not far from ours. He stopped his car one day on his way to work  to chat with me (this is a normal thing as these people visit their land basically everyday) and he told me how he pleased he was to see our olive trees producing a good crop for the first time in a decade. He said that the pleasure in seeing the abundance of olives was as great as if it was his own olive crop.  His comment is an example of the closeness this people have to the land, even if it is not their own.

 

A tree after pruning 

  

The first task for us is to prepare the tree or group of trees by spreading nets on the ground around them or in the corridors between the rows.  Some weeks previously the ground will have been strimmed of dead grass to enable this.  Then it's just a matter of dislodging every olive you see from its branch, whether  still attached to the tree or on the ground, making sure it lands on a net!  Some people use their bare hands to strip the branches, some wear gloves, and wimps like us use a plastic comb similar to the toy rakes kids play with on the beach.  The aim of the pruning is to encourage branches that drop down, making their fruit easier to reach, but inevitably many more mature trees are too tall or in an awkward position, so we have to either climb them or use a picker on an extension pole.  Once a group of trees has been stripped, we collect the olives in crates ready to be transported to a local mill to be transformed into oil.  We were collecting an average of 12 crates of olives every day. About 20 kg each.  Every 100 kg was producing about 15 litres of olive oil.

                         Collecting olives at Graziano's land both in Esporlatu and in Locoe.  In Esporlatu which is in very hilly region about an hour's journey away, we were working on an extremely steep slope where it was often impossible to avoid slipping on the nets.  We were joined by Graziano's family, so proceedings were happily interrupted by a magnificent picnic!  Unfortunately, in order to make the most of the good weather and availability of manpower, we cannot afford to stop too often or for very long in the course of a day's work. 

The final week here in Locoe  is dedicated to burning all the off cuts from the pruning of the olive trees. We want to leave the place clean. 

Almond and olive trees against the early evening sunset in Locoe

The exceptionally hot weather persisted throughout the whole of September and October, so Battistino finally managed to jolly his brother into carrying out the long-overdue refurbishment of the water reservoir (pool) used for watering in the dry periods of the year.  So having emptied the pool, moved the goldfish (!) to a pool in another part of the land, Battistino re-rendered the outside and inside walls and floor and Tonino re-plastered them and applied a waterproof paint.  It now looks quite inviting!

Early in October, we were delighted to welcome friends Halina and Rory who were holidaying in Sardinia.....we were interested to hear their comments on our family 'farm' and look forward to finding out what else they got up to on their brief trip.

On 18th October, we made a trip to Sassari as Lesley was to sit her Italian Cittadinanza exam at the university there.  She is attempting to obtain an Italian passport and this is the first step.    We treated ourselves to a hotel for a couple of nights and took the opportunity of meeting up for a pizza with Anna, Marco and their daughter Martina.  As we had travelled north from Locoe, we decided to complete the tour by heading east towards Marazzino for a week at the seaside as the weather was still very warm.  On the way we stopped for a couple of hours to change buses in Castelsardo, an historic coastal resort in a prominent position on the north coast of the island.  Its old walled town is on the cliff-top.  Despite having bypassed the town many times before, we found that we had never visited properly.  Only a brief stop was enough to persuade us that we needed to spend more time there to explore properly on another occasion.

     

                      Visit to Castelsardo on the way back from Sassari; exploring in Marazzino

Aunty Maddalena on her 90th birthday (2nd November), here together with her sisters Cicita and Maria.

                                                                    

We are back to the island

 Back in Sardinia after an adventurous journey, arriving on Monday 18th September. This time we decided to take the train from Edinburgh to Portsmouth and then the boat to Saint Malo with Brittany Ferries. First time with them. It was a good trip. we spent the morning in Saint Malo which was again  new to us and worth exploring if we had more time there. It reminded us of Nairn...or at least the beaches did.

     

                                Saint Malo beach and visitors...in the distance the national Fort

Later the same day we took the train to Rennes where we stayed for two nights. Nice town with a mixture of interesting architecture especially  near the station. The modern buildings there were all different. in contrast to the old part of the town which had wooden framed building, quirky and attractive at the same time. Interesting pubs there to be revisited. 

    

                                                   Old and new buildings in Rennes

     

                                 Street artists at work in Rennes and ...we just missed the food market

     

                                       The Vilaine river in Rennes  and the modern futuristic train station

We then proceeded to Toulon via Marseille where our Sardinia Corsica ferry was delayed for 7 hours It was a long  - and hot - wait but in the end we discovered a  bar  offering good beers. We never saw this pub before even though we have now been to Toulon several times. So next time we have time to kill in Toulon we can try not only discovering another of its many fountains, but also locating  new craft beer pubs!

On the ferry we discovered that our 'deluxe' cabin was actually a very mediocre one and even the bed was not made as sheets and pillow cases had not been provided. A steward was called upon who reluctantly provided a sheet, but we were disappointed to the point of writing an official complaint to the company, which was quick to respond and has since refunded us half of the fare.

Arriving later than planned, my brother Graziano came to pick us up at the port and then we proceeded to our seaside house in the north east. Graziano left on Thursday and myself on Saturday leaving Lesley at the house for a bit longer.  (With temperatures still reaching 30 degrees, why miss out on the seaside? L.)

Harvest of grapes was already done as this year extreme prolonged heat and the downy mildew has damaged many vineyards in the area. The result is that we are probably going to produce only 60 litres of wine instead of 800 to 1000 this year. This is not under our control so we need to forget and look forward for next year.

   

vineyard looks Ok from the distance but a close up reveals the damaged done by the intense heat. Grapes are burned. Here is an interesting article about the problem.

https://www.vinitaly.com/en/magazine/peronospora-alarm-assoenologi-ismea-and-unione-italiana-vini-uiv-observatory/

On the other hand this year seems to be, so far, a fantastic year for olives. I have already inspected the trees here in Locoe and I have never seen so many olives....and basically every single tree has produced an abundance of them. Fingers crossed on this one. We will keep an update on this .

     

                                                            Our olive trees with an abundance of fruit

Sunday 24th we were invited by my cousin Pietro to his land near Oniferi for a get-together. Oniferi is  a small village about 40 minutes by car from where my brothers live in Oliena. The land was bought  a few years back so his sons could cultivate it. They have chickens, ducks, two donkeys a horse, several pigs, fruit tress, olive trees, almond trees and a patch for vegetables. Cristian also makes cheeses and they are learning how to make hams, sausages and so on. 

We had a good day there  and what we ate was all produced by them except for the water melon and the coffee. There were 35 of us, all related one way or another.

      

                                           Oniferi in the distance from the land. At the table

       

Learning to ride and a few of us posing for a souvenir photo

Here we are nearly into the end of  the month and the weather has changed to rain. We have finished some work on the vineyard and planted a few dozen vegetables. potatoes have been weeded and are looking good. The first courgettes  have appeared and we are happy to see many almonds on the trees again as well as an  abundance  of olive  flowers. Flowers are still closed so we hope the rain will not affect the potential crop of olives.

                                                  first courgette and olive flowers

Weeds on the Vermentino vineyard. After weeding, the job was to cut off excess growth. Lesley and Chris busy doing just that.

  In the other vineyard (Dule) where we worked together

Meanwhile, we have been gradually preparing and planting up the main vegetable garden as the early spring crops are more or less finished.  These are the trenches for the long, flat runner beans which are popular here.  They need a strong structure to support them and we use bamboo canes from the riverside to build it each year.

                                

                                                        Preparing the ground for the beans.

                 

                  Other vegetables we are growing including different variety of lettuce (trying not to plant too many all at once this year...), beet, aubergines, peppers, chilli peppers, cucumbers, celery, onions, spinach, cabbage and, of course, potatoes.  Next will be the tomatoes, both to make a supply of sauce for the year, and to eat as salad.

                                          
                                   Potatoes ( above)  and flat runner beans with their bamboo supports.

 


Flooded vegetables and vineyard. Torrential rain during the weekend has created serious problems and 15 people died in North East of Italy. Events that now are frequent and very disruptive. We had lots of rain but we think we managed to escape the worst of it. In a week or so we will be checking the olive trees as they are ready to  open their flowers and start self pollination. Rain is not good but most of the flowers were still closed before the rain started, so, fingers crossed....

Mountain excursion - 14th May

Following the success of previous years' excursions in the local area, this year, owing to the uncertain weather conditions,  we decided to attempt something less ambitious, yet still new to us.  

After lunch, the three of us met up with our guide, Davide, together with  Tonino and Andrea.  It is quite a slog to walk the initial 500 m up the windy road from Oliena to our starting point at an area known as Daddana, so we drove there instead, left the vehicles and set out on a secluded stoney track which picks its way through the oak forests that flank the mountainside, even at 860m from which we began. 

We reached the top of the ridge at 1260m, where the strong winds just allowed us time to gawp at the stupendous panoramic view - out to the coast and the sea to the east, across the limestone ridges and spectacular rock formations that form the biggest mountain range in Sardegna, then south and west where we identified various hill-top towns in the regions.  These days the various tracks are being signposted for easier access by climbers and walkers.

  

Wild cyclamen

  

At the top. Spot Davide!

  

Oak growing in the rocks and the view of Lanaittu (on the way to Tiscali), Gorroppu canyon, the sea in the distance.

  

Davide and Lesley; and the whole group

  

At the sea side. Our last 10 days are spent here at the house in Marazzino. The first two days were rainy but now the sun is out and we are walking to the beach in the afternoons for a dip. The mornings are spent doing some house maintenance. Several little jobs to be done. 

We will be back to Locoe on the 29th but Lesley will be heading back to the UK the same day.

 Christopher and myself will take a tour of Italy leaving Cagliari to Naples on the 1st of June, Two nights there,  then going to Perugia via Rome. One day in Perugia then heading east to the Adriatic seaside town of Pesaro where I spent 6 years in college. I will revisit the place with interest. After one day in Pesaro will be heading to Bologna for a two days exploration then via Milan toward Paris. Then back to the UK and work.