Month: November 2018

The rain break continues…so I jumped at the chance for a long ride. Up and over the Alps through the Cipollaio tunnel and down to Castelnuovo Garfagnana.

It’s a very pretty ride. A slow ascent zigzagging up. Incredible views of Through the tunnel and down down down the valley into town. And back again…

On the way up, I see a major quarry come into view. Isn’t it gorgeous?! And rode past a very tidy winterized wood-cutting depot.

Then, through the tunnel and down through a beautiful valley into Castelnuovo Garfagnana. Past the village of Isola Santa (“sacred island”).

Then past a huge gravel quarry, with a fortress-like new building. Doesn’t it look strange? And a sign warning me about their big machines. Watch out!!

Many sections of road had a line of ancient oak sentinels. They must have been pruned a few years ago, but the trunks have accumulated decades of moss.

To finish, some views of the scenery along the road.

We’ve had a break in the weather and I’ve been out on my bike. A couple short trips and today a longer one (separate post). All local, rode from my house.

Got some dramatic photos with an interplay of cloud and sun. I followed a stream up towards the mountains. You can follow along with me.

I also did another short ride above Camaiore, but didn’t take my phone, blast it, so no pix. I’ll return with my phone next time because (of course) there were cool things. For example, a huge mural of Pinocchio on the side of a house way up in the mountains. Like…why?!

On the last village up, there was a plaque to the horrific flood of June 19, 1996 when houses were pulled apart and people died. The plaque says that these two houses are no longer there but nobody died in them.

Finally, as I rode home, I passed this evening fog/smoke scene. The light was going, but the gray drifting through the trees just took my eye…

I spent yesterday and today helping Neal and Susan pick their olives. They have 42 trees, most of them hundreds of years old, and this year it seems that the yields are around 18-20%, which is pretty decent. If we can pick more than 200 kilos, the mill will clean and squeeze them and they should get ~40 liters.

Friday it rained all day, so they couldn’t do any prep, which meant that things are a bit behind, given that they had a 4pm appointment at the mill today. Ah well… We returned in the morning to help some more.

So, what’s the deal?

The first thing that has to happen is getting long sheets of netting and big tarps set up below the trees.

Next, we need to get at the olives. You can reach up with a tall rake or you can cut the branches down. Neal sends his son Teo into the trees to prune the branches. And some of Teo’s branches are huge and we have to recut them into smaller sections.

Then the helpers, like me, use small yellow or orange hand-held rakes to comb the olives out. Here’s Teo combing a branch:

The olives pile up in the tarps and netting. When there are enough or we finish a row, we gather them up and pour them into a crate.

Yesterday the skies stayed clear and it got hot enough to wear shorts. When it was too dark to work, we went inside and shared lasagna and sausages and salad. By now we were 8 indoors and 4 boys outdoors. Great company!

[One footnote: early in the day, I happened to glance up exactly as a single olive fell down. Pop! Right into my eye. Pop went my contact lens out! Nowhere to be found. I looked and looked for ten minutes… But no. It was gone. Now and forever more, a little piece of me lives at Neal’s place.]

Today Birke and I arrived at ten with brioches. Susan made coffee. Teo and several of his pals were hard at work already. We settled in. Only a few trees to go. Rain tried to interrupt us, but we kept going. Finally there were no more trees to strip.

Then we cleared the nets and rolled them for next year. I raked the stone steps. Lots of olives landed on them and they were oily and slippery.

Lunch, then so many crates of olives in Neal’s car, it looked like a flat tire. The olive press is in Pietrasanta. It’s an unassuming building I’ve driven past a million times. Who knew?!

You dump all the olives into these huge crates. They weigh them and they have to be over 200kg if you want a private pressing and get your own oil back. Otherwise, you can dump them into the communal pile and get communal oil back.

Inside is a huge pile of the dry squeezed olive meat. I don’t know what they do with it.

When it’s our turn, our crate is weighed. We were a bit under, but they know Neal, so it was okay.

The olives are dumped into a screened hole and they make their way up into the system like a water wheel.

The leaves and twigs are cut out, the olives are cleaned and cleaned, the pits are removed, and the rest is squeezed dry. Then liquid gold comes out:

Neal gave me a bottle, so now I too have some liquid gold!

Net result, for those who care about the numbers, was that we only had 184 kg but the yield was 20%, so there were 36kg of oil! In the parking lot before he drove home, Neal poured some from the big steel container into glass bottles for each of us to take home with us. Yay!

Last night I had dinner with a new friend. Birke has been here this summer working at my mom’s old studio, Pescarella. We went to an antiques market last month and now we’ve had an ele moi iNgant dinner together. The meal took four hours because we talked so much. Lovely!

Driving home earlier in the day, the mountains with their fog lay before me.

Weds night, I went to the festa at Studio Polveriera, where Rita works. A fun evening, interesting art. Saw three pieces by Fernando Rojas, an Argentinian sculptor, that I loved. There’s something about a piece of marble that’s been made to look soft, like cushions. The ability to transform cold hard stone into inviting softness is inspirational. Check them out:

There’s something about this older woman that really grabs me. Unapologetic, defenseless…real.