45 Litres of 'Cilento Gold'

It's that time of year again, when the air hangs heavy

with the scent of olives & voices can be heard

all over the hillsides as the harvest gets 

under way.

I have tromped around our olive grove 

in my flowery Wellibobs, separating

olives from foliage in readiness 

for sacking up.

This year we had help from

our adoptive family, the Russos -

Angelo & his mum, Maria,
came up & put the new nets out with hubby
whilst I was back in the UK for half term week & then they came with sister Raffaela
to start the harvest last week;
Angelo has invested in a battery-driven
harvester, which whacks the olives out
of the trees in a fraction of the time
it takes to do the job manually (yes, I know
'whacks' isn't the technical term, but
the guys do technical, I'm just a girl &
as far as I can see, it whacks them).

By Friday lunchtime we had 5 sacks filled &
ready to take to the oleificio in the afternoon,
which is the minimum number they'll accept
to do an individual pressing.
They weighed in at 'due quintale' exactly
(two hundredweight to you & me);
after 30 minutes wait, we were finally allowed to offload them into the hopper ready for washing prior to pressing.

And, a couple of hours later, we finally had the satisfaction of seeing 45 litres of our very own
'Cilento Gold' running out of the pipe