Olive Harvest in the Mediterranean

Wednesday, October 17, 2007
St. Isidore – Nice

We keep having to remind ourselves, when we look around, that we’re not in Southern California. Palm trees, orange lemon lime bergamot etc.,. the rocky hills covered with scrub, some pollution from the big city and some fog from the sea…and sun, sun, sun, warm enough to work in shirtsleeves even at the end of October.

It’s sieste time after lunch, but in a little bit we’ll get back to it. Here things are a little more scheduled than at les Fromentaux. We start work at 8 am and don’t quit until lunchtime, and then we work for a few hours in the afternoon as well. But it’s a pleasure: Anne and Pierre Magnani are the nicest people you could meet. They have a small organic farm right here in the midst of the suburbs of Nice, up in the hills, so that the various plots of land under cultivation are on terraces that are about 15 meters wide and 50 meters long. Some of the terraces have hoophouses on them and some are open. Anne makes things like peppers preserved in oil, or with salt, vinegar and sugar, a pepper sauce with fresh ginger leaves (I don’t know what this is really but Pierre got one for me and it smells fabulous), lemon curd, and citrus confiture, as well as doing things like sprouts. Pierre grows vegetables such as cucumbers, squash, salads, beans, fennel, onions, leeks, etc., which he distributes through a CSA and also at the market in Old Ville Nice. Pierre is so good looking, like a movie star, I can imagine he has a very loyal clientele! They have one employee, Gregoire, who lives in Nice. Our first day we spent the morning spreading fertilizer on some fennel on one of the lower terraces, and then digging it in and weeding at the same time: backbreaking work with a kind of hoe/spade with a handle about 2 or 3 feet long. Our first lunch was fabulous: roast pork, salad, ravioli, bread, cheese, wine. Everyone eats together (the boys are at school 4 days a week so they’re only at lunch with us on Wednesdays) on the terrace outside the kitchen, and afterwards there is a bit of time for a sieste, but not a real long time. In the afternoon we helped prepare the CSA shares after harvesting strawberries. Walt weighed out the strawberries while I washed and prettied up the leeks. I put leeks in the boxes and then we weighed out the onions and put them in too. When everything was ready Anne and Pierre took everything to their CSA pickup spot at 5 pm and we stayed home with the boys who were wild and I got dinner ready. At first I thought their wildness was just because Reed was here with them but after being here a couple of days I see that they are just wild a lot of the time. I was glad when it was 7 and it was time for all the boys to take showers and get jammies on before dinner, so things calmed down then a little. Dinner was geared towards the boys; Anne had me make fish nuggets and fried potatoes and salad.

Our second day we continued with the fennel plot and once we finished them we moved on to the onions, so that by the end of the day we were quite exhausted, and my hands had matching blisters since I hadn’t put my gloves on, thinking it wouldn’t be that bad. The soil is reddish and full of round rocks anywhere from 1 inch to 3 inches in diameter, which make the little hoe clang and ricochet each time you thwonk it into the ground. Whereas at La Bourange weeds were apparently never taken on, here, they try to keep the rows clean somewhat. When Pierre’s Italian parents bought this land in 1955 the whole valley was just farms (this farm faces west – southwest, and the sea is off to the left, to the south) but now right below us are huge stores and parking lots and a cinema, and a bit further are some very big and very busy roads, and on the hillsides are lots and lots of houses. They used to grow flowers and other things; now they raise some rabbits and chickens and come down in the afternoon to make sure we WWOOFers are behaving. They speak Italian so we don’t communicate very well but they’re friendly and try to talk to us anyway. They look just like you’d expect 70 year old Italian farmers to look and I hope I can get a picture of them before we go. Off in the distance we can see a couple of villages, one is St. Genet (sp?) and the other I can’t remember the name. Pierre told us that there was a castle surrounded by houses in St. Genet in the middle ages, and then during the plague, they burned all the houses, because at that time they were made of wood. When they rebuilt they used stones.

Lunch the second day was just as good as the first: salad, gnocchi, roast chicken and potatoes, sliced tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, cheese, wine. And then, we didn’t have time after work to moan about being tired because Pierre was going to a dentist appointment and to deliver a flat of tomatoes to a restaurant and said we could go with him in the truck at 5 pm and that the restaurant where he was taking the tomatoes sells olive oil and does olive oil degustations (tastings). When Reed heard this he did a little dance of excitement.

So we showered up quick and got ready to go into town. We walked around a not too interesting street – enjoying being upright instead of bending over a row of fennel - while Pierre had his dentist appointment and then afterwards Anne and the kids met us with the orange Kangoo (it’s the French SUV apparently) and we piled in and went into old town Nice, parked in a parking garage and then walked through the narrow winding streets, Pierre carting a flat of tomatoes the whole way, until we got to the tiny little place called Oliviera. The proprietor was so glad to see Pierre and exclaimed over the beautiful tomatoes; there were about 5 or 6 varieties, the end of the season for them. The proprietor gave us a taste of two olive oils, the first was very mild and was from cailleton (I think that is the spelling) olive trees which is the one that grows right here in Nice. The second started with the letter B and was from another place not far away, and it was spicier, with a little bite to it. Reed was breaking up the bread into little pieces and just soaking up the oil and popping it into his mouth as fast as he could. Then the proprietor asked, what fruit does it remind you of? Green? And without thinking about it, just tasting, I blurted out, banana. And he looked at me with great surprise, impressed. Exactly. That’s the first time I’ve ever tasted from the gut and not my brain. I’ll have to try that more often. Then we went to a place just around the corner which serves Nicoise food very cheap, and had a eat with your fingers meal of socca (chickpea flour, olive oil, water, and salt, I think, cooked kind of like crepes), pizza, farcis (tomatoes, zucchini, and onions, stuffed with a savory mixture of egg, breadcrumbs, ham, and ?), and to drink, Orangina. Reed and the boys were so wild all the time that it made it hard to concentrate on the incredible sights in nighttime old ville Nice, but still we gaped at the old Italian looking buildings, the Cours Saleya, the English Promenade along the beach, the houses on the hillside curving around above the bay. The city is seductively beautiful; the Mediterranean an unbelievable blue in the day, lined with palatial buildings, but at night, it’s a glittering reflection of diamond lights, as if everyone in Nice lives with a balcony view of the sea, as if no one could be unhappy or desperate.

Friday, October 19, 2007
St Isidore, Nice

Wednesday morning was not quite so back breaking as I was assigned the job of pruning off the currants (cassis or groseille, I need to look this up), while Walt cut down some unwanted weedy trees. Pierre and Gregoire worked on getting the hoophouse deconstructed, and after lunch we joined them with getting it all taken apart and moved up to its new home. Then we got the framework put back together before we quit at 5 pm. Lunch was a stir fry with soy sprouts, mushrooms, bacon, and some greens, a salad of bitter chicory greens with some parmesan, and rice. Since the boys were here they ate leftover gnocchi and chicken and potatoes and salad.

Towards the end of the day things got a little wacky, getting the last set of pipes in place on the greenhouse frame required some fine tuning and at one point Gregoire tried to wrench something into place by hanging on it and one end of the pipe detached and he fell flat on his back on the ground from about 8 feet up. This resulted in a bent piece of pipe that had to be replaced, which took an extra 20 minutes. Shortly thereafter I was also trying to get something into place while standing in the wheelbarrow and I stood too far to the front and the whole thing tipped over with me in it; fortunately it was a clean, graceful fall to the ground and I landed upright, and bowed gracefully to Walt and Gregoire’s applause.

Dinner is always a little chaotic with Pierre and Anne’s two boys, Dmitri (age 10) and Rafael (age 6), who never listen to her, throwing balls around the living room and jumping on the couch. Dirt was my trial in the Auvergne but here in Nice, it is hyperactive boys. But the food is always really good and Pierre especially seems to enjoy sharing good tastes with us. Wednesday night we had slices of eggplant that were sautéed, with two kinds of mushrooms, chanterelles and death trumpets (!) sautéed with lots of garlic, bread, some ham on the side, cheese, and chocolate cake. Afterwards Anne played the piano so the boys could sing, and then she played Hey Jude (ironically enough, the tune Andre is always humming as he works on the bread in the Auvergne) and we sang along. She also played some Edith Piaf songs and sang one for us, always enjoyable, and Anne has a nice voice. She tried to get Pierre to sing an Italian song but he steadfastly refused, claiming to have a bad voice, which is probably true. Although he has a way of sort of singing “C’est ne pas grave!” (It’s nothing serious!) when little things happen that make him a wonderful person to work for. I didn’t even find out until tonight that last night the sanglier (wild pigs) got into the new leek crop and ruined them all, a lot of work and income lost. This morning I would never have guessed, although he must have been very upset.

We had intended to go harvest olives at the property across the way but the truck wasn’t starting this morning (yet another thing that would have sent Walt into a downward spiral but which didn’t seem to faze Pierre) so we quickly changed programs, and Walt and I harvested strawberries (fraises), weeded the cabbage (chou), and I harvested green beans (haricot vert). Pierre was over at the other property doing something else, and Anne fixed lunch for us and Dmitri, who was home because his teacher is on strike. Small pieces of chicken cooked with onion and coconut milk, spaghetti with butter and some cheese, salad, and yogurt for dessert.

We were actually glad to be working today after spending yesterday, our day off, hoofing it down the winding narrow road with no sidewalk to St Isidore to catch a bus that was late into Nice (there was a train strike yesterday all over France that put the kibosh on our plans to go to the beach in Cannes) and then walking a lot once we were in Nice. The bus we were on started to turn in a direction that wasn’t where we wanted to go so we hopped off at the next stop and started walking, and quickly realized that we needed to catch another bus to get across town. It was a good day but very tiring, with all the traffic and people. We were helped by some very nice college age girls to get the right bus to the Vieux Ville – old city – and then they went out of their way to walk us to where we could see the narrow streets that we were after. Don’t let it be said that the French aren’t friendly or helpful – on this trip we have yet to meet anyone who hasn’t been solid gold, practically. We found a little place to eat panini and crepes for pretty cheap for lunch and then splurged on Italian ice cream before we went over to the beach and found a place to hang out for a couple hours.

The beach is mostly smooth light gray stones, and during this time of year not too crowded. All along the curving bay are palatial hotels and apartment buildings, with restaurants and bars at sidewalk level. Next to the beach, across the street from all the hotels, is a wide promenade that stretches for miles for walking or biking. There were a few hardy souls in the sea, which is certainly a swimmable temperature, but with the breeze and the sun just warm enough to bask in wearing jeans and a sweater, it would be icy cold to get out of the water. There was one small place where they had brought in sand, so Reed and I made ourselves at home there, me reading a book and Reed digging a deep hole and making little sand structures using the small bucket and spade we’d brought in the backpack. He kept running back and forth to the water to fill the little bucket. The Mediterranean is a spectacular color of blue, a reflection of the sky, of course, and I hope Reed always remembers the day he spent on the beach in Nice. Nearby was a handsome and smiling German family with a set of twin babies and an older girl with blonde hair who must’ve been about 2 ½. She came over and plopped herself down by Reed who promptly shared his bucket and shovel with her and they played contentedly side by side for about an hour. She gave him a little box of raisins as a thank you for sharing. I had to admire the mother with the twins; she was able to completely ignore the one in the stroller that was squalling while she breastfed and cuddled the other one before switching babies, and she managed to ignore both of them for a good five minutes while she calmly got her hair fastened back so it wouldn’t get messed up in the wind. Such nerves – of course you’d have to be that way to come all the way to Nice from Germany with three infants under the age of 3.

Tonight is another rugby match on television; France is playing Argentina to see who will get third place in the world cup. We’re going to watch it with the Magnanis, and I will think about Andre and Kevin and whoever else is watching it at Les Fromentaux.

Saturday, October 20, 2007
St Isidore, Nice

Mealtimes with the Magnani family when the children are present are always chaotic but the food is so good that I do my best not to mind, and also to sympathize silently with Anne, raising two spirited boys. Thursday night Anne had aikido and prepared some potato and radish green soup before she left, so we started with the soup, and Pierre followed with an omelette, and brought out the charcuterie and cheese and bread – and then showed how to rub fresh garlic on a little piece of bread and put it in the soup, which transformed it from merely good to really good. And then… he made a little mouthful for me. A small piece of bread, with some butter, a little bit of dried ham (like prosciutto, sort of, something his brother imports from Italy), a slice of tiny pickle, a drop of his special sweet and sour pepper relish, and a piece of cheese, kind of like manchego or parmesan. He handed me this little mouthful of stuff and I popped it in my mouth…heaven. Meanwhile Rafael next to me is squirming and climbing down and not eating anything except cheese, and Pierre has to repeatedly get up and set him bodily in his chair. C’est la vie.

Last night Anne made pissaladiere, the famous Nicoise pizza of caramelized onions, olives (with the pits still in them), and anchovies, on a kind of pastry crust. It was absolutely delicious, I could have eaten five more pieces just like the one I had, but since there really was just one piece for each person I managed to restrain myself.

Today we harvested for the Saturday market. I picked the last of the green beans of the season, and then pulled out the plants, and then helped Walt finish harvesting strawberries, and also weeded a little of the cabbage which was a little tricky since it is tucked in between two rows of raspberry canes. Ouch.

Sunday, October 21, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice

We tried to get Pierre to tell us something to do Saturday but he said to wait until he came home from the market; then when he came home he was so tired he just wanted to sleep, so by the time we did anything it was almost dark. Anne set us to work cleaning the little peppers that they pickle and sell, and we got about 1/3 of the way done before Pierre came out and told me to stop. It was almost dinnertime and it was dark and I think maybe Pierre couldn’t relax in front of the t.v. with me just outside the window scrubbing peppers with a toothbrush in cold water.

Pierre cooked rabbit for dinner and invited me to watch how he did it. Cut rabbit up into pieces, sear it in very hot vegetable oil in a dutch oven until it’s all brown and delicious looking, then add a dollop of red wine and keep at high heat until it evaporates, then add a mixture of diced up onion and celery, branches of thyme and rosemary, some diced tomato, some other dried herbs, salt and pepper, and some water, then turn down the heat and put the lid on and let it simmer. He presented it on a big platter with rice in the center and the pieces of rabbit all around the edge, with the gravy in a separate bowl. It was so good. Tonight he roast a chicken with chestnuts, which was also fabulously good, alongside some of the last of the green beans, and a bitter green salad with a vinaigrette that had garlic and onion and parmesan in it. I’m not sure if I really like chestnuts, but the chicken was so good the chestnuts get a good review too.

I asked if the kids would like me to cook something American for them and the unanimous decision was hamburgers so I’m to make a shopping list for Anne and I can cook them Tuesday, I think. Funny that I can make so many different things but that here in France what people seem to appreciate is that I know how to make good hamburgers. I wonder if I should ask Anne to buy ketchup?

Today I had a solo adventure that was great fun simply because I was alone, even though the errand itself – to go into Nice to find an internet place – was pretty mundane. I walked down the hill and found the Lingostiere station (by accident, trying to walk to the huge stores we can see at the bottom of the hill, unsuccessfully) where I caught the little train into Nice, where I walked for a little ways until I found the internet place very close to the big train station where we arrived. When I was done I headed straight back to the little train station, stopping at a boulangerie/patisserie for a couple slices of pissaladiere before I headed back home to make the long steep trek back up the hill. While I was gone the kids and Walt and Anne and Pierre went to a pretty place on a harbor at St. Laurent where the kids rode their bikes while Anne went for a run and Pierre and Walt sat and drank coffee and read the newspaper. I was sorry to miss that but glad to have had some time to myself, to make Nice a little bit mine.

The weather at night now is quite cold, so that we’ve been using the heater in our cabin and in the bathroom cabin much more than we did at first, when it seemed like summer all the time. In the mornings it is windy and cool until the sun manages to makt it to this land, close to 11 am, and then it warms up, and the afternoon is pleasant. Funny how much the weather can change in just a week, and I wonder what it will be like in Ireland, if it will be as cold and wet and dark as I’m imagining it will be, using Sitka, Alaska as my benchmark. I figure if I expect it to be as bad as Sitka in November, I can’t be disappointed, because nothing could be as wet and cold and dark as Sitka in the winter. Except maybe Little Port Walter.

Monday, October 22, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice

Today was the day to prepare the CSA shares (AMAP in French) for the Magnani’s customers so we headed out into the brisk wind and chilly air first thing this morning with Pierre to harvest. We started with lettuce, lovely big heads of tender sweet leaves, which grow through holes in plastic to keep them from getting dirty from underneath. Then Pierre harvested beets and leeks and green onions while Walt and I gathered things up into the plastic bins; then Walt harvested the basil while Pierre took me back up to the house driveway to work on getting things washed up. It was absolutely freezing – my fingers were numb from the cold water but I persevered and tried to be quick, knowing that Walt and I have been painfully slow at times and not wanting to disappoint Pierre today, since Gregoire is off this whole week. Pierre went back down to harvest chard and cilantro and radishes, and then it was lunchtime. We ate leftovers, sat around for a short while, and got back to it, finishing up the washing and then starting in on harvesting strawberries. Since it was nice and warm in the tunnels it was a pretty pleasant job, the first time I’d been really warm all day, plus there is always the extra advantage of being able to eat the ones that are flawed slightly and can’t be put in the boxes. Sometimes a big fat juicy one will have a place where a little bug nibbled a small hole but now there’s no bug, and the rest of the strawberry is fine, so dang it, I just have to eat it. These strawberries are like perfume in your mouth, in a good way, and so delicate they don’t last more than a day after they’re picked and have to be handled with the gentlest touch. We only had about an hour and a half to do both tunnels so I stayed on my feet, stooped over, and discovered that my capacity for stooping has improved in the past week, although it was still tiring at times. But with Pierre’s mother’s help we managed to finish just in time to get them into boxes and weighed and put into the boxes along with everything else, and Pierre drove off with everything at about 5:45 while I sprayed everything down and made it look like nothing had happened in the driveway, despite all the lettuce and basil and strawberries etc. scattered everywhere. All in all a satisfying day, especially when I got a piece of stale bread and spread it with Nutella to eat in the sun as soon as I finished working at 6 pm.

The sun went down shortly after that, though, and it got cold very quickly, so I was glad to find that dinner was raclette: boiled potatoes and ham with cheese melted in a special contraption right at the table, accompanied by tiny pickles and pickled onions. It is so cozy, and the kids love it. Reed ate 3 potatoes, so he ought to be quite full. Pierre got out a bottle of the local Bellet AOC white wine, which was absolutely wonderful, not too sweet or dry, just perfect with raclette. I can’t remember what the two kinds of grapes are used in the local white but one of them is Chardonnay, perhaps the other was Rolle? Or Cinsault? I never claimed to be a wine professional. Anyway, it is a friend of Anne and Pierre’s who makes it and the label says Clot Dou Baile with an ‘ over the o in Dou. I wish we had time to go to the winery to meet her but that’s the way it goes.

Reed was very good during our long day of work, not hassling us too much to come to his restaurant or store, and trying to help with things whenever he could. Eventually he picked up quite a collection of oranges from underneath all the trees so after work he and Walt made some juice. Reed’s behavior has improved quite a bit in the last week or so, perhaps as a result of being around Rafael who is so wild so much of the time. In any case, at the table Reed is like an angel, eating his food, sitting still, asking for more, etc. He said raclette was the best thing ever and we should eat it every night.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice

We’ve been harvesting olives for the past two days so believe me when I say I was too tired to write last night, but the first thing I have to tell about is Bobotte. Bobotte is an old sailor who lives in a caravan (RV) on the property across the river that Pierre and Anne rent or own, I’m not sure which. It takes about 20 minutes to drive there since the bridge is way down the road. He has greenhouses and citrus trees and olive trees on it, and Bobotte lives there by himself (except for a mama cat and 4 kittens). He’s half deaf, apparently, so when he talks he always sounds grouchy, and he wears a blue fisherman’s sweater and a fisherman’s cap with a brim. Well, Bobotte is grizzled and lean, and he smells a little, and he smokes, and the caravan smells badly of cats, but for the past two days we’ve eaten lunch in Bobotte’s caravan, and feasted both days. And he is gracious and hospitable, too. When we arrived yesterday morning the first thing we did was get the tarps down under the trees and then it was time to drink coffee, which he served to us in his 3 matching delicate demitasse cups, which are white with a gold rim. Alongside were some lovely buttery Breton cookies. When we came in to eat lunch, pushing the kitties off the seat cushions so we could sit down, a salade nicoise was waiting for us at the table, with some of Pierre’s fresh and delicious tomatoes, tuna, onions, anchovies, olive oil, hard boiled eggs. Yum. Then, roast chicken, and spaghetti, with a platter of 3 cheeses for dessert. Then, more coffee. It is harder to understand Bobotte than it is Pierre, but we managed to make a bit of conversation. I saw him watching Reed with the kittens and decide silently that Reed was a good boy since he was handling the kittens so carefully. Later in the afternoon he brought Reed an entire package of the yummy Breton cookies, so I know he’s an old softie.

We worked all afternoon until about 5:30 pm and then came home and I made hamburgers for dinner, and then fell into bed at 8:30 without helping with the dishes. Reed fell asleep quickly since he’d been with us at the olive harvesting all day long without anyplace to lie down. He was at his wits end by 4:30 or so but held on until the end like a trooper.

Today we started earlier, leaving at 8 am on the dot. Bobotte had coffee for us again, with another really tasty kind of cookie. Pierre’s parents came this morning too, but left after a while since it sounded like grandma wasn’t feeling very well. We were getting a lot done and then Anne and the kids arrived, it being their day off from school. So Reed and the boys ran around playing rough and tumble games (something like attack hide and seek) while we worked as fast as we could trying to get halfway done by noon. Bobotte made lunch for everyone, starting again with tomatoes and onions in vinaigrette, and some foie gras with bread, and a salad very similar to coleslaw made with some kind of julienned vegetable, then, steak, with roast potatoes, and some kind of vegetable gratin with cheese, followed by the cheese platter. Then, more coffee.

Harvesting olives by hand basically involves whacking the tree branches with a long piece of bamboo to make the olives fall off onto the tarps. Yesterday that’s what I did most of the time. There is a machine to help with the harvesting but it is too heavy for me to hold for long. This morning I discovered a sore spot on my shoulder, and realized that I would have to whack more gently if I expected to last the entire day. But whacking more gently doesn’t get the olives off the branches. So I started harvesting by hand the olives I could reach easily, using my fingers like rakes. The routine settled into Pierre using the chain saw to prune the big branches, while Bobotte and I would harvest olives off these cut branches by hand or with a little rake especially designed for olive harvesting. Then, when Pierre was done chainsawing (not the usual procedure, this year the trees need lots of pruning) he would get the electric machine that makes harvesting go faster. It’s on a long pole, with a cylinder shaped contraption with long rubbery fingers sticking out on the end that spins around and whips the olives off the branches. The olives are a mixture of green and black, different levels of ripeness, and apparently they are early this year, and very abundant. Last year, he said, they had 18 cases altogether, and by tonight we had 33 and they’re not even done.

The olives were supposed to be delivered to the mill tomorrow morning but at lunchtime it became obvious that even after harvesting we still need to do some kind of winnowing procedure to get the leaves out which will take hours SO Anne called the mill on her cell phone right there at the caravan table (all 8 of us eating in there, very crowded) and managed to get the appointment changed to Friday morning at 6 am. I was expecting that we would then work again to finish the harvest tomorrow but it turns out that Pierre is just going to let the olives fall onto the tarps and that we don’t work tomorrow in principle, as it is always the WWOOFer’s day off. Reed had a better day today than yesterday since we brought his pillow and quilt from the cabin to relax on in the back of the van, a cozy nest on an overcast day. I’m glad not to work tomorrow but I feel bad since I didn’t get to say goodbye to Bobotte. When we left I thought we were coming back tomorrow. WWOOFers are transient, though, so he’s probably used to us coming and going.

Thursday, October 25, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice

Well, we were lucky not to be harvesting olives today, as later in the morning it clouded up and started to rain, and all day it got worse and worse, pouring down rain and blowing too. I’m sure the ground needs it – apparently in the mountains where Anne and Pierre grow potatoes it didn’t rain at all this summer where it usually rains a lot, so they didn’t get a potato crop. We slept in and then I got Reed his breakfast and then I stayed in bed reading for a couple hours while the boys did some exploring around the farm before the weather turned bad. I spent an hour washing some clothes by hand so we’d have clean clothes for the first couple days in Ireland. Around lunchtime Walt’s back started spasming again like it did in Iowa, only this time it happened while he was on the bed already, so we were able to quickly get him relaxed and situated for an afternoon of rest, so that by suppertime he was up and walking around and able to take the boys trick or treating to the neighbors in the pouring rain (how very like home!)

We spent the afternoon in the cabin with the heat cranked, both to be cozy and also to help the laundry dry, while I packed everyone’s bags, and Walt napped, and Reed tried to nap unsuccessfully, and he also worked on some Halloween art since Anne had asked him to help decorate for Halloween. When I went inside around 3 to get my CD from the living room Pierre was eating lunch after finishing the olive harvest. I continued puttering around, getting dishes washed and the bathroom emptied of our stuff, etc., until it was time for Reed to go up to the house to get dressed in some kind of mask for trick or treating. Anne had forewarned the relatives upstairs and some of the neighbors that the kids would be coming so they would be prepared, and so around 6 pm off the kids trooped with Walt. The olive winnowing had just begun, under a big umbrella attached to the back of Pierre’s van, with grandpa in the back of the van dumping the olives onto a chute, grandma and me helping push the olives down the chute, and Pierre holding the power blower to blow the leaves out of the olives as they rolled down into the bin. I helped do that for a couple of hours before Anne came out to say dinner was ready and Pierre told me to go eat. Anne had decorated with Halloween candles and streamers, fixed a very nice meal of lentils with ham and carrots, and boudin noir, and a tomato salad, and even a pumpkin pie (!) so it was too bad, she said, that it had to be this way, with the olives going on, Pierre working, and her being tired from pickling peppers, so we couldn’t enjoy the evening together with some good wine. I’m disappointed not to have enjoyed that scenario too – but understand, too, how some work can’t wait and on the farm life is not always a party.

I have to make note, that despite all the work happening here, with Pierre doing all the outdoor work and Anne doing all the marketing and organizing and all the stuff with the kids, everybody tired all the time, that meals have all been eaten at home, cooked mostly from scratch. Lunch and dinner, every day, something hot and fresh and good. This was also true in the Auvergne – nobody went out to eat or to a bar. The only meal we’ve had away from home with our WWOOF hosts was last week when we delivered those tomatoes to the olive oil place in vieux ville Nice, when we went to the street food place and ate farci and socca and pizza washed down with Orangina. Wow – it was warm enough that night to almost not wear a sweater – how long ago that seems now!

The rain keeps drumming on the roof, a wonderful sound for being lulled to sleep. The next time I write we’ll be in Ireland, assuming that our schedule goes as planned tomorrow: wake, finish packing, taste the new olive oil, get driven to the airport, check in, and fly to Belfast.