Here for 10 days. Mowing 'the vista' and braving between the trees. this means risking chopping the lateral irrigation lines. After walking a few, i worked out many would be under the longer grass and having the mower at a higher cut I decide the risk is worth it. Richard arrives on Saturday and promptly mows right down to the well! Some of the property is now looking like a park and quite gorgeous. And kingfishers arrive and sit on the tree posts, more fantails are flitting around and join the swallows. Jack frost arrives and leaves everything white, and the moon high at 9am, what a sight. Sam Brendan and Fiona arrive on sunday around lunch time, and after having a look around and lunch in the sun, Sam and Brendan prepare the spa site. David and Brendan head for the river on the landi and bring back bins of heavy wet sand.
Sam digs out the remainder of the soil and wheel barrows it to the south drive, then spreads the sand evenly over the surface. Precision work. And many rides around the property on the farm bike which goes faster than ever before. on Monday I order the pavers and they are delivered on Tuesday am. Tony willingly places the 50 pavers in piles around the spa area so DB doesn't have to carry them far! On tuesday night Jane and I discover we can pick our neighbour Paul's olives. of course we think we are going to be the best and fastest pickers in the west and plan to do the 200kg in a day. Hmmm. At the end of day one we have three bins over half full. We weight one on the bathroom scales, 15KG. Looks like we have a way to go. thursday is cooler and very
windy. Precariously up the ladders, going as high as we dare, the trees are laden and the olives ready. Each picking, we go through the olives and remove the leaves, not wanting a bitter taste to the oil. We are icking leccion olives known for the more sweet oil they produce. After two days of picking, up and down the ladders, we take our spoils to the olive press. Seeing several crtates of 500kgs of olives, we revise our guess, Jane at 100kg, and me at 120kg, a coffee being the winners best guess. bill says come back at 5.30 if you want to watch them be pressed. We do, and watch our lives being tipped, washed, mashed and spun to produce the golden liquid. We discover we have picked 86kg of olives, and this produced 17.8 litres of oil with 18.4 % return on our pickings. this was the highest for the day at the olive press, with the range between 17.4 and ours. Jane and I are mightily proud. Friday night we have a tasting with the three neighbour households, we put out 6 oils ranging from our italian $11 a litre cooking oil, the colonna Gilli gave me for Christmas, and ours of course along with one from crete Jane has, and two local ones. we warm the spoon dip in, and smell, breathe, say what we smell, then taste with lots of air. Ours is smooth, oily, with a peppery bite. Delicious. From there its pizza time, using Jamie Olivers' recipe for the bases and then a mix of toppings. I had come to paint this week, and Friday afternoon was my only chance, so I worked on applying paint and decided to paint the menu for the evening on canvas: Roasted aubergine, red pepper, artichoke, olives and fetta; fresh pineapple, ham, mozzarella; spicey sausage, tomato, caramellised onions, with mozzarella; potato rosemary, and olives, with mozzarella and parmesan; and basil, tomato and mozzarella, yummo.
Here for 10 days. Mowing 'the vista' and braving between the trees. this means risking chopping the lateral irrigation lines. After walking a few, i worked out many would be under the longer grass and having the mower at a higher cut I decide the risk is worth it. Richard arrives on Saturday and promptly mows right down to the well! Some of the property is now looking like a park and quite gorgeous. And kingfishers arrive and sit on the tree posts, more fantails are flitting around and join the swallows. Jack frost arrives and leaves everything white, and the moon high at 9am, what a sight. Sam Brendan and Fiona arrive on sunday around lunch time, and after having a look around and lunch in the sun, Sam and Brendan prepare the spa site. David and Brendan head for the river on the landi and bring back bins of heavy wet sand. 
Sam digs out the remainder of the soil and wheel barrows it to the south drive, then spreads the sand evenly over the surface. Precision work. And many rides around the property on the farm bike which goes faster than ever before. on Monday I order the pavers and they are delivered on Tuesday am. Tony willingly places the 50 pavers in piles around the spa area so DB doesn't have to carry them far! On tuesday night Jane and I discover we can pick our neighbour Paul's olives. of course we think we are going to be the best and fastest pickers in the west and plan to do the 200kg in a day. Hmmm. At the end of day one we have three bins over half full. We weight one on the bathroom scales, 15KG. Looks like we have a way to go. thursday is cooler and very
windy. Precariously up the ladders, going as high as we dare, the trees are laden and the olives ready. Each picking, we go through the olives and remove the leaves, not wanting a bitter taste to the oil. We are icking leccion olives known for the more sweet oil they produce. After two days of picking, up and down the ladders, we take our spoils to the olive press. Seeing several crtates of 500kgs of olives, we revise our guess, Jane at 100kg, and me at 120kg, a coffee being the winners best guess. bill says come back at 5.30 if you want to watch them be pressed. We do, and watch our lives being tipped, washed, mashed and spun to produce the golden liquid. We discover we have picked 86kg of olives, and this produced 17.8 litres of oil with 18.4 % return on our pickings. this was the highest for the day at the olive press, with the range between 17.4 and ours. Jane and I are mightily proud. Friday night we have a tasting with the three neighbour households, we put out 6 oils ranging from our italian $11 a litre cooking oil, the colonna Gilli gave me for Christmas, and ours of course along with one from crete Jane has, and two local ones. we warm the spoon dip in, and smell, breathe, say what we smell, then taste with lots of air. Ours is smooth, oily, with a peppery bite. Delicious. From there its pizza time, using Jamie Olivers' recipe for the bases and then a mix of toppings. I had come to paint this week, and Friday afternoon was my only chance, so I worked on applying paint and decided to paint the menu for the evening on canvas: Roasted aubergine, red pepper, artichoke, olives and fetta; fresh pineapple, ham, mozzarella; spicey sausage, tomato, caramellised onions, with mozzarella; potato rosemary, and olives, with mozzarella and parmesan; and basil, tomato and mozzarella, yummo.
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