Our olive harvest has begun

We started picking our olives on Monday and were delighted by the quantity of fruit. From 4 trees we harvested about 90 kilos, almost enough for a mill run.  The next day wasn’t quite as good. We disturbed a hornets nest in the orchard and both got stung, luckily only once each.  One of us was laid in the ground howling like a dog and banging his head where he was stung.  I said oh I’ve been stung on my arm.  Actually the stings were very sore for the rest of the day, we were lucky it wasn’t worse. Last night MrFF well protected by layers of clothing sprayed the nest and today it’s empty.

However we have frustratingly been rained off picking today and may be tomorrow too, Friday we take the cats back to the vets.  So we have delivered what we have, 133 kilos from 8 trees and there are 16 more well ladened ones to pick.  It’s one if the best crops we’ve had for years, I put it down to us stopping Mario doing his vicious annual prune though am sure he’d disagree.  He’s already cross with us for getting Vincenzo sterilised.

I am unable to upload photos today, visualise a man up an olive tree with a rake and a big crate full of olives.