Happy 2015!

Dear friends, another year is just around the corner and we're leaving 2014 behind, with all its good and bad events (detailed report coming soon!). We wish you all peace and health!

Olive orchards in the moonlight

Summer's here, and in full swing too. Since it was a full moon few days ago, I decided to take a late evening stroll in the orchards (it's quite warm already here in Istria!).

Dusk in the olive grove near Dignano (Vodnjan)

Passing from one orchard to the other, I was thinking about the people who used to work them in the past days, and how were the nights they would spend in the casitas (or kažuni) when late work, or bad weather, kept them in the fields overnight. A small digression here - the casita is a small stone building, usually integrated in the stone walls surrounding the fields of southern Istria (mainly). I suppose there are thousands of them in the area, as almost each field had one...

So, I tried to recreate a semblance of life in them, and these are some preliminary results:

 

A casita close to Peroj, in the moonlight

  I like to think that the olives enjoy some human company, and who knows, maybe the fields, and the stones themseves do too?

 

Did it look like this, two hundred years ago?

It was a nice stroll anyway, and I almost forgot, our olives are working hard on your next oil!

On work

"Nothing is really work unless you would be rather doing something else"
J.M.Barrie

Pedal to the metal!

I think this was the longest absence of updates on this blog since it's inception -  nature's decision to provide us with a rainy winter and a sudden start of spring, I'm talking to you...

Well, it's quite a busy period for us, having the backlog of late winter work to be cleared off the list (now done!) and all the usual spring duties compressed in half the usual time. We're keeping up, thanks for asking, and soon the tempo should be easier on us, and allow for some more regular reporting!

For those who may wonder what kept yours truly occupied, here's a little video (it's an hour of work compressed in few seconds)




To get a feel of the size of activities, just press play a few hundred times :-)

Gold for Cadenela, or otherwise said - ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!

I thought about grouping all the results on various competitions in one single post, but my ego is recalcitrant to keep silent and quiet, hence - we've already won a gold medal, and got again listed in Monocultivar olive oil guide by Mr.Celletti!

Ok, for now this is it but we have more coming in the spring (of course I will not manage to keep quiet and let you know in no time).

Before I leave you, here's a screenshot of the chemical analysis of this year's oil - quite good given the annus horribilis we've endured.

All this is good and nice, you may say, but how does it taste? In comparison with the muted tastes of many Istrian oils of this 2013 harvest, the pungency is quite present, with low levels of bitterness, and mild grassy/fruity aromas. But forget words, come and try it by yourself!

The nature of time

In this unusally mild and rainy winter, dotted by the seldom spots of sun, I went for a leisurely check in the orchards. Winter is usually nature's time-off and does give us the time for a recap of the passed year, to draw plans for the next, and to enjoy the fruits of last year's work. I say usually as this year we have not tasted winter yet, and the orchards do require some attention when the gods of the seasons play tricks on us.

One is never really alone on such walks - all the inhabitants, if quieted by the sudden appearance of humans, swiftly reappear as if they knew it's not a hunter wandering around, but rather the keeper of their land. The odd rabbit jumping around, the buzzard looking down from the tallest tree of the nearby wood, and all the range of small birds singing from their hidings.

This time a small, uncommon difference followed me through my walk in the younger yards - the singing was much closer, coming from within the orchard, very close. I started paying attention and noticed the sparrows were hiding in the foliage of the young trees, and there it struck me. Our plants, little more than a dozen or two of leaves two years ago, are now big enough for birds to deem them a safe haven! An emotional moment, I confess. And another reminder of time passing, not just as something lost, but of new opportunities found.

Wish you all a year full of discoveries!

A sparrow, out of the safe comfort of our olives