Roses and olives

Lovely Sunday afternoon spent with our friends having lunch at Maria´s

good company, nice food, good venue.

Certainly didn´t need any evening meal!

I did manage 8 rows of the knitting pattern in the morning but that was it on the crafting for the day

Our dear friend Jo presented us with a lovely present, very kind and thoughtful

and so very apt, did bring a tear to my eye

We have been wanting to buy some roses in memory of our beautiful Rose, so we took a trip to the garden centre today and bought a couple, not such a huge selection but I wanted more of a compact tea rose rather than an open one so the blooms would survive the winds we get here at times.

Just need planting in the rose bed now.

Whilst there I picked up some lovely fragrant, trailing petunias for a hanging basket, cilantro, strawberry plants and a geranium

They also had quite a selection of Olive trees, not that we want or need any as we have quite a lot of self seeded ones already, but I couldn´t believe the price of them
This one was 435.00 euros

and this one was 1432.00 (odd price) oh my word, so expensive

I know they are probably hundreds of years old already and when treated right will live for many more, but certainly outside my price bracket.
It takes 4-5 kg of olives to produce 1 litre of oil and most trees can produce 15-20 kilos or 4-5 litres of oil.
Picking the olives is not easy taking place between November and March and those that have already fallen to the ground are collected in baskets, as although they can be pressed they are considered to be inferior and cannot be designated as Extra Virgin quality.
Nets are spread under the trees, we usually see this about the end of October. so it can be shaken and beaten, usually by hand using stick or poles to dislodge the fruit, although some farmers use a vibrating machine instead.
The nets full of good olives are collected up and emptied into a trailer, then after separating from leaves and debris, they are ground to form a paste, whisked to develop the flavour and heated to a max temperature of 89F, this is still considered to be cold pressed.
Once the paste has been separated from the liquid and the water taken out all that is left is the olive oil.
In our area we have some cooperatives where each land owner can take along their olives for pressing and leave with their own oil.
No wonder Extra Virgin olive oil is expensive, but worth it for the pleasure of excellent oil.
Something to think about when you pick up your bottle of liquid gold!

take care
xcx