THE OLIVE HARVEST NO. 7 -- OUTSIDE THE OLIVE PRESS

When we arrived at the olive press this morning olive leaves were flying through the air, blown there from the washing and drying process. They were dropping into a pile and will be used later as compost. Another pile of ground up olive skins and seeds is beginning to build. There is a use for this pile of stuff and it isn't for compost. That's a little horror story I'll save for later.

Outside in the sun, Simone, the owner's son was helping two old chaps unload their crates of olives.

Inside, the noise was deafening as the granite wheels whirled around crushing olives, skins, seeds and all. This is what I came to photograph. I had to teeter on a set of steps in order to see inside it, but in the end it was whirling too fast for my camera. I got nothing but a blur. There is a picture of it standing still on 14th October. I tried to do a link to it but it didn't work.

The smell of fresh olives filled the air. There was a fire going in the corner fireplace. This is a tradition and probably needed at seven in the morning when work started. A bowl of hot soup was once the tradition as well. It's called zuppa frantoio, olive press soup, and is still made but is no longer on offer at the presses. Well! Small wonder. The place is a hive of activity what with speeded up methods. It's a very delicious thick soup and is always served with a drizzle of new oil on top.

Next to the mill olives were hurtling down a shoot, having been washed and blow-dried upstairs. They were the next lot to go under the stones. Washed olives.

Antonio was getting ready to smear paste onto a stack of mats, oil was oozing out of the actual press and a stream of beautiful virgin olive oil was falling into a basin. The pic of Antonio and the mats is below, too. I threw it into black and white because Antonio's face is slightly out of focus since I was really taking a picture of the mats. Antonio, already stressed out.

The one-picture-by-date blip rule makes sequence photographs a bit difficult. I would have to go daily and I felt very conspicuous and in the way, I can tell you. It's going to get worse, too. Antonio is looking harried already. He's a very nice fellow but by the end of the season he will have lost a lot of weight and be quite evil-tempered, indeed. My own head was thumping by the time we left.

If they are pressing tomorrow, I will go back. I don't think the press will be open on Sunday, and Monday is a national holiday -- All Saints' Day -- so the olive harvest series will resume on Tuesday.

We got 16.5 percent from our own pressing yesterday, not the expected 14. Quite chuffed.