Olive Oil Adventure

It’s here…

The latest release (and first of this harvest season) is now available. Beth just returned from a Marin farmer’s market and sold nearly every bottle that she had! If you’ve tried Verde, you know why people are crazy for it. I mean, it’s the SOLE reason that I wanted to become an olive oil baron. If you’ve never tried an olive oil that is fresh from the mill, you haven’t yet lived. It’s spicy, hot, green, fruity and oh so freakin’ delicious.  Liquid Gold.

Check it out on our website, you’ll love it.

Did I mention that it is reeeeeally good for you too?

On the 15th and 16th of November, we completed our Arbequina harvest in Sutter county. These tiny olives pack an awesome and very unique flavor. To make them even better, they’re quite easy to harvest! The branches tend to hang down, so you just wrap your fingers around the branch (loosely) and pull towards your belly bucket. The olives rain down into the bucket (causing much delight).

Our crew was a little slow and the fruit was only in spots, here and there. The weather was gorgeous, albeit a little warm for this time of year. Once again, a t-shirt and shorts would have been appropriate apparel for the day.  So, now to the totals: 1075 pounds.

On Saturday and Sunday, we took a small crew to Sutter county to harvest the tiny and ultra-flavorful Arbequina olives. We pulled more than 1100 pounds of fruit off of the trees while the sun shone brightly. The weather was per-fect and allowed for us to harvest in our t-shirts! It’s a rare occasion when that happens.  Typically, it’s cold, windy and very wet. Not a bad start for the 2008-2009 harvest!

Verde will be available in small quantities starting 11/17!

On Saturday, November 8, our harvest season will officially begin. We’ll be harvesting Arbequina olives from orchards in Sutter county. These tiny olives are about 3/8″ in diameter (tiny) but pack a flavor that is unlike any other. Just awesome.

I usually look forward to this time of the year, but not so much this year… After harvesting the entire crop last year without a working crew, I have a stark realization of all of the back-breaking work that lies ahead. It’s an ugly process for us, but, if we can focus on that delicious olive oil, we’ll be OK.

Olive Bins Clean… Check.
Harvester Ready… Check.

Tarps Clean… Check.

Truck Loaded… Check.

Here we go. It’s ON.

After much gnashing of teeth, our latest issue of the Sylverleaf Press is now available. If you’re a regular customer, you’ll see a copy in the mail or in your e-mail Inbox. If you’re not on the list, what are you waiting for?! You can grab a copy from our website too.

Enjoy!

Our chicken population is now down to 3. These will be the last of their kind, since we don’t plan to let the hens sit any more eggs (If I’ve learned one thing though, it’s that hens are very crafty). The last one to be born was the lovely and very shy, Teresita Chiquita. Also in this picture (soon to be uploaded here) is the old girl, Brewster and the coolest rooster on Earth, Leroy. This rooster doesn’t take everything for himself. If he finds some lovely treat in the yard (like a grape or a worm), he’ll call the girls over and let them have it.

Yesterday, we went through our initial inspection to become certified organic. After completing the rafts of paperwork to create our Organic System Plan, (It seems odd to me that I needed to print so many pages… Not quite a sustainable activity.), having that reviewed, then revising the paperwork for the third time, the big day arrived. The inspector spent about 4 and a half hours with us, going over all of the tiniest details. We walked the orchard, looking for any place where pesticides or herbicides might drift onto our property from the neighboring homes and ranches. We discussed our plans for inter-planting the orchard and how we would tend the trees, old and new. Then, we traced a single bottle of olive oil backwards; from our bottle to bottling machine to bulk storage to the orchard to the very day those olives were picked and finally to the tree and how that tree was tended. It really was quite amazing to see how the inspector put all of the pieces into their respective places.

After this experience, I can (sorta) see why it is so expensive to produce an organic product. The detail that is required, along with the paperwork, is very daunting. I’m skimming over the fact that we can use none of the nasty chemicals that make farming an easier chore. Those that we are allowed to use are two to three times more expensive than conventional, man-made chemicals. Add to that the fact that organic farming requires more manual labor. All in all, the equation is difficult to solve.

So, pending some unforeseen problem, the 2009 release of our Sylverleaf Estate will be 100% certified organic! We’re very excited by this prospect and hope that you are too.

It certainly looks that way. All of the downed limbs are due to recent pruning activities around Sylverleaf. We are aiming for a very heavy pruning of all 9 rows in Block 2 of the orchard, consisting of about 230 trees and a light pruning of another 300.  So far, we have moved through three of the 9 rows (51 trees). Our efforts to prune have been severely dampened by two completely uncontrollable factors this year; wildfires and heat.

The wildfires are somewhat nearby and we’re completely covered by a dense layer of smoke. It’s great if you like that “campfire” smell, but after two weeks, I think that it’s getting a little old… If we stay outside for too long, or if we are working hard physically, that little itch starts in the back of the throat. Soon, the itch turns into a little cough here and another there. The chest tightens. The nose and eyes water. That’s all fine with me, but it’s the following day that I truly feel the effects. The cough is gone, but the back of the throat is a bit raw and there seems to be a hand around my upper chest and lungs. It doesn’t go away either…

The second problem is the heat that we have experienced lately. The daytime temperatures have hovered at or above 100F for more than a week. It’s quite unusual to have that kind of heat this early in the summer. We expect it in August or September, but June and July?! All physical work must be finished by 1PM or 1:30PM or heat stroke becomes a real possibility.