A couple of months ago, I wrote about our Olive Trees. This is the first year we have had an actual crop on these trees. Unfortunately, we were told that the olives had been infested with a white fly and the olives wouldn't be any good. As the weeks went by I would check on them when I walked past. I think the trees that were affected were on the other side of the drive because every time I looked at the Olives they looked fine. The week before Christmas we had some friends and family come up and we had a bit of an Olive harvesting party. About 10 of us were out there filling buckets. It didn't take much time to load up with more than any of us can manage. There are so many olives on the branches, harvesting was fast and easy. I barely moved from one spot and nearly filled my bucket just from one large branch! At Thanksgiving Jan and Liz harvested a bucket of olives. By this point in December the water cured olives Jan had made were ready for eating and quite delicious. I followed Jan's recipe, covering the olives with water and changing the water every day or every other day. After about two weeks, most of the bitterness was pulled out with the water and they were ready for a salt and vinegar brine. I now havehalf a dozen 1/2 gallon jars in the fridge nearly ready for eating. I am not expecting perfect olives, but it was a fun first test run, and look forward to doing a better job with them next year. Nigel and I walked out to the Olives yesterday and the trees are still loaded with fruit. If any of you would like to come up to pick olives let me know. They are there waiting to be harvested, and it would be good for the trees if we could get most of the fruit off. Send me a text if you are interested 530-554-3971.