Harvesting Olives: How it's Done

There are many things that I've experienced here that I don't expect to ever experience again, after leaving France, at least.  Helping the Arsac family harvest olives from their orchard in Les Baux is one of them.

Their field of olive trees is nestled between the mountains, and getting there requires a rather hilly and precarious drive.  However, it's definitely worth it.  Not only is the scenery beautiful, but wind perfumed with  the plants of the region sweeps through, encouraging you to really savor every breath.  

I had no idea how olives were harvested.  I assumed it would involve picking each one by hand whilst carrying a wicker basket, but it's a bit more efficient than that.  

First, you surround the tree you wish to harvest from with a large piece of netting on the ground.  Then, being careful not to step on any of the olives which gather at your feet, you use a small rake to basically brush the tree's tresses, which sweeps the olives off their stems.  Since olives are constantly falling from overhead during the process, tons of them wound up rolling down my shirt, and I found like three of them in my bra later.  

Once you strip a tree of all its olives, you gather up the net and then carefully transfer all the olives into large plastic boxes, being careful to filter out most of the leaves that fell down during harvest.  

Perhaps if I'd grown up doing this every autumn, like Edith did, I would not find the task so enjoyable, but the novelty and peacefulness of the quiet, methodical harvest was really therapeutic, and five hours of constant labor went by without me wishing we could be done already.

Olive harvest is a family and friends affair.  Many people who know the Arsacs come to help during harvesting weekends.  Those ladders are kind of cool, aren't they?  I like the triangle design.  They're a lot more stable, and they're aesthetically pleasing, to boot.

Once we gathered all the olives, four of us went out to a Chinese buffet (they're much beloved in France), and then we saw some amateur theatre, which was pretty entertaining, even though I couldn't keep up with the dialogue.  Nico furiously whispered the plot points in my ear when things got crazy.  There were about eight love triangles in the six-character play.

One of the lovelier days I've spent here, and that's saying a lot.