Olive handcuffs

I have found out that one of the largest olive mills or Frantoi in the area works in the following way.

It itself has no substantial olive groves so relies on many small olive grove owners to sell their olives to them so they can sell olive oil bearing their name. Nothing uncommon about this.

What they do however is not pay for the fruit for 12 months or until the next years harvest. These appalling terms means that the mill owner maximizes his cashflow as the expense of the small olive grove owners who cannot leave and take their fruit elsewhere as they would not be paid for the previous year - olive handcuffs.

Keep the serfs down.

Festivol a Trevi

This weekend is the annual 3 day festival celebrating the new season's olive oil - olio nuovo. Many of the local olive oil producers exhibit their new oils in Villa Fabri in the centre of Trevi.

Casa Margherita is one of the exhibitors and I am delighted to say that after two days we have sold the all the oil produced from our first pressing. I am well chuffed as they say.

We will celebrate tonight and then tomorrow its back to picking for the next pressing on Thursday.

Still picking..it's hard work I tell you

Belt tightening

Today I went to my local hardware store to buy a ladder as we start olive picking. Normally for this I would get an invoice but today I was told they could not give me an invoice. This is a common situation at the moment as small businesses concentrate on cash only to stay afloat.

Indeed the olive mill that I use has not had there POS machine working for over a year now and I would bet that a lot of mills in Umbria are having the same problem!

One result of this is that even more economic activity has become 'nero' Or under the counter and so the government is able to collect less tax. This could develop into a vicious circle.

It's getting close to picking time

The olives are starting to change colour from green to a deep purple color. We will start picking towards the end of next week to enable us to have olio nuovo for the olive oil in Trevi on the 1/2/3 November.

You can get a glimpse of what's on from the website www.festivol.it

If you are in the area then come along and have a taste of our olio nuovo.

Nocturnal feasting

Our neighbours grove this morning after a visit from a sounder of wild boar looking for their favourite roots and bulbs.

Meanwhile our two guard dogs, Ugo and Winnie, slept soundly and undisturbed....................

L'Artista

Sand and Sea - RKWilliams

Rachel has also updated her website and is showing the work she has produced over the last 6 months or so. Have a look at www.rkwilliams.com