APRIL-MAY 2019     OLIVES AND EASTER…

A small rather dull looking tree tucked away in the side garden revealed itself to be an olive tree. A fruiting olive tree… By April it was carrying a surprising quantity of ripe, green and black fruit. Whilst it would not have been our choice to grow olives, it was impossible to let the bounty go to waste. We do like olives and eat same quite regularly, as part of an array of nibbles for Happy Hour drinks with the neighbours, in salads, and in meals like a favourite tuna, olive and caper sauce for pasta.

However, research showed that it was not just a matter of picking the olives and bottling them for later. Raw olives are, basically, so bitter as to be inedible without treatment, it seemed. So we embarked on a new experience…

Much Googling ensued…

The olives were duly picked, some black, some still green, for the sake of experimentation. We sat down at the table to prick each one several times with the sharp point of a knife. Tedious and time consuming.

Processing olives

Couey dog learned a valuable life lesson from the process – not all things that fall from tables are good things. She pounced on an olive that John dropped and tried to eat it. Spat it out again. Spent the next half hour pulling disgusted faces and sulking because we laughed at her.

We put the pricked fruit into bottles, filled these with cold water and over the next three weeks, drained and changed the water each day. When a sample didn’t quite set the teeth on edge, I put a brine solution into the jars and sealed them. A couple of months later, the result was actually edible olives. I was quite surprised…

In the subsequent year, I made the processing easier by not bothering to prick them at all. Put them into the largest plastic container/s I had, for the 2-3 week soaking process. It made the daily draining and changing of the water much easier than fiddling with lots of jars. They only went into these when ready to brine. I found that pouring a cm or so of olive oil on top of each jar of brine and olives prevented deterioration of the fruit at the top.

Our home grown and processed olives are every bit as good as shop-bought ones. The tree is so prolific that we now give much of the crop away – but recipients have to be prepared to do the processing themselves!

My Melbourne grandson came to stay with us for a few days before Easter. An adventure for the twelve year old was to travel by train, by himself, from Melbourne to Bendigo. His dad took him to Southern Cross, to the train, and we collected him at our end. He was so proud of himself.

John took the opportunity to get the boy doing more woodwork, as he had shown an interest in this when we lived nearby. During the shed organizing process of a few months ago, John had decided to sell his old woodworking bench and this had found its way down to the outdoor living area, in preparation for sale. To date, no interest had been shown to his ads, so the bench still sat there, being an eyesore. Now, it provided a place for grandson’s woodworking. Not what I had in mind for such a lovely area!

Concentration…

On Easter Sunday, son, wife and my grand daughter came for a day trip, to collect the boy. The Bendigo family came to a BBQ lunch at our place. The wonderful, large, patio was put to good social use yet again.

My daughter-in-law organized an Easter Egg hunt for the four kids. We decided this should be in an area of the nearby bushland, rather than have my young garden subjected to enthusiastic foraging. She supplied a very generous quantity of little eggs and the hunt lasted quite some time.

Ready, set…

Whilst we don’t see the Melbourne part of the family as regularly as we did when we lived there, that is a cost of the otherwise successful relocation. Occasions like this go some of the way towards compensating.