July 23, 2011
It was howling a gale outside when Amelia from Radio New Zealand showed up at my door. We immediately headed out for a walk through the paddocks. She had a black box hanging from her side, and she was holding two very large, imposing microphones.
When the gusts picked up she would jump from one side of me to the other, trying to block the noisy wind with her body and always holding one of the microphones in front of my mouth. I tried to pretend like this was normal, and I continued answering whatever question she’d asked.
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Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
June 19, 2011
Grass in the olive grove
“He canceled,” I said, hanging up the phone.
Rick looked nervous. “What do you mean?”
“It’s taking him longer than expected in another olive grove. He says he’ll come here tomorrow, but he won’t commit to a time.”
“If he doesn’t come here first, he’ll get stuck in another grove again,” Rick said. “He’ll never make it here.”
“I know.”
Every year at harvest time, Andrew-of-the-Olives becomes a very popular man. With his Mighty Tree Shaker, he can harvest an olive tree in something like 30 seconds. He’s based in the Hawke’s Bay and he has the only tree shakers on the North Island.
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16 Comments | New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: kind neighbors, olive bin, olive crate, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil, tree shaker | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
May 16, 2011
The first ripe Barnea
Our very first harvest was just around the corner, but Rick and I had no idea how to harvest and no equipment to do it. So that first year in Martinborough, I volunteered to help Helen at Olivo with their harvest. That way I could learn how to do it myself.
In late May I stood in the Olivo olive grove with Helen and her harvest team – Mavis, Scott and Bernard (pronounced BER-nerd here, not Ber-NARD the American way). Mavis was a thin, elderly woman. Scott and BERnard were clearly used to physical labor. I, it must be said, was not.
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13 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: gratitude, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil, satisfying work | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
April 18, 2011
Overgrown olive grove, 2006
Rick and I were standing with our neighbor John down in the olive grove. The trees were thick and green all around us.
“Look how great the grove looks,” Rick said.
John scowled and shook his head. “Well, you’re not done yet.”
Rick and I had only been living in Martinborough for less than a month. When we moved in the grass in the olive grove had been chest high, and John had helped us to hire a contractor to mow it.
Now the beautiful green grass was low to the ground and wonderfully even – with 500 significant exceptions. Around the base of every tree, there was a perfect square of long, ungainly grass that the contractor’s enormous tractor mower hadn’t been able to reach.
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22 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: kind neighbors, olive grove, olive trees, prune, pruning, satisfying work, secateurs, suckers, water shoots | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
September 21, 2010
Moore Wilson's
I looked up at the enormous building and the huge green sign that said “Moore Wilson’s Fresh Market,” and I felt like Dorothy at the gates to the Emerald City.
In my arms I held a heavy cardboard box full of olive oil bottles that I’d carefully labeled the night before. At my side was our good neighbor Kiwi Bronwyn, carrying another box which contained more olive oil, a tablecloth, a bread knife, and some plates and bowls.
Rick stood right behind us, next to our little Nissan Pulsar. He’d just driven us over the Rimutaka Hill Road and into Wellington city for the day.
“Do you have everything?” he asked.
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17 Comments | Food, Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: gratitude, kind neighbors, olive oil, olive oil tasting, wellington | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
July 25, 2010
Frantoio olives (click to enlarge)
Podcast available.
“They’re all still green,” Rick said.
We were standing in the middle of the olive grove on a cold morning in the middle of May. Nearly five hundred olive trees surrounded us, and there wasn’t a single ripe olive to be seen.
The frosts would be starting soon, but the grove simply wasn’t yet ready for harvesting. We didn’t know what to do.
Frost damage can completely destroy your crop, because it ruins the taste of your oil. We needed more time.
I looked around at all the green olives. “We have to delay the harvest. There’s no choice. We just have to hope the frost doesn’t get us.”
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20 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil, Podcasts | Tagged: city friends, gratitude, kind neighbors, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil, olive press, satisfying work, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
May 8, 2010
Wine Centre Open
I took a deep breath and walked up to the counter at the Martinborough Wine Centre. All around me bottles of gorgeous wine and olive oil stood sparkling on the shelves. I was there to try and sell our olive oil for the very first time, and I was nervous.
Would a Real Live Store actually want to put our little labor of love out on display with all those bright shiny things?
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21 Comments | New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: olive grove, olive oil, olives, selling olive oil, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
May 1, 2010
Sunshine
Podcast available.
“Buy a used tractor?” I said to Rick. “Do we need one?”
Three years ago, after finishing the paperwork to purchase 20 acres with an olive grove in Martinborough, Rick and I received an email from the real estate agent asking if we’d like to buy the vendor’s tractor as well.
In our city boy minds, a used tractor would break down and require mechanical know how. We wanted a new tractor, but we were already broke from the mortgage. We planned to wait a few years before investing in equipment.
So we sent an email back to the agent confidently telling him that we did not yet need a tractor.
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19 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil, Paddocks, Podcasts | Tagged: gratitude, kind neighbors, olive grove, satisfying work, tractor | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
November 28, 2009
Squiggles the pig (image by Leanne French - www.madltd.co.nz)
When a 200 pound pet pig named Squiggles greets you at the front door, you know you’re at the MAD house.
I patted the pig on the head and laughed as she squealed a charming little hello.
My human friends Leelee and The Wolf stood just behind her, and I gave them both big hugs. I like these two humans a lot, and I was thankful that they were helping Rick and me out in such big way that day.
Leelee and The Wolf are the brains behind the Martinborough Art Department, or MAD for short. Walking into their charming colonial cottage is a little like walking into Peewee’s Playhouse. It’s a fun-filled place full of love and a little bit of madness in the best possible way.
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22 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil, Pet kunekune pigs | Tagged: bottling olive oil, labels, olive oil, satisfying work | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
October 31, 2009
Flower buds on a Barnea (click to enlarge)
The other day I took a walk through the olive grove to see how the trees are doing.
It was comforting to see the small, green flower buds of spring. It isn’t always this way.
Sometimes olives groves don’t behave according to plan.
When we bought this place the house had been empty for some time, and the grove hadn’t been pruned or sprayed for pests and disease in years.
So it wasn’t producing very much.
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7 Comments | New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: barnea, flower buds, gratitude, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
August 8, 2009
The finished product
Ever since I’d read that pickling food can create botulism, I’d been a little nervous. Yet there I was, ready to put our olives into jars.
This is the part where it can all go horribly wrong. One false move and you’ve created the Olives of Death.
I stood at the island in the center of the kitchen. It was a bright Saturday morning, and the light was streaming in the French doors that open out to the deck and the olive grove beyond. Above me the peaked wooden ceiling spread its wings.
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21 Comments | Food, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: kitchen, pickling olives, satisfying work, table olives | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
July 11, 2009
There are many ways to make your own olive oil. This is my own personal recipe. Feel free to modify it to make it work for you.
- Pre-heat your life. Marinate in thoughts of living overseas for years and years.
- Before your heart becomes hard, go.
- Count your blessings when the one you love agrees to join you.
- Wander the globe together. Live in Northern Japan, then big city Tokyo. Stir in trips to China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines. Flavor to taste.
- Meet friendly, warm New Zealanders everywhere you go.
- Move to New Zealand. Because, why not? Read the rest of this entry »
8 Comments | Guest posts & media, Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: city friends, kind neighbors, olive harvest, olive oil | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
June 27, 2009
The day after our big olive harvest with the city friends, the weather took a turn for the worse. It didn’t matter. Four of us in the harvest gang were determined to hand pick some olives for pickling and preserving. We weren’t about to be put off by the weather.
Olives and macrocarpas in the mist
Everyone that morning was sore from the day before. Inside the fire was going, and outside the temperature had plummeted. The mist across the hills had thickened. But we four intrepid olive harvesters put on winter coats and gloves, left behind the others who were reading by the fire, and headed down into the grove with a couple old plastic buckets.
It doesn’t snow in the Wairarapa valley, except for occasionally up in the mountains, and the coldest days in Martinborough are nothing compared to the serious, snow-filled winters of my native Michigan. But my body seems to have changed.
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8 Comments | Food, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: city friends, gluten free, manzanillo, olive grove, pickling olives, recipe, satisfying work, table olives | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
June 13, 2009
Washed olives going into the press
Rick and I drove up to the olive press and looked in through the ornate metal gate.
It was dark out, and the lights were still on inside. Diane of ‘Pressing Engagements’ was still pressing olives. She works furiously throughout May and June, then things go quiet for the olive presses of the Wairarapa valley.
We wanted to pick up our oil and get it home to taste it right away, in order to see if the frosts had damaged the taste. We’d gone to great lengths on harvest day to make sure we’d sorted out as much frost-damaged fruit as possible. But were our efforts enough?
Diane smiled when she saw us. “Your oil is beautiful,” she said immediately, and then waved us in through the gate.
Does she say that to all the boys?
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12 Comments | Food, Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: frantoio, kind neighbors, leccino, olio nuovo, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil, olive oil containers, olive press | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
June 6, 2009
Mist on the hills beyond the bottom paddock
The first of the city friends arrived on Friday night, driving over the Rimutaka Hill Road after work in the dark, ready to settle in for a three-day weekend full of food, friends, olives, and a lot of hard work.
There were big hello hugs all around and bags deposited in guest rooms.
We operate a B&B here, so the extra bedrooms come in handy at harvest time — and also throughout the year, when friends and family occupy the rooms between paying guests.
As they arrived, everyone was talking about the horrible weather that had been forecasted for the weekend.
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7 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: city friends, frantoio, gratitude, kind neighbors, leccino, nets, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil, olive press, satisfying work | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
