staying inside and thinking about french olive farming…

It’s cold down here… I mean really cold… like -14 with the wind chill cold… and that, for me, is cold. I have come to learn that Provence is cold in the winter, but this cold… I don’t remember this… It is far too cold to snow… such a shame… no pretty pictures to show you… and much is frozen… not only me… The canal that runs through our property is frozen solid, our swimming pool is like a skating rink and the old bassins dotted around the property are rock solid… There has been a mighty mistral blowing for several days now… winds of 100km+ per hour… whipping everything and everyone into a frenzy… In Provence they say that the mistral can drive you crazy… now, I understand… it is relentless and unforgiving… and tiresome. I have learnt how to deal with the mistral… I stay inside… and only do the barest minimum outside… everything that can wait… waits… until the wind stops…

There is a comfort to being forced inside… Normally I can’t sit still… there are so many farming jobs to arrange and oversee, promenades to be made and new projects to be thought of. This week has been different… I have had time to read, to write and to think about the world of olive farming. Winter is the time to plan for the olives, to decide the way forward… whether to prune, when to feed and in general what their needs are. Olives, despite what you might think, are needy. Like all fruit trees, the more love, care and attention they receive the better they bloom and flourish… In writing those few words I can see that we aren’t much different… love, care and attention… we all need generous dollops of those ingredients…

So I have thought about our olives at length and I am starting our farming year with high hopes of a successful yield. Last year was disappointing, there were few olives in my part of Provence and the harvest was a mere half of what I have come to expect. But expectations are just that and olives like any form of agriculture never follow the rules… they surprise you… and not always in the way you want. I am not holding that against our trees… we all need a rest from time to time… but I am going to nurture them extra carefully this year… and as Valentines day is approaching… perhaps I should start to whisper ‘sweet nothings’ in their ears… it can’t hurt… xv