Cheating Death While Olive Picking

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Tuesday 09 December, 2014 by Uncle Spike

Olive trees grow in the weirdest of places, and seem quite happy on the sides of mountains, steep inclines, as well as purpose made cultivated fields. Here on our farm we have them mostly growing on the edges of the citrus orchards.

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But some grow in their own groves

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Whilst some are at the top of inclines, making olive picking a precarious business; if not for me personally, then for trying to capture the darned things as you strip the tree!

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But much of my time is spent staring up into the tree, either standing on the ground, balancing on rocks, at the top of a 12 foot ladder, or perched on a branch inside the tree like a don’t know what. Olive picking is a pretty tame activity, even though fairly strenuous with constant stretching, bending, climbing etc, but it’s also not without its risks.

First of all there is the obvious one, that being a fall from ladders that lose their footing, or where a branch snaps when you hoped it would take your weight, but there are other things like getting a serious crick in your neck, or strained eyes from focussing above yourself for hours on end in some very strong winter sunlight. Tried shades, but with the contrasting colours of an olive tree and it’s fruit and the bright sky, that simply doesn’t work – such is life; deal with it.

It doesn’t end there… Lo and behold, I discovered a new risk or two this year. Using the comb on the end of a 2 metre pole is great for getting at the olives; however, when they ping down on to your forehead, nose or eyes from that height, the little blighters leave some lovely bruises, lol.

But my favourite new risk/trick with olive picking, is when you are staring up into the tree, concentrating hard on balance as well as hand/eye coordination…. and a bloody olive goes straight into your open mouth. Last week I nearly choked up a tree…. on a stupid green olive that went ‘down the hatch’!

I’m always reading books on daft ways to leave this earth. We all have to go sometime, that’s a fact, and having seen death in front of my very eyes through illness and disease, I’d be the first to opt for some more novel exit on balance. So my immediate thought was not for my own mortality, but as to how they’d write that one up, and would I make the editorial cut in the next edition 🙂

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