Picking up olives to make oil is quite a hard work.

The first step is to lay out large cloths under a tree in order to collect all the olives. It is also necessary to climb into the tree to cut some branches and then, with the help of special rakes, to pull down all the olives.

After you’ve done this to the first tree you have to move to the next one… and so on. Collecting olive from a hundred of plants will take at least two weeks if you work with 7/8 people. At the end of the day all the olives are taken to the oil-mill. Here they are separated from leaves and small branches and then squeezed. It is possible to taste the fresh oil immediately and it is a really unique pleasure.

In this first photo you can see the burning of dirty clothes. It is traditional way to mark the end of the work. The other photos show you some moments of the harvest that is not only hard work but consist also of joyful moments spent together.