Dispatches: Olive Trees

Monday, July 4, 2016

Olive Trees

(If you want to read an extremely good narrative account of our Greece trip, Jane J., one of our travel companions, kept a blog at jwkjohnson3.wordpress.com She has wonderful food pics which I do not have. I will cross reference her blog with mine. My blog, like me, will be very random.)

"I think I shall never see, a poem as beautiful as a tree" wrote Joyce Kilmer, whom I was surprised to learn, was a man, Greece is swathed in Olive trees from valleys and high up mountain sides. There are many orange groves and vineyards as well, but, they are not nearly as ubiquitous as olive trees.
Every olive tree in Greece has an owner and ownership is hereditary. In fact we visited one winery on Crete, Manouskis, owned by a wealthy entrepreneur who made his money in America and returned to his childhood home to found a business to aid the local economy. On his property was an olive tree that was between 1300 and 1500 years old. originally given to a priest, which the vineyard owner did not own. Jane took a good pic of this tree. (see below) (Cross reference with Day 10, of Jane. J's blog.) It's a bit like mineral rights in America which are separate from land surface rights.
Olives like light and air. Therefore, olive tress are pruned to enhance olives reaching light and air. The trunk is severed about six feet above ground and the branches curve upward from the remaining stump so the trees are shaped a bit like an inverted umbrella and are not very tall...perhaps fifteen feet.
At the city of Messolongi (Jane's blog Day 5) we were hosted by a family who grow olives and who also operate an olive extraction business. One of my first learnings was that it is hot in the sunshine in in olive grove when it's 113 degrees...about the top end of my comfort zone. The Curmudgeonette discovered olives she liked for the first time ever.