fev 11-14: More olive adventures

My work week began with more compost. Finally finished filling up the two bins, then shoveled the older stuff into the wagon attached to a tractor which unfortunately had to be left idling while I shoveled since it needed a jumpstart from the Land Rover to get going at all. I swear the people who made that other compost mixed dirt in with the grass and poo since there was just tons of gravel in it. Ah well.

After a morning of that, though, I was invited to head off to Gourdon for lunch. It's a "village perchee" really perched at 760m altitude on a bit of rock that sticks up all on its own amongst other mountains. It also has the offical distinction of being one of th emost beautiful villages in France. I LOVE that the French actually classify things like that. The approach to it was incredible, up some 10 and 15% grades on twisty roads in the VW Golf convertible. One really wonders why people ever chose to settle in this place, but it must have had some incredible strategic advantages in defending.

The village almost completely relies on tourism now. Streets are only for pedestrians and are flanked by cheesy trinket and candy stores. I didn't spend nearly long enough in the 12th-century church, but it was a dark sanctuary from the tourism without that had some simple stained glass with clean lines that reminded me of my mom's.



The village highlight and reason for going there was lunch. We four at at La Vielle Four (the old oven) which was reputed to be a good spot. Holy moly, it was hands-down the best meal I've had in France, not that I've been here long. Started with soupe de courge, a large winter squash that resembles our friend the Long Island Cheese Squash. It was the smoothest sqash soup I've had in my life. Came with a small salad and toast with fromage frais, crisp bacon and balsamic vinegar. Then grilled dorado on top of mashed potatoes (that had olive bits in them!). And a parfait of pureed candied chestnuts, vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and creme fraiche. The front-of-house was the wife of the chef, and it was quirkily decorated in a basement space. Simply an amazing little place.

Tuesday morning I got my lesson in olive tree pruning from Jerome. There are lots of rules to follow, but the general idea is to create a kind of umbrella shape, opening up the tree to allow branches to droop, because it's the droopers that give olives. You also cut off anything that looks dry or dead. Jerome seemed to cut pretty much everything. He would grab a branch, give a reason, and then say "Il faut l'enlever," "It must be cut off." Tools of the trade are a ladder, little hand clippers, shears with long handles, and a skinny-bladed saw.

Pruning is addictive. You're giving order to this thing that's crazy and natural and all over the place, making it work for you better. It seemed a bit odd to me that Jerome would say this after pruning a little tree withinn an inch of its life, but he remarked "Regarde sa belle forme naturelle," "Look at its beautiful natural form." I think that olive trees have been cultivated for so long maybe that they've grown used to human intervention and thrive with it. Hanging out in trees is also just a blast: finding where to best position myself amongst the branches, how to get to the next higher point in the tree, gradually snipping out a space for myself in the canopy.


It took me five hours to do my first olivier (olive tree). I go so slowly to make sure I'm cutting the right branch, looking for ones that cross each other, cutting one of the two, determining just how dead one looks, struggling with theh clippers to get through a large branch. Compared to me, Jerome looks like an LP at 78rpm, but I'm ok with being slow since I feel thorough. Tomorrow will bring more pruning, then the weekend for some more outings. It's supposed to be another beautiful weekend with sun and temperatures around 60 -- good weather for a trip to one of the islands off Cannes.