rox
Veteran Member
No reaosn to write tonight other than looking for sympathy/encouragement. The olive harvest was over in December, and you have not lived until you have slung a big roll of net on yur back and hiked up steep hillside terraces, carrying the net on your back, in order to lay it down on the next terrace up.
So form December until now, have not done much physical work, other than hauling around cases of olive oil. But it is the end of February and it is time to prun the olive trees. We ahve names all our parcels, and the parcel we are working on is called "The Mailbox" because it is located, well near our mailbox.
Oh the p-a-i-n..... Our trees are so overgrown. You don't want olive trees so tall that you can't pick the olives, it si a wast of energy for the tree. you want the tree to produce olives in the regions where you can pick them, and not to low either or else you can't bend down and get under the tree to lay the nets down. So my husband and I are working on the Mail Box Parcel. We are so glad we did not keep the Morocan farm employee, we can't figure out what he did all year long, he surely didn't keep the trees prunned, that is for sure.
We cut with a small prunning hand saw, like everybody, that is how you do it. However tomorrow I am going to go buy a small blade chainsaw. We have one by Miketa, it has about an 8 inch blade, however it doesn't work. My husband is doing the main grunt work, he is hand sawing through big branches about 6" across, (we swear all day long against the Morocan), branches that are in the middle of the tree. The trees should be shaped like a champagn cup, open in the middle., there should not be branches in the middle!!!!! We have so much work to do.... I am not even going to tell my husband, jsust going to get up early and go buy the **** chain saw. We have a Stihl chainsaw that I bought last year (yeah my husband let's me do all the equipment purchasing) but it jsut does not fit in the quarters we need it to fit, and it is a pain to always start it, cu one branch, stop and start it again 15 minutes later. Tomorrow is it, going to buy the batter operated Makita chain saw.
In the meantime, I have the delectable task of cutting the trees that are on the slope. We ahve terraces and they are all stone terraced. however in the MailBox section there are no stone terraces, the gorund is jsut sloped up, dirt between the terraces. the slope go about 2 fto and go up about 4ft - 5ft. Yeah a h*ll of a slope. I constantly fall down on my butt. I believe the trees were planted on the slop to hold the slope.
Down hill slope I am cutting the trees short, uphill on the same tree, I cut them real high. Nothing is left on the sides because then you would have to be mid-slope to pick and that is near impossible.
So to get to the point of my topic, "Theme from Rocky" my arms are killing me, I have to brace myself on the slope and most of the time hang onto the tree, while I cut one handed, using a hand prunning saw, branches about 4" - 6" across. I wear a backpack power prunning set up on my hips that adds a couple pounds. My biceps are killing me, at times I have to use two hands on the small prunning saw in order to finish the job becasue my biceps on my right arm are giving out. All the while I do self talk. "Roxy this is so good for you, just keep working. Get your biceps stronger then it won't hurt. Get stronger, when you are stronger the job will be easy." When the self talk isn't working I switch to musice, I think of the theme song from Rocky, "Getting Strong now,,, Gonna Win now..." I have 3 of these slopes ot do, each slope holds about 20 trees. Today I only worked in the afternoon, and I did 8 trees. BUT I moved a lot of big branches that my husband cut, and before I worked on olive trees, first I worked an hour or so on our almond trees, so I actually did more than 8 trees. Tomorrow I hope to finish one line. Perhaps I'll take a photo and post it so you can visualize the project.
Oh did I say that before I even leave the house I take 2 Aleve to keep the body aches down, while I'm working. We can prun until the trees bolssom, probably mid May. However effectively we will stop in April and start burning. We can't burn until April. Fro burning my husband aunt comes, she is 79 but a big help. I trust her more with burning than I do my husband. He is reckless if you ask me when it comes to buring. I have a constant fear that he is going to burn the whole farm down. At least when his aunt is here I feel safer. Of course my husand says that he is buringing safely so we have a difference of opinon there. the one really good idea I ahd about buring is that he put the big sprayer on the back of the tractor and fills the tank with water, so in case the worst case scenerio happns he has kind of like a fire truck water tank on the back fo the tractor. That make sme feel a lot better and he only does it to make me happy. he does not feel it is necessary. But he does it, so I am at least placated a little bit. We have 1,362 olive trees and probably 1,000 that need cutting. I did the rest last year. Once they are all prunned then it is only a 3 - 4 week job to keep them in shape. None of the other olive farmers are having to do what we are doing. The prevous owner jsut wasn't apying attention. The Morocan only did what was visible form the hosue and everything else is, oh so much work. But we will getter done. We probably won't finish this year but we will finish next year. Unti then... "Getting Storng Now, Gonna Win Now...." Just basically blowing off steam in this post.
So form December until now, have not done much physical work, other than hauling around cases of olive oil. But it is the end of February and it is time to prun the olive trees. We ahve names all our parcels, and the parcel we are working on is called "The Mailbox" because it is located, well near our mailbox.
Oh the p-a-i-n..... Our trees are so overgrown. You don't want olive trees so tall that you can't pick the olives, it si a wast of energy for the tree. you want the tree to produce olives in the regions where you can pick them, and not to low either or else you can't bend down and get under the tree to lay the nets down. So my husband and I are working on the Mail Box Parcel. We are so glad we did not keep the Morocan farm employee, we can't figure out what he did all year long, he surely didn't keep the trees prunned, that is for sure.
We cut with a small prunning hand saw, like everybody, that is how you do it. However tomorrow I am going to go buy a small blade chainsaw. We have one by Miketa, it has about an 8 inch blade, however it doesn't work. My husband is doing the main grunt work, he is hand sawing through big branches about 6" across, (we swear all day long against the Morocan), branches that are in the middle of the tree. The trees should be shaped like a champagn cup, open in the middle., there should not be branches in the middle!!!!! We have so much work to do.... I am not even going to tell my husband, jsust going to get up early and go buy the **** chain saw. We have a Stihl chainsaw that I bought last year (yeah my husband let's me do all the equipment purchasing) but it jsut does not fit in the quarters we need it to fit, and it is a pain to always start it, cu one branch, stop and start it again 15 minutes later. Tomorrow is it, going to buy the batter operated Makita chain saw.
In the meantime, I have the delectable task of cutting the trees that are on the slope. We ahve terraces and they are all stone terraced. however in the MailBox section there are no stone terraces, the gorund is jsut sloped up, dirt between the terraces. the slope go about 2 fto and go up about 4ft - 5ft. Yeah a h*ll of a slope. I constantly fall down on my butt. I believe the trees were planted on the slop to hold the slope.
Down hill slope I am cutting the trees short, uphill on the same tree, I cut them real high. Nothing is left on the sides because then you would have to be mid-slope to pick and that is near impossible.
So to get to the point of my topic, "Theme from Rocky" my arms are killing me, I have to brace myself on the slope and most of the time hang onto the tree, while I cut one handed, using a hand prunning saw, branches about 4" - 6" across. I wear a backpack power prunning set up on my hips that adds a couple pounds. My biceps are killing me, at times I have to use two hands on the small prunning saw in order to finish the job becasue my biceps on my right arm are giving out. All the while I do self talk. "Roxy this is so good for you, just keep working. Get your biceps stronger then it won't hurt. Get stronger, when you are stronger the job will be easy." When the self talk isn't working I switch to musice, I think of the theme song from Rocky, "Getting Strong now,,, Gonna Win now..." I have 3 of these slopes ot do, each slope holds about 20 trees. Today I only worked in the afternoon, and I did 8 trees. BUT I moved a lot of big branches that my husband cut, and before I worked on olive trees, first I worked an hour or so on our almond trees, so I actually did more than 8 trees. Tomorrow I hope to finish one line. Perhaps I'll take a photo and post it so you can visualize the project.
Oh did I say that before I even leave the house I take 2 Aleve to keep the body aches down, while I'm working. We can prun until the trees bolssom, probably mid May. However effectively we will stop in April and start burning. We can't burn until April. Fro burning my husband aunt comes, she is 79 but a big help. I trust her more with burning than I do my husband. He is reckless if you ask me when it comes to buring. I have a constant fear that he is going to burn the whole farm down. At least when his aunt is here I feel safer. Of course my husand says that he is buringing safely so we have a difference of opinon there. the one really good idea I ahd about buring is that he put the big sprayer on the back of the tractor and fills the tank with water, so in case the worst case scenerio happns he has kind of like a fire truck water tank on the back fo the tractor. That make sme feel a lot better and he only does it to make me happy. he does not feel it is necessary. But he does it, so I am at least placated a little bit. We have 1,362 olive trees and probably 1,000 that need cutting. I did the rest last year. Once they are all prunned then it is only a 3 - 4 week job to keep them in shape. None of the other olive farmers are having to do what we are doing. The prevous owner jsut wasn't apying attention. The Morocan only did what was visible form the hosue and everything else is, oh so much work. But we will getter done. We probably won't finish this year but we will finish next year. Unti then... "Getting Storng Now, Gonna Win Now...." Just basically blowing off steam in this post.
