Pasturing the sheep among the olive trees

Regenerative agriculture; the sheep graze the grass and weeds and do their "besoins" to fertilize the trees

In Provence, grazing seems to happen at opposite times of year to Britain and the north of Europe.  In summer, the long hot dry Mediterranean temperatures dry the grass brown and nothing grows - all the plants go into stasis, survival mode. Then, the grass begins growing again in the autumn, and, if there is a mild winter which is normally the case, the grass continues to grow all through to the spring. Most winters there is a cold "snap", or snow, which stops all growth but it never lasts more than a few days and the grass picks up immediately the temperatures rise again.   

So, Gerry takes the sheep out for walks among the olives in the autumn, through winter and the spring, while in the hot summer we put them in a park behind the house, where they are (relatively) safe from wolves (so far, so good!).

The wolf problem - six groups are reported now all around us - has meant that we cannot leave the sheep out at night.  We used to set up netting making 50m x 50m areas among the trees where the sheep could spend several days clearing the grass and weeds, but they wouldn't be safe any longer. Every evening, Gerry puts them back in their bergerie which is protected by a high fence topped by two lines of electrified wire... 15,000 volts to deter the wolves, so far anyway, when they explore the fence with their noses.

We have two breeds, Rouge de Roussillon, which have brown/red heads, and Dorpers, which are the smaller black and white sheep which were bred in South Africa from Dorsets and Blackface Persians. They are very friendly, charmingly easy to handle, and do not need sheering, a huge relief: Gerry did ours but it's back-breaking, and the professional who comes now was not easy to find because there are so few and he will probably retire soon.

We must get some more Dorpers!

Cleaning the mill at the end of harvest takes ages!

Everything needs cleaning and putting back in order, and it takes a minimum of two weeks!

We have tried various approaches to cleaning up after the harvest and the pressing, which have turned out pretty much a bit different each year since we started pressing in 2015, but it always seems to take at least two weeks. 

Every single surface of everything we've used in the harvest needs pressure hosing. We can't use detergent in case it contaminates any of the surfaces which olives or olive oil will touch next year. In fact, a good pressure hose clean is highly effective. All the red boxes must be hosed down, every facet of the machine, the big aspirator tube, the electric harvesting combs, various tubes, containers and of course the entire malaxing and centrifuge machines. Pressing, or at least the olive fruit crushing process, produces a fine vapor of olive oil which seems to touch everything and it all has to be cleaned off. 

Gerry and I have done it on our own, which sounds like it would take longer but as we know exactly what needs to be done, we get through the jobs more quickly than even when we have others to help us. Having people to give us a hand is really good though, because harvest is an exacting time no matter what the crop may be that a farm is bringing in, so a hand at the end is much appreciated.

And can be quite entertaining too! One year, we had a group of maybe five people still happy to lend a hand beyond picking the olives off the last tree, but by this time one or two tempers were fraying thin and it didn't take long before there was an argument in the mill room, with, "You call that clean!" answered by "Don't talk to me like that!" and then "I'll talk to you any way I like!" and storming outside! Great theatre, hilarious!  But they all calmed down later on with coffee and some cookies at the mid-morning break time...

Keeping the mill spotless is very important

It always takes two weeks or more but is fantastic to see when everything is squeaky clean!

Starting the press! Loading olives into the washing machine...

We weigh the boxes and pour them into the laveuse to wash off the dust and dirt

Gerry is emptying cases of olives into the machine and I am removing twigs after the fruit has been washed.  Before emptying the cases, she weighs the olives in them so that at the end of the pressing we can weigh the oil we get out of the centrifuge machine and see what return of oil there is from a given weight of olives. This volume/weight ratio is called the rendement in French.

The washing machine has a powerful aspirator, the big tube over my head, which plucks leaves and little twigs off the olives as they fall out of the Archimedes screw (the fat green tube behind where Gerry is pouring in the olives) before they fall in the washing water bath.

The olives then float out of the other side of the water bath (in front of me) onto a vibrating griddle which shakes off the water and removes all the rest of the twigs.

It's a very noisy process! But somehow fascinating to see the transformation of hundreds of thousands of little olives into a delicious olive oil.

This little video was hugely popular when we put it on our Instagram pages, at https://www.instagram.com/p/DQtaN3OjGGN/ 

Olives washed before pressing

Producing Extra Virgin olive oil

The Var Matin reports black wolves far too close to Olives en Provence and Domaine des Escavalins!

This is not a new development, but wolves have completely changed the regenerative agriculture we want to do with our sheep

We have heard new warnings about wolves in the forests on the plateau up behind the house. This time they are reporting black wolves among the grey ones. Frankly, we think it fair to guess our sheep can see little difference between the two! 

Des indices nous préviens que le loup et dans nos parages, donc on remet les brebis à l'abri....

Anyway, the threat of wolves means we can't leave our sheep out at night any more among the olive trees (to keep the grass down and do their 'business') like we used to until a few years ago. The village mayor has a property a couple of hills to the south of us and has had two attacks, and a goat herder the other side of us, near Meounes, got so fed up and stressed with wolves attacking his goats, even when he slept in a barn with them, that he has given up and retired altogether.  So, just in case, we've moved the sheep at night from the relative safety of their summer pasturing in the woods and terrasses behind the farmhouse, back to the safety of their shed & park with an electrified fence.

We'll set up netted day parcs for while the harvest is still on, and start walkabouts again soon after using Max and Joy to do their job moving the sheep....

See our Instagram post...

Reports of wolves

We have to keep our sheep in at night