“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.” Author Unknown
The end is in sight. The last olive has been picked. We remind ourselves, however, that it is now February of the next year. When one is hauling one's self in late at night after mat-layering or schlepping over to the barn in pajamas to crank the press down early in the wee hours of the morning, a negative attitude could creep in or thoughts along the lines that it seemed one was doing this months ago and is still engaging in the same task. It's been decided to opt for the positive spin, in order to retain sanity, the Italians don't pick their olives until January or February -- so we've got that going for us. The Arbequina paste and oil look distinctly different from the other three. The Mission and Frantoio paste were thicker to spread and the Mission oil is a gold, with hints of green; the Frantoio oil is an emerald green. We don't exactly know what to make of the Arbequina yet. The paste is extremely oily, so oily that the layers of mats were nearly slipping ...