ΣΑΜΟΣ: The Olive Harvest

November 8 - The olive harvest has begun. It happens after the fall rains plump the fruit that has been slowly growing all summer. About a month ago, I noticed that the olives on the trees were getting purplish, but they were still pretty small and wrinkled. The Lord of the Harvest sends the latter rain to these parched lands just when it is needed.

Olives are the perfect fruit for a dry and arid climate. They require little water, and thrive with almost no care. They are planted everywhere on what we would call marginal lands; steep hillsides, rocky soil, etc. Olive trees only bear fruit every other year, but on the other hand, they can live for many centuries; one source said up to 1,000 years. I was surprised to learn that, in Bible times, olives were not processed and eaten like today, but they were pressed into oil for table consumption, to illuminate lamps, and for soap.

The folks who host the meeting on Samos are olive farmers. Today Denita, Anna, and I dropped over to help out a bit. We learned that olives are not picked; instead, they are shaken, beaten, sifted, and separated. Maybe I would have known this if I had spent more time in the Old Testament! Isaiah 24:13: "When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done." Deut. 24:20. "When you beat your olive, you shall not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow."

Here are the steps involved with harvesting olives:

1) They spread a net around the bottom of several adjoining trees,

2) They cut off the interior branches and drop them onto the net,

3) They beat or strip the olives off the severed branches with a stick,

4) They use a whirligig on a long pole to knock the olives off the tree,

5) They lift the net, gathering all of the berries and debris into a pile,

6) The small branches, twigs, and most of the leaves are removed.