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After two months I managed to find an affordable wood chipper that can chip the hard dry olive tree wood too. It is better to chip the wood when it is still green. But as I can not always be here and do not want to put more work than I already do on other people, I am chipping dry wood for now.
Brigitte and Stefan, my Swiss neighbors, have been giving me wet materials for the compost. :-) Way more than I can produce! I look forward to see it become soil.
Last week Xaris built the outhouse for the compost toilet with the wood from Dionisia’s old roof. It is nearly finished! I wanted to do it myself first but was afraid of using the chain saw without anyone’s instructions. And after seeing what Xaris did, it would have taken me a month…
Finally, we have the building permit! We got it mainly because of Elena Stavropoulou. And Kostas Kontomanos, Kostas Pavlou, Chrysanthos Maraveas, Dimitris Mantas, Panos Stasinopoulos and Tryfonas Vasilakopoulos.
This year I went to Greece to harvest the olives early to see the difference in taste. As Mr. Papadopoulos from the olive press near Pyrgos said, the olives should be more green than black, which makes for a smoother tasting oil. The olive oil does not have that first bitter taste, but only tastes of greens, flowers… It is very scratchy in the throat. A good sign, but not that smooth. :-) Maybe because it is unfiltered this time. I will find out. Every olive oil that crosses my way, I take a spoonful to learn the taste.
In December 2017 I went for the olive harvest to Lapithas' Farm, and learned a lot in ten days!
Alberto, Elefteria and Kleiton harvested the olives. I harvested too, but more to learn! This year it was a very small amount of olives, because nobody pruned the trees in May and because of a hail storm in November, which threw half of the olives to the ground. I went to Papadopoulos' mill near Pyrgos. He and Vasiliki took a lot of time to explain the hole process. They allowed me to go in between organic farmers and conventional farmers, as I am just at the beginning of transitioning to organic. It is a small quantity, but the taste is amazing. ! It is deep green and has so much taste. People described it as peppery, like grass, like tomatoes ... I would call it pungent. Which does not sound that good. But after the second bite you love it! And the pungent taste comes from all the flavenoid polyphenols, which carry all the health benefits of olive oil.
Inhye, a friend of mine, went as far as to say 'I can drink it. That's how good it tastes.' ! :-)
Next year I will aim for early harvest, in October!
I also learned a lot about shipping and regulations.
And I finally met my neighbors! It turns out that Ilias and Niti are the ones running the library in Xirochouri. :-) I am so glad that they are my neighbors.
In August 2017 I went to Kotroni Xirochouri to plan the straw bale house.
I stayed at Dionisia's place in Kato Xirochouri. She helped me a lot! I had brought my electric bicycle with me and there were endless problems... The battery had to be mailed, it is not allowed on a passenger flight, and it nearly got sent back from customs in Athens! When I took the bicycle apart to fit it into the box at the airport, it just would not fit with the handlebars on. Desperate not to miss my flight, I dismantled the handlebars and all kinds of rubber and metal rings fell out. Once in Greece I spent hours on you tube trying to figure out in which order those rings go back. In the end Dionisia's grandson and her neighbor put them together in half an hour. :-) Riding an electric bike in Greece is perfect! But when I had to charge the battery, I oversaw the switch on the charger for the higher European voltage. I plugged it in, and heard the electrical burn in the charger and all the lights went out! Good thing I had not attached the battery! Dionisia could not help to laugh at me. :-) I got a new charger, which does not need to be switched over.. and it is so much fun to ride the electric bike through the winding roads!
I discovered a library, a coffee shop and a taverna in Xirochouri, the closest village to my place! And I went to the beach. The water is amazing, it feels refreshing and soft at the same time. It is a long stretch of beach. So you can find a place, where you don't see anybody else, or you stay closer to the entrance. :-)
With the help of Tassos I applied for an organic certification for the olive trees. I put up signs to prevent the town from spraying chemicals against the olive fruit fly on Lapithas' Farm.
And I planned the straw bale house, roughly, the details still have to get worked out. :-)
In November 2016 I went with a friend, Tassos, to Zacharo in the West Peloponnese to look at different pieces of land that were affordable. We were told about this place in Kotroni Xirochouri by the owners of the Kaiafas Lake Hotel, where we stayed.
At that time it was only my third choice. But, it turned out that my first and second choice had legal issues, so the smaller piece of land for the same price might just have been the reason, why there were no legal issues here!
I remember the first time I got there, I just felt immensely happy. You can see all across the Peloponnese to the mountains in the south and east, and to your right the endless sea and Kaiafas Lake, which is only separated from the sea by a very thin strip of land.
