Olive update: Day 13

Here's a photo to show what's going on with my olives. On the left we have a not very happy looking olive. On the right, we have a pretty-happy looking olive. In the middle? The olive monster. I don't know why the unhappy olives are unhappy. I think they may have been exposed to air. I bit into the happy olive after taking this picture, to see what it tasted like. It was awful, and I had to rinse my mouth out after to get rid of the bitterness. Fingers crossed that things improve...

Olive Update: Day 11

Something stange is happening to the olives.

I think that they are mutating and are changing into a strange, pickled olive monster who will rise out of the brine one dark night...

Actually, there is a funny smell.

I got super sick with the flu this week and wasn't able to change the water for 3 days in a row. Perhaps this is the reason for the funny smell? Are my olives ruined? The smell... it smells like olives. So maybe it's okay. But it's strong. Hmmm...

Stay tuned for updates.

being there

hello hello

...it's been a long time and a lot has happened. To try and re-hash it all would be boring for everyone, so let's start fresh.

I'm in France, being the friend in resident at the Quaker Meeting house in Congenies. What's a quaker and why am I hanging out with them? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers There you go.
Right. So I'm living in this gorgeous tiny town in the south of France. I sunbathed yesterday and today. Full on sunbathed. It's November. I love this place.

In other (very important) news, I am making olives. On Sunday we picked the olives (there are 3 trees on the Maison's property), and put them in 2 separate piles: those olives that are bad (riddled with worms) and those that are not-so-bad (only half riddled with worms). We took the bad ones to an olive mill (moulin d'olive) today in exchange for a future 2 liters of olive oil. The not-so-bad ones... the "good" ones, we'll call them... I'm processing to turn into delicious green edible olives! This involves soaking them in water and changing the water every day for around 20 days. Heavy work, but hopefully worth it.

So here's some photos of the olives, they are so pretty that I had to post a few different pictures. Also, I'm posting a series of my "nightime" friends from here in Congenies.

Big Love everyone!