olive it

we've taken to making all sorts of "olive" puns... raking olives for hours at a time can make you sort of crazy. in any case, not too much news here. june left yesterday and we were sad to see her go. she's an incredibly strange old woman - very well traveled (spent 12 years in southeast asia, many in greece, etc.) and intelligent, but kind of crazy. she, liz, alex, and i sort of became a little pseudo travel family in our tower house, taking turns making a collective dinner every night and spending all day and evening together just talking and getting to know one another. liz spent the past nine years working for a nonprofit in ohio and has oodles of advice and fun stories to tell, so i feel like i'm just sponging up life lessons from these two amazing solo-travelling women. the great thing is also that they're both funny and friendly, and all four of us somehow click really well. the dynamic is different with june gone, but certainly not bad. we only see carl for a few hours per day, including lunchtime, which usually is such a relief after four - five straight hours of harvesting. we gorge on lovely sardinian food then go back to the grove for another few hours. it's dark here by about 5:15, so we haven't been doing much once we head back to town. except today, since it started raining during lunch, so we helped make some pomegranite juice, alex went to the oil press, then we headed down the hill. ah, the oil... so delicious! we've been using a bottle from our first batch, and it's absolutely amazing! tastes nothing like storebought, but instead is this tangy, peppery, bright green stuff that is just divine. hopefully i'll get to bring a bit home.
well, no news yet on the election, as it's still morning over there. all i can do is send my best thoughts over the pond. go vote, and i'll check back tomorrow to see what happened!