91 ~ A man and his olive oil – and maybe yours.
Greetings, dear readers. I’m tapping in with some good news, & sad news.
First, the good news:
My nephew Keegan had a good olive oil harvest in central Italy this past season, and has a fresh batch of half liter bottles available for sale and shipping to the US. See below for ordering information. And to learn more about his wonderful “Campellino” olive oil, see here.
This year he produced 400 liters from about 300 trees in a few groves he either owns or rents. He paid about 100 liters of oil in ‘rent’ to the owner of one of the groves, leaving his net production at about 300 liters. And that takes a lot of olives - according to Keegan, his heritage olives yield only about 11% oil by weight.
Heritge Moraiolo olives ready for harvest at Keegan’s home in Umbria.
Keegan’s colleague Carlo inspecting the olives before pressing.
In the bottle.
As we did last year, I’m happy to put together an order for readers of Bird in the Bush. Keegan can pack and ship a bulk order to my house (north of Barneveld), and if you’re local you can stop by to collect your bottles, or I can drop them off next time I pass by your place. Price with shipping is $24.85 per 0.5 liter bottle of organic, hand-cultivated (with passion), hand-harvested, heritage Italian olive oil.
If interested in participating, by Saturday, July 22, please email me a count how many bottles you’d like (williamrobichaud@yahoo.com) and make payment by PayPal (c/o same email above) or by check to 7537 Lakeview Road, Barneveld, WI 53507. We’ll then get this fantastic transatlantic trade route movin once more!
If you don't live near me, Keegan might be willing to ship to you directly, and six bottles would probably be a minimum order to ship to one address. If interested in this option, you can contact Keegan directly (he’s fluent in English), and just tell him that Zio Uccello (Uncle Bird) sent you: keegan_ed@yahoo.it
And now the sad news….
I’m sorry to report that while I was in Europe recently (when I took the photo of Keegan, above), a weasel, probably, got into the ‘convent’ and killed the last four of my sweet, gray-habited, egg-layin’ Dominique hens. I’d known the girls since they were day-old chicks four years ago, and I returned home to a quieter, somewhat emptier, less joyful farmstead. But if you keep animals, or hold love for anything, such losses are inevitable. Still, the girls are missed.
