Volcanic ash cloud and olive picking

I'm sure you all have read or heard about the volcano in Chile and the effects of the ash cloud. Here is New Zealand, the effects are playing havoc with Air New Zealand and Quantus. One would think that Ernie & I would not be affected by that since we are not flying anywhere. Au contraire, Our goods have been sitting in Singapore waiting for the ash cloud to dissipate and allow flights into New Zealand. So the saga of our goods continues! The way it is going, we may receive just as we are ready to return to the US. Oh well, what is traveling without some hiccups. That's the only way to view all this. Speaking of the ash clouds, take a look at the photos of the sunrise we had on Friday:

 These were taken from Forrest vineyard where we are house/dog sitting for the next 10 days. Absolutely spectacular. Oh you should see the night sky here. I'll try to take some photos of the sky. I just know they won't be a replacement for actually being here.

So yesterday we went to Huia vinyard where Joelle works for the annual olive picking. Unfortunately Joelle wasn't able to participate since she was in Nelson with Jasmin on a St. John's camping weekend. St. John's is an international organization that provides medical and emergency care. They also runs a youth program where young people from six to 18 years can learn first aid, health care, self-discipline and general life skills in their communities. I was originally going to go to the weekend as a volunteer when we found out that the olive picking was scheduled for the same weekend. Of course you can understand my dilemma - be a volunteer victim for the entire weekend for kids 7 - 16 or pick olives which will them be cold-crushed to provide olive oil for all the workers. Seeing as how I might never again have the opportunity to pick olives, my decision was obvious.  Also obvious, Joelle was not happy with my decision as she also would have rather been picking olives. The joys of being an involved parent and we are very proud of her dedication. There were 11 of us picking and we picked almost 1000 kilos. We were armed with sticks (to beat the olives out of the trees), plastic wide toothed rakes (to rake the olives off) and our gloved hands (to simply run down the branches and 'pop' the olives off). Yes it was work and yes we had a great time. We started at 9 a.m. and quit when the light faded, around 5:30 p.m. Thankfully, the house we are staying in has an enormous hot tub and we fully utilized it last night.

Today is a day of rest and Monday and Tuesday we are labeling again. Time to work for wine again. No, we haven't finished off the 1 1/2 cases we received for our earlier efforts but one never knows!!!!

Bubbly (the champagne equivalent) being riddled - a 6 week process

Four racks and the cases behind waiting to be riddled

Laying out nets to begin the olive harvest

A great example of beating, raking and hand picking

A few of the trees were tall enough that we need the ladder to beat the olives out

Olives are gathered in the net and stems and sticks are picked out before putting into the small bins

Smalls bins being carried to the large bin for unloading

Lunch in the vineyard for a bunch of great olive pickers

At the end of the day, we filled two of these large bins each holding about 500 kilos of olives.

At the end of our picking day, the olives were going to the presser and they will be pressed Sunday evening. What a phenomenal experience. Well tonight we'll try to get some evening sky photos from the hot tub while we're finishing a couple glasses of wine. Hope y'all have a great day!