Planting Process

The olives grown here will be used for olive oil, not eating. About half of the land already has olive trees. The other half is being worked and will be planted in the coming year.

The planting takes place in phases. Those of you who have gardened know that the most important work happens before the plants go in the ground.

First they clear the trees and, if necessary, disc the ground. The trees are piled in huge piles and burned. Mando and Sam are standing in front of the cleared trees to give some perspective of how big the pile is.

In the past outside companies came in and used these clay domes to burn the trees down to make charcoal. They no longer do this, but Mando said it was cool to watch the smoking domes. They control the temperature inside by opening and closing those little holes in the sides.

An outside GPS crew comes and marks a few specific points in the field with bamboo poles tied with black plastic. This makes it possible to have perfectly straight lines. Then seasonal workers stretch a special string between the black bamboo markers. The string has markings on it that are spaced a certain distance depending on the variety of olive tree. They use these marking to place bamboo poles with yellow ribbon to mark the beginning and ending of the rows. This same process of marking with GPS, bamboo, and marked string must be done 3 times during the planting process.

An outside company comes in to rip the earth with big bulldozers. The drivers follow the bamboo posts to make straight lines. The rips break the soil so the tree roots have room to grow. In the United States, the bulldozers have a GPS system so it's a one step process.

 Blowing the dirt off a bulldozer. They have up to six running at one time.

 

 Some bulldozers ripping the field in front of my house. It's VERY loud.

 

The hook rips 1.25 meters, which is about 4 ft. It sinks into the earth like a claw and literally rips a trench.

 

Two bulldozers from behind with their hooks in the ground.

 

 

In the end you have a bunch of straight lines like this.

 

Then a tractor comes through and discs to break up the big clumps. This is done by another outside company.

I didn't take any pictures of the tractor discing because it was too dusty to see anything once it got in the field.

 

Next A GPS crew marks the land again and another outside contractor comes in to install an irrigation system.

 

The GPS grew then repeats the process of marking with bamboo and the seasonal workers again use the marked string to measure where the other bamboo poles go. The bamboos poles are put in the ground about every 1.5 meters (5 feet), depending on the variety of tree. These poles will serve as both a marking point for planting the trees and to support the trees as they grow.

 



 

After the poles are in place, someone comes by and leaves a tree at every bamboo pole.

More seasonal workers come behind and plant each tree with a scoop of fertilizer.

 

Another group comes behind them and ties the tree to the bamboo pole to provide stability.

 

Another group follows them and puts plastic on all the trees to protect them from rabbits and herbicide.

These trees are about 6 months old.

 

Finally, a crew builds a trellis to support the bamboo, which supports the tree. The trellis is built by placing posts every so often. A wire is then stretched between the posts. Each bamboo is attached to the wire.

 

 

Then a nice family comes from Utah to live on the farm and takes a picture in all the trees. The end.

 

 Oh wait, the trees have to get bigger...

Here are some pictures of the trees blooming this past November.

 The blossoms are so tiny that you can't really see them unless you get close to the tree.

The ridiculously beautiful hill in the background is a grape vineyard right next to the farm.

A few weeks later the blossoms turn into little baby olives.

Mando and Sam checking out the baby olives. They will be ready for harvest in April.

 

The next harvest will be processed at an external plant, but the farm is working on building a processing mill in 2015.

This is some oil from the first harvest this past April. Notice the names on the top of the bottles. Some very important people received them. In the future, the olive oil grown and produced here will be sold in bulk.

 

I wish we could be here for the harvest! But alas our time in Chile must come to an end. Maybe we'll be able to come back one day when the farm is all planted and the mill is finished.





Christmas Party

We had the company Christmas party this past Friday at the learning center. I have to commend the Chileans. They definitely know how to have a party.

There were bounce houses:

A mechanical bull:

A slip-n-slide, a volleyball net, musical chairs, lunch, and of course...

 Santa (Pancho) Claus!

 

 They called the kids as they found the presents, Paul, Joseph and Izzy were mixed in with them.

 Becca could hardly stand the anticipation while she waited...For me? Gee thanks Santa!

 

Any party that ends with barefooted, dirty, wet kids getting presents is a success in my opinion!

 

The next day we decided to cool off in the pool at the big house. It felt so good after being in the heat all day on Friday!

 

 

Hunting for Rabbits

Chile is a (mostly) gun free country. Hence hunters use dogs instead of guns. In the past there has been a problem with hunters roaming around the farm. To increase security, they are cracking down and kicking them off the property when they catch them. The only way to hunt here now is by invitation from a manager.

Paul heard Mando talking about hunting and wanted to go so Mando arranged a trip for them. I told Paul he could only go if he called it "hunting" instead of "huh-in." I'm trying to suppress the inner redneck...

Paul with some hunting dogs early in the morning.

 

Paul with the one and only conejo they caught. But he had fun and that's all that counts!

Surrounded by fire

Spring, summer, and fall are typically the dry seasons for Chile, but I've heard we are in an especially dry period right now. The drought plus a lot of hot, dry days have created the perfect storm for fires. This week I could see smoke in the hills all around my house. When we drove to church on Sunday we saw all the damage in the surrounding towns. Luckily very few buildings caught fire. Partially because they had clear, green lawns and partially because the fire had slow spreading flames instead of huge jumping flames.

 A huge fire burning in San Pedro, across the road from us.

 

 A smaller fire on the farm. They got it put out by the time the fire trucks came.

 

Remember how the power went out forever on Halloween? This is why:

 

This very smart buzzard flew into a power line and was fried.

It started a fire that burned up the whole back side of a hill. This was before it got REALLY dry so the fire eventually was put out and no major damage was done.

 

The farm has a generator so once that was running we had power again until the line was fixed.

Thanksgiving

I don't love football analogies and use them sparingly, but I've always considered Thanksgiving the kickoff to the holiday season. I LOVED Thanksgiving as a kid, not only because we got a five day break from school and a huge feast, but because even as I spent the whole weekend sneaking spoonfuls of coolwhip from the fridge and eating leftover turkey on buttery crescent rolls I could feel a certain charge in the air, somehow whispering that Christmas was only weeks away. And in the time until Christmas, there would be endless parties, desserts, and of course all night card games with my family while Amy Grant belted out Christmas carols.

It's so weird to be in South America for Thanksgiving because it's like the game never started. Rather than running like mad all over the field with our focus on the biggest holiday of the year, we're just lounging in the golden spring sun and listening to the birds sing.

We didn't do anything on the actual day of Thanksgiving because my turkey breast wasn't defrosted. Mando went to work and then he watched the Cowboys play football and we ate chicken and rice soup with some friends.

The next night we had a Thanksgiving feast with some other friends. Luckily we were just guests and I only had to bring rolls and dessert. I was feeling especially lazy that day and didn't take many pictures, but we ate with Teru, his wife Claudia, their two girls, Sonja, Nestor, Baby Nestor, and Diego. The kids had a blast running all over and the adults laughed a lot and somehow communicated even though some of us spoke English, some of us spoke Spanish, and some spoke Portuguese (Oh - and did I mention Japanese?)

 The Feast - complete with Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, rolls, salad, a Brazilian potato salad, an artichoke appetizer...

 Brazilian rice and beans...and a whole lot of dessert.

 

Oh no, the party is almost over, hurry and snap a picture with whoever is standing there!

Teru, Paul, Ann, Mando, Sam, and Claudia. 

 

The following Sunday I roasted the turkey breast with some vegetables and made potatoes and gravy. Add some chopped vegetables and leftover rolls and it's almost like Thanksgiving!

The turkey breast was so good. Next time we have a Thanksgiving with just Mando and the kids I'll definitely skip the whole bird. Note: they don't use salad dressing here, just lemon juice and sometimes olive oil. We just do lemon juice and salt. I think it's so good and may keep that tradition at home.