Tiempo de Consecha

All of us North Americans have memories of the fall and Harvest Time. The days get a bit shorter, the weather cools as occasional storms roll through and every redneck in town can be identified at the start of September cause he starts to wear his hunter orange in anticipation for the October hunt.

Here in Chile we have seen two of the three. Oddly, we don't miss the third.

Looking a little fallish don't you think? No, that is not a volcanic plume. (I don't think)

Love the April color on trees, beautiful.

It just screams pumpkins and May day.

The fall storms brought us 5 inches of rain in just a few days.













Many items here harvest year round, but we saw a few the other day that we hadn't seen before.

Evidently it is time for GIANT  avocados. (Paltas)

Imagine the campfire with these babies. Hersheys and Keebler better get busy.

The olives are ready and the trees are loaded. We started on April 19th checking out the milling equipment and tuning things up after being shut down for a year. The the equipment starts rolling and the ten hour shifts begin with two shifts per day. It is a 24/6 schedule with the two main engineers covering 4 hours themselves. They say it keeps them connected to the process.

Follow these pics through the process without much comment.

Trucks pick up the containers and transport them through the farm to the mill. The first step  is to record the weight and temperature of the olives. They are then dumped in the reception hoppers and begin moving through cleaning and processing.

Leftovers from the cleaning process, leaves, sticks and lost bolts from the harvesters.

This is the laboratory where the olives and the oil are tested for various chemical properties as well as fragrance and taste.

After crushing the Malaxers are the first step of extracting the oil from the pits and the water.

Spinning at 3000 rpms this horizontal centrifuge does the main separation.

These small vertical centrifuges spinning at 6000 rpms finishes the separation, mostly.

We have oil. Extra Virgin Olive Oil of the finest quality. 

The final stages of separation is accomplished with nature's own gravity.

Any fine, fine particulate and water that is left in the oil after processing is settled out in these tanks. From here it is moved to the tank farm for temperature controlled storage.

Well, thanks for your patience. This post was probably more for me than anybody else. I want a record of the process even after I am home. Which now, by the way, is only 8 months. We will finish winter here, see spring and come home to winter.

Hasta la proxima.  Until next time.