Today we picked olives in Burin, a
short "service" ride south of Nablus. We have picked in the
area quite a lot because illegal settlements (Bracha and Yitzar) have
been established on the hills on both sides of the valley and the
only road from one of them comes right into Burin. The couple we
picked with today was quite young, were nice and, took good care of
their olive orchard.
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| a stop for tea |
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| an nicely open pruned tree, Burin behind, settlement on hill top |
Taking care of orchards is hard. The
harvesting time is not set by the ripeness of the olives, it is
determined by the time window the Israeli military sets for
harvesting. After an illegal settlement is established the occupation
force sets up a buffer area around it in which farmers are not
allowed in their fields without a permit from the Israeli military.
During harvest there is s general permit, but to prune the orchard
requires a special permit, as does being in the till (all the
orchards are tilled every year) and, to fertilize the orchard.
This couple did a lot of pruning during
picking. I am not sure if this the right time to prune, but that may
be how they get it done – prune during the harvest permit time.
While picking we found a large wolf spider, 2-3 inches, her back was
covered with all of her young. At first, before close inspection, it
looked like hair on her back. There was also a large green
caterpillar, probably one of the Saturniidae, over 3 inches long.
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| a variety at lunch |
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| cleaning up the prunings from the orchard |
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| the spider |
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