Olive picking season is underway in the Holy Land. This past weekend we helped friends who split time between their home here in Beit Sahour and living with family in Hickory.

It was a good introduction to the task, and there will be more opportunities in the weeks ahead for us as a family and for the kids through their school. And that doesn’t touch on the process of pressing the olives for oil and curing them for consumption. (Olives off the tree are tough in texture and bitter in taste.)

There for the picking.

After pulling the olives from the branches onto a tarp, or into a bucket, there are then cleaned of branches and stems as best as possible to be taken to a local press, or inside to start curing in a jug.

The expression might not read as such, but Riley was happy to climb the branches to pick the higher-up olives.

Sadie looking for stragglers.

That’s a wrap on our first olive picking experience.

Back to the Old City, aka “The Ho Ho Holy Land”.

Bless, says Mother Mary.