24h at Ashbolt Farm

"No milk today my love is gone away", "No one knows what it's like, to be the bad man" are the first words we hear this morning. Each evening, the alarm manager (Olivier) chooses a song for the next day. Enya, the music of Braveheart or Into the wild are also part of our classics. An arm comes out of the duvet and turns on the electric heater (there are advantages in living in 12m²). We must now wait for our chicken coop to warm up ...

Some days the sun looks at the frozen grass and tries to melt it. On other days, the fog dulls in the bed of the river until 2pm, what a sleep in ! Today the sky is just gray ... The half hour of emergence is abruptly interrupted by a spring roll move, which is a sudden rolling up in the blanket to expose the other to the morning cold and therefore force him to get up and prepare breakfast ... (Well done Roro!)

Today, the cook isn't really inspired: slices of our homemade sourdough bread. We will make it up tomorrow with buckwheat pancakes or potato rosti. Mmmh.

Cling cling, the farm gate is opening. If it's Baden, Hendrik or Chris, it is only 8am then. If it's Mitch and Helena, the other volunteers (well now, we've all moved up to paid staff), we have to hurry a bit. The jingle announces the 1am news on a local Belgian radio, we're almost late. Hop hop, we feed Hortus (the sourdough), we brush our teeth and we commute the 30 meters that separate us from the workshop.

Unsurprisingly, Bob tells us that we are picking olives. Grab your sticks, put on your batteries and shake! The strategy is easy to understand: we spread nets under the olive trees, then armed with a long handle ended by a vibrating comb, we brush the tree to drop the fruits and finally we collect the olives in small piles that we pour into a bin. And then... Do it again and again! No pity, they must all fall. We climb in the trees, we extend the telescopic handle, we even use a cherry picker. Better be fit to do the job. The head is constantly looking up, the wrists absorb the vibrations and the handle feels more and more heavy after each tree. Hendrik shouts "Morning tea". It's the break, we brew the tea and, occasionally, Anne brings cake straight out of the oven. Otherwise, there are always TimTams (small chocolate covered cookies) in the drawer.

Two bins of 400-500kgs each, short day. But it's not finished, we want oil. Roro gets a pair of ear muffs and joins Bob to help him out in the olive press, some machines are very noisy. Olivier carries on with his current project: a magnetic grid. The specifications are as follows: prevent the intrusion of any metal objects that could damage one of the machines in the olive oil production line.

It's dark since an hour (it's winter in this hemisphere), we go back to our small and warm wooden cabin. On the way, we dig up a couple of parsnips for dinner and quickly water the greenhouse. The bread, prepared at midday, is on its way to the oven (the oven is in the workshop ...). We rinse the germinated seeds, we change the water of the olives for pickling. We see so many olives in a day that it is frustrating not to have any to nibble so we picked and prepared some for our personal consumption. The cooking of the evening meal follows. As if our only daily occupations (at least during the week) are olives harvesting and eating. We also take about twenty minutes to stretch, just to be able to move our arms tomorrow (we are not that young anymore ;) ).

Roro focus on her knitting project and Olivier browses SBS on demand for a film or a serie. Warm under the duvet, topped with one, two or even three blankets, the alarm manager chooses "I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone" for the next day.

Do not believe that we are working forever ... :) We always spend our weekends exploring the region ...