Acknowledgements

A blog made with pictures, broken English and my vague "castellano" language.

Thanks Brian Hua for pushing me to make this blog. Work hard Brian...

This little mountain (about 10.000 Ha, 25.000 acres) call Sierra de Carrascoy, is where I grew up. How can you place the mountain in the world, HERE. My father used to work in a big farm on this mountain, so I had the chance to explore what was going on in these hillsides.


Este blog lo actualizo según la vida (trabajo, familia, etc...) me va dejando tiempo, por tanto irregularmente.

Saturday, August 20, 2011


AUGUST: TIME TO HARVEST ALMONDS. AGOSTO, CUANDO LLEGABA LA COGIDA DE ALMENDRA.

Five days ago (August 15th, 2011) here at the southeast of Spain, in Murcia, my car showed a temperature outside of 42 degrees Celsius. At that moment I remembered that at this time of the year we used to harvest almonds, at the "Finca la Umbria" when I was young and at our own farm lately. I felt a mix of feelings, happiness and sadness, because the two and a half Ha of almond trees we had in the past are now a beautiful field of young lemon trees.

During the last two August, my family and I remember the very good times picking almonds all together. I remember my parents, sister and my later brother-in-law working together and I think it was one of the better moments in my life. These sweaty and hardness days were even more funny in certain years of high yield when we need extra help and some nice fellows (Jose Pagan, JuanJo, Francisco, Pedro, el Tio Joaquin) came along with us during the harvest season.

Here are some pictures taken long time ago, probably 16 years ago at "Huerta del Tio Juan", a place now missing at the "Finca la Umbria".  I did the photos with my old reflex camera, the Minolta X-300S and the 50 mm of Minolta, while Paco Martinez was working...
The photos were made in slices and recently shift to digital, just shooting the slices with a digital camera (Panasonic LX-3).

Hace unos pocos días me sorprendió ver el indicador de la temperatura externa de mi coche marcando 42 grados centigrados. Recordé en ese momento con una mezcla de alegría y de tristeza que este año
no tenemos que coger almendra. Desde que tengo uso de razón todos los agostos (excepto 2 años que por helada no hubo almendra) son para coger almendra; coger, transportar, descascarar, secar y guardar y vender. Han sido sin duda alguna la mayoría de ellos unos agostos difíciles de olvidar, con los baños en la balsa de Incholete, el agualimon en el descanso del descascare de la almendra, almuerzos y comidas a pie de obra, lo buena que esta el agua cuando tienes sed, y los compañeros con los que hemos trabajado?, memorables guerreros todos ellos. En fin, que tristeza pero también alegría....

Los fotos son algo viejas, de hace 25 años, un día quisimos inmortalizar lo brutos que eramos cogiendo almendra, todo artesanal, demasiado artesanal. Creo que hablan por si solas, la operación que aquí se ve; i) movimiento de lona entre árbol y árbol, ii) extender las lonas y acoplarlas lo mejor posible debajo del almendro, iii) tirar la almendra a golpes con una vara normalmente de olmo, iv) amontonar la almendra en el centro de la lona y v) mover la lona al siguiente almendro, se repetía decenas de veces a lo largo del día. 

En fin, un recuerdo a aquella época.

Moving the "carpet" between almonds, the hardness part.



Hitting the tree to get the almond down, the fanny part. Look at the hat, is more than a tool again sun, it protect you again almonds impact in your face!!!!

Our method to throw down the almond was pretty archaic compared with the methods use by then (basically whole or semi mechanics).


Same that above, with a beautiful homemade basket made with "esparto" (Stipa tenacissima L.) grass
After get enough almonds on the carpet these are putting down on a big bag.

Almond buds and flowers


































And that's all, I just want to remember this moments at this time of the year.