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Indovinello Fotografico Posted by on Dec 15, 2009 in Culture

Here’s a seasonal photo quiz for you. By seasonal I don’t mean Christmas, we are fortunate enough to escape the pre-Christmas frenzy where we live!

Here in the wintery hills of Lunigiana it’s business as usual for the contadini (peasant farmers), for there is still important work to be done on the land. Below are a couple of photos which I took just outside our village. The question is, what is the purpose of the nets and sticks that you see in the photos? The only clue I will give you is that if you do a bit of research through my old blogs from last year you will find the answer!

Click on the photos to enlarge them.

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Comments:

  1. Ieva:

    Ciao Serena,

    I remember very well your blog The Olive Harvest. And nets are necessary for the picking olives up:)
    Thank you very much for all your blogs! It’s so amazing to read them!

    Grazie!

  2. santina.chirulli@skynet.be:

    oh, nice!!!
    I miss this time of the year in Puglia!!!

    ciao buona raccolta!!
    santina

  3. Jan:

    Hi Serena,
    I really enjoy your blog and it’s a great help in learning the language. Are the nets not for catching the olives as they come off the trees for harvest?

  4. Vince Mooney:

    Salve Serena:

    Are the nets to catch some kind of nuts shaken off the trees?

    Do Italian olive trees have the ‘V’ trunk like the Greek trees?

    Just curious: have you been to Delphi and seen all the olive trees all the way out to the sea? It’s olive paradise! : )

    Vince

  5. Nikki:

    Olives!

  6. Nathan:

    If I remember I think it had to do with collecting something, although if it where nuts, olives, or something else I couldn’t hazard a guess.

  7. Cathy Wright:

    olives :o) Yummy!!

  8. William Auge:

    Salve Serena, guardando alla forma degli alberi e
    considerando il periodo dell’ anno, Io credo e’ tempo fare il raccolto di castagne. Proprio in tempo per Natale.

    A presto, William

  9. andreas:

    Salve Serena!
    Le foto sono bellissime. Le reti e i bastoni sono forse per raccogliere olive o forse castagne.
    Andreas

  10. andreas:

    Salve Serena!
    Le foto sono bellissime. Le reti e i bastoni sono forse per raccogliere olive o forse castagne.

  11. Rollando Spadaccini:

    The nets are used to catch the produce from the trees. These trees in the photos look to be that of sweet chestnuts. The nets make collections of these nuts easy to do and handle. There will be less bruising and less chance of being affected by rodents on the ground. If it be raining the time some of these nuts drop, being caught in the nets will help dry them out faster so they do not rot on the ground.

  12. Serena:

    Well done everyone who had a go at the quiz. The photos show ‘le reti’ (the nets) that we spread on the ground when we do ‘la raccolta delle olive’ (the olive harvest), read all about it in my blog: https://blogs.transparent.com/italian?s=raccolta+olive&x=17&y=17
    If the ground beneath the olive trees slopes a lot we use the sticks illustrated by the photos to hold the nets up at the edges and create a kind of basket to stop the naughty olives escaping. This year the harvest has been relatively small, but the quality of the oil is very good.
    Some of you thought the photos might show ‘la raccolta delle castagne’ (the chestnut harvest), but the clever chestnuts fall from the trees all by themselves without getting hurt! They are then picked up by hand (ouch) and taken away in sacks. This takes place at the end of September/beginning of October.

    Let me warn you that my next quiz, which will be published this Friday, will be quite difficult.

    A presto, Serena

  13. anneke:

    Thanks very much for the recent blogs with photographs. I am looking forward to pictures of your vegetable garden, but perhaps not after the recent flood?


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