This Tremendous Olive Oil Place

While I was still in bed this morning I saw three coyotes tiptoeing through the olive trees. How is it that the universe so orchestrated itself that it was precisely at the moment that I looked out the window that the first coyote walked past? I looked down, then looked back up: two more coyotes, long-nosed, dignified, rare. I grinned. And life hasn't been easy lately, so that's saying something.

A few months ago, in need of refuge, I came to Hillcrest Ranch Sunol, an olive orchard owned by Kathleen Elliott. Kathleen happens to be my cousin's mother-in-law; we met at my cousin's wedding. One thing led to another, and for the last few months I've had the great good fortune to be Kathleen's house guest at the ranch. In exchange for a bed and mornings like this one, I prune the olive trees and cook lemon cakes made with Kathleen's extra virgin olive oil; we served one of these lemon cakes at the last open house a few Saturdays ago.

Hillcrest Ranch Sunol is a little island of land within Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park. Kathleen's great-aunt, Grace, bought the property a long time ago. She farmed the olives and sold them. The property's been in the family ever since. There are 138 trees, and this year we had a great bloom, which means a good harvest coming up in November.

What's it like to live your life swung by the seasons, measuring the days by things like "a great bloom on the trees" and coyotes trotting and the scattering of rain? I thought perhaps I'd write these blog posts, to tell you what it's like. All people have ways of marking time. What days of the week your favorite TV show is on. What time works starts. Friday as the end of the work week, the time to let loose. Up here at the olive ranch (we're up near the top of the ridge) we measure time a little differently, and it makes for different sorts of lives.