rox
Veteran Member
I keep wating for that down period and by golly it just never seems to arrive.
My husband finished picking the almonds on Friday which was not a big revenue source for us this year. Actually my husband picked all the almonds this year and then sold them at the wholesale market. We probably only made 600/700/800 Euros. Not to sure how much exactly but right around there probably.
We got a phone call last week some guys found us on the Tourist map put out by the Bouches du Rhone Tourist office adn wanted to know if they could bring over a dozen American High Scool kids. Hubby had them on the phone and told them about our place and emphasised that his wife was American so the kids would love geting the tour in English, English that they could actually understand. he also suggested that since he was a French Chef he could make them all a traditional Provence lunch. So the tour leaders jumped on that one and we had that group over last week Tuesday. The kids never buy much olive oil but the tour leaders, a couple young guys in their late 20's from Minnesota tipped us massivly
Oh all in cash, yeeeeessssss.
Before that group came we had a visitor at the gate, we have this video camera and telephone from the house down to the electric gate, but I can never understand what they are saying through that thing so I jsut open the gate to all who buzz. What a nice surprise it is the owner of the pizza truck we get pizzas from and he has a guest with him a young woman from St. Marten in the carribean and he brings her over to try the oive oil and visit. So I sell them olive oil, then come the American kids. About 5pm my hubby and I are eating lunch leftovers out ont he patio and up come a carload of freinds of freinds form Milwaukee. We had them over for a visit the week before but they wanted to get to their lodgings before dark so we didn't get an olive oil tasting done. They showed up in the mini van tried the olive oil and bought some as well. All together we made 800 Euros in olive oil sales and lunch in one day. For us that ws a record day.
Key to the olive farm is the revenue for the independent Guest House. Last year I went to the Tourism Office and raised a ruckus because they had never sent us one single client. I figured I ahd nothing to loose since they were not sending us anybody. Long story short I made real good connections at the Toursim Office and they were regularly sending us visitors, both for renting the Guest House and also for visiting the farm and buying olive oil. They ahve some stupid labor laws here, reduced employer contributions for emplyees of 2 years or less. The idea was this would stimulate people to create jobs etc. All that happens is that unskilled labor and particularly pink collar laborers get a job for 2 years and then are let go. The employers would rather jsut take in a new person and not pay the higher benefits for the exisitg staff. So now the Toursim Office has a new staff so I need to get them to come over and visit. With last years staff I had them all come over and after that we got a lot of visitors form them. Time to start all over with the new hires.
two weeks ago Sunday we get a call from a couple wanting to know if the Guest House is available. Sure come on down, it is available. They are a retired couple sold their condo in Paris and bought a condo in our city right on the same street as our farm. Charged them 550 Euros a week, they planned on spending one week. Turns out their condo is not done so the second week I cut the price to 450 Euros. Now they come to me for the 3rd week so I cut it down to 400 Euros but that is the lowest I'll go for them. So we got a 3 week rental formt he Guest House so that is helping with the revenue. The staff in the Tourist office did not recomend us, figures, he had the tourism book and found us from that. But I'll take a 3 week rental any time.
Saturday we had a german couple over for lunch, they own a shop that specializes in Provence products and they sell our olive oil. She is expanding little by little to wholsale and this being the 3rd eyar every year she buys a little more and a little more. She picked up a 900 Euro order, we fed them lunch and at the end of lunch we had an arab family at the gate, they found us ont he map and wanted to visit. So our German customers hung around while I gave the arab family a tasting and they ought 120 Euros worth of olive oil. Said good-bye to the arabas and the Germans left shortly after.
The tourism office set up a Flannery, I am not totaly sure what that is. It seems like they have different attractions in our city, we being one of them, and when the tourists come in they ay o Monday you take this tour, on tuesday you take that tour etc. We are the Tuesday tour. To be honest I was not expecting much out of that but I got a fax today that 26 people are going to be here at 9:30 tomorrow morning.
I have been workign with my hsuband on rototilling. We ahve had so uch rain in June that the weeds are out of control. So I go down the line of trees, bend over and pull the irrigation line in snug so my hsuband doesn't hit it with the tiller. We have one field where the trees are panted farther apart and we can till north to south and east to west. This is great because we can get allt he weeds witht he rototiller. on the other fields we can only till north to south which means we have to then hand pull the weeds. Int hat field where we can plw in each direction I had to get the irrigation lines up off the ground high enough for my hsuband to go under witht he tractor. It is a PIA to jsut pull them throught he trees and wind the lines into a big loop. So I sued bungee cords and I bungeed them up into the trees ad my husband went under. Only problem is I didn't ahve enough bungee cords to do the whole field so we could only do about 1/3 of the field at a time. Actually my hubby didn't care, he was jsut happy to get the lines up and out of his way, he didn't mind tilling in that field, go work somewhere else and then come back once I had another 1/3 pulled up and out of the way.
He goes to till the final 1/3 and the darned rototiller broke, bummer. We call for service and find out it is gonna cost 300 Euros jsut for pick up and delivery, Yikes! When I got back form town our neighbor the mechanic is having a cocktai with my hsuband, turns out he knows what is wrong with the rototiller and will fix it tomorrow. My hubby said we would make him and his GF a nice gourmet meal and by the neighbor does like to eat so he was happy with the deal.
Last Thursday on the spur fo the moment I invited 4 neighbors over for an aperitife which was nice. We st onthe patio and had our cocktails and nibbles and then as is tradition about 8pm everybody goes home. Just when we were finishing the aperitife my brother in law drove up and stayed overnight with us for one night. My hubby made us all delicious stakes, yum-yum they were so good.
Last week one of the stores we sell to in Aix called, can we bottle 10 Centiliter bottles, he has a cusotmer who wants to import 500 bottles into Singapore. So we call our wholesaler and get a 10 CL bottle sent over. Tonight after getting all set up for the tourists tomorrow, and finishing up the irigation lines i designed a really cool label for the small bottle. I even learned how to install the Chinese langauge in Window and put part of the label in Chinese. Don't know how good of Chinese it is, as I used Google Translation. But if they want something different in Chinese at least i have the capability to produce it. It is no problem for me to produce the labels on my laptop computer, I buy a special pretty expensive vinyl label where the ink becomes waterproof after goig through your injet printer. But the darned cap is goign to be a problem. Mainly we bottle at our mill but we do do some small bottling right int he basement. When we bottle at home we have this hand tool that we use for the caps to create that saftey seal. Neither my hubby nor i think the one we have will go small enough for this small bottle.
I left a note for my hubby to fill the bottle but wait for me to crimp the saftey seal. It hink we can do it with a wire and a garrot type of action. All we are giving right now is a sample anyway. If they do buy it we will ahve to figure out a better way to crimp the safety seal but let's jsut take one step at a time. If I was a betting woman i bet we get this order. Then you know if you start at 500 bottles the next year you hope to do more. The oil is good enough that people do repeat, so I think I would like to send some to Singapore.
We also got in good this eyar with the only Gold Club int he area. It is part of a golf resort and hotel and with the 2 year labor laws we have a new manager. last eyar i could only get in with our mini bottles. This year the new manager ordered our whole line, everything we make she bought. She called me today to re-send her an invocie and said sales are good. YES! She has taken 3 deliveries so far so let's hope that keep up.
For the 4th of July we went to see some friends of ours who lived in USA for 30+ years and then moved back to France, jsut like my hsuband did. They invited us over and also invited the American Air Force Captain who they had met at our house. So the Captain came and brought along his wife and mother in law who was visiting form California. We had a nice day at our friend's house and in the eveing I delivered 50 liters of olive oil to a big luxury hotel that is built out of a centuries old Abbey and is located in our city. The chef loves our olive oil. They are over one hill away from us.
Next up i need to get some more PR out of that Los Angeles win, gonna have to work on that. Also sent out 3 e-mails to Americans we sold directly to on our last bi shipment, not stores jsut consumer type sales, and reminded them to send a check. Our freight bill was huge and we paid for that up front so i am trying to get everybody to pay up. 2 of them e-mailed me back today and said the check is in the mail. Let's hope so.
For the next month I will be very busy pulling the suckers off the bottoms of the trees. After you prune they grow like 100 times more suckers than normal so it is quite time consuming but it really does need to be done. This has been my job so I will get at it. I did only 1 tree so far, geez only 1,359 more to go.....
My husband finished picking the almonds on Friday which was not a big revenue source for us this year. Actually my husband picked all the almonds this year and then sold them at the wholesale market. We probably only made 600/700/800 Euros. Not to sure how much exactly but right around there probably.
We got a phone call last week some guys found us on the Tourist map put out by the Bouches du Rhone Tourist office adn wanted to know if they could bring over a dozen American High Scool kids. Hubby had them on the phone and told them about our place and emphasised that his wife was American so the kids would love geting the tour in English, English that they could actually understand. he also suggested that since he was a French Chef he could make them all a traditional Provence lunch. So the tour leaders jumped on that one and we had that group over last week Tuesday. The kids never buy much olive oil but the tour leaders, a couple young guys in their late 20's from Minnesota tipped us massivly
Oh all in cash, yeeeeessssss.Before that group came we had a visitor at the gate, we have this video camera and telephone from the house down to the electric gate, but I can never understand what they are saying through that thing so I jsut open the gate to all who buzz. What a nice surprise it is the owner of the pizza truck we get pizzas from and he has a guest with him a young woman from St. Marten in the carribean and he brings her over to try the oive oil and visit. So I sell them olive oil, then come the American kids. About 5pm my hubby and I are eating lunch leftovers out ont he patio and up come a carload of freinds of freinds form Milwaukee. We had them over for a visit the week before but they wanted to get to their lodgings before dark so we didn't get an olive oil tasting done. They showed up in the mini van tried the olive oil and bought some as well. All together we made 800 Euros in olive oil sales and lunch in one day. For us that ws a record day.
Key to the olive farm is the revenue for the independent Guest House. Last year I went to the Tourism Office and raised a ruckus because they had never sent us one single client. I figured I ahd nothing to loose since they were not sending us anybody. Long story short I made real good connections at the Toursim Office and they were regularly sending us visitors, both for renting the Guest House and also for visiting the farm and buying olive oil. They ahve some stupid labor laws here, reduced employer contributions for emplyees of 2 years or less. The idea was this would stimulate people to create jobs etc. All that happens is that unskilled labor and particularly pink collar laborers get a job for 2 years and then are let go. The employers would rather jsut take in a new person and not pay the higher benefits for the exisitg staff. So now the Toursim Office has a new staff so I need to get them to come over and visit. With last years staff I had them all come over and after that we got a lot of visitors form them. Time to start all over with the new hires.
two weeks ago Sunday we get a call from a couple wanting to know if the Guest House is available. Sure come on down, it is available. They are a retired couple sold their condo in Paris and bought a condo in our city right on the same street as our farm. Charged them 550 Euros a week, they planned on spending one week. Turns out their condo is not done so the second week I cut the price to 450 Euros. Now they come to me for the 3rd week so I cut it down to 400 Euros but that is the lowest I'll go for them. So we got a 3 week rental formt he Guest House so that is helping with the revenue.
The staff in the Tourist office did not recomend us, figures, he had the tourism book and found us from that. But I'll take a 3 week rental any time.Saturday we had a german couple over for lunch, they own a shop that specializes in Provence products and they sell our olive oil. She is expanding little by little to wholsale and this being the 3rd eyar every year she buys a little more and a little more. She picked up a 900 Euro order, we fed them lunch and at the end of lunch we had an arab family at the gate, they found us ont he map and wanted to visit. So our German customers hung around while I gave the arab family a tasting and they ought 120 Euros worth of olive oil. Said good-bye to the arabas and the Germans left shortly after.
The tourism office set up a Flannery, I am not totaly sure what that is. It seems like they have different attractions in our city, we being one of them, and when the tourists come in they ay o Monday you take this tour, on tuesday you take that tour etc. We are the Tuesday tour. To be honest I was not expecting much out of that but I got a fax today that 26 people are going to be here at 9:30 tomorrow morning.
I have been workign with my hsuband on rototilling. We ahve had so uch rain in June that the weeds are out of control. So I go down the line of trees, bend over and pull the irrigation line in snug so my hsuband doesn't hit it with the tiller. We have one field where the trees are panted farther apart and we can till north to south and east to west. This is great because we can get allt he weeds witht he rototiller. on the other fields we can only till north to south which means we have to then hand pull the weeds. Int hat field where we can plw in each direction I had to get the irrigation lines up off the ground high enough for my hsuband to go under witht he tractor. It is a PIA to jsut pull them throught he trees and wind the lines into a big loop. So I sued bungee cords and I bungeed them up into the trees ad my husband went under. Only problem is I didn't ahve enough bungee cords to do the whole field so we could only do about 1/3 of the field at a time. Actually my hubby didn't care, he was jsut happy to get the lines up and out of his way, he didn't mind tilling in that field, go work somewhere else and then come back once I had another 1/3 pulled up and out of the way.
He goes to till the final 1/3 and the darned rototiller broke, bummer. We call for service and find out it is gonna cost 300 Euros jsut for pick up and delivery, Yikes! When I got back form town our neighbor the mechanic is having a cocktai with my hsuband, turns out he knows what is wrong with the rototiller and will fix it tomorrow. My hubby said we would make him and his GF a nice gourmet meal and by the neighbor does like to eat so he was happy with the deal.
Last Thursday on the spur fo the moment I invited 4 neighbors over for an aperitife which was nice. We st onthe patio and had our cocktails and nibbles and then as is tradition about 8pm everybody goes home. Just when we were finishing the aperitife my brother in law drove up and stayed overnight with us for one night. My hubby made us all delicious stakes, yum-yum they were so good.
Last week one of the stores we sell to in Aix called, can we bottle 10 Centiliter bottles, he has a cusotmer who wants to import 500 bottles into Singapore. So we call our wholesaler and get a 10 CL bottle sent over. Tonight after getting all set up for the tourists tomorrow, and finishing up the irigation lines i designed a really cool label for the small bottle. I even learned how to install the Chinese langauge in Window and put part of the label in Chinese. Don't know how good of Chinese it is, as I used Google Translation. But if they want something different in Chinese at least i have the capability to produce it. It is no problem for me to produce the labels on my laptop computer, I buy a special pretty expensive vinyl label where the ink becomes waterproof after goig through your injet printer. But the darned cap is goign to be a problem. Mainly we bottle at our mill but we do do some small bottling right int he basement. When we bottle at home we have this hand tool that we use for the caps to create that saftey seal. Neither my hubby nor i think the one we have will go small enough for this small bottle.
I left a note for my hubby to fill the bottle but wait for me to crimp the saftey seal. It hink we can do it with a wire and a garrot type of action. All we are giving right now is a sample anyway. If they do buy it we will ahve to figure out a better way to crimp the safety seal but let's jsut take one step at a time. If I was a betting woman i bet we get this order. Then you know if you start at 500 bottles the next year you hope to do more. The oil is good enough that people do repeat, so I think I would like to send some to Singapore.
We also got in good this eyar with the only Gold Club int he area. It is part of a golf resort and hotel and with the 2 year labor laws we have a new manager. last eyar i could only get in with our mini bottles. This year the new manager ordered our whole line, everything we make she bought. She called me today to re-send her an invocie and said sales are good.
YES! She has taken 3 deliveries so far so let's hope that keep up. For the 4th of July we went to see some friends of ours who lived in USA for 30+ years and then moved back to France, jsut like my hsuband did. They invited us over and also invited the American Air Force Captain who they had met at our house. So the Captain came and brought along his wife and mother in law who was visiting form California. We had a nice day at our friend's house and in the eveing I delivered 50 liters of olive oil to a big luxury hotel that is built out of a centuries old Abbey and is located in our city. The chef loves our olive oil. They are over one hill away from us.
Next up i need to get some more PR out of that Los Angeles win, gonna have to work on that. Also sent out 3 e-mails to Americans we sold directly to on our last bi shipment, not stores jsut consumer type sales, and reminded them to send a check. Our freight bill was huge and we paid for that up front so i am trying to get everybody to pay up. 2 of them e-mailed me back today and said the check is in the mail. Let's hope so.
For the next month I will be very busy pulling the suckers off the bottoms of the trees. After you prune they grow like 100 times more suckers than normal so it is quite time consuming but it really does need to be done. This has been my job so I will get at it. I did only 1 tree so far, geez only 1,359 more to go.....
