Okay Eddie and everybody,
I am almost done with this label for the bottles, whew, what a job. The bottles are a very unique design, typical of Provence. They have a big shoulder and then slant down, at the foot it has like a round stand, so to make a label that goes around the bottle is hard. I finally figured it out, I have to make is longer along the top than the bottom because the bottle tapers down, but I don't want any sharp corners... yadda yadda yadda, I ended up using arches in the Microsoft Drawing tools, and then connector curves. Just a bit more and I'll have this thing nailed.
Then, promise I will put up some more pics. My husband and I are going to clean out some stuff from the barn tomorrow and move it into the pump house. We have 2 mystery plows, one is, I don't know like a pointy triangle thing. I'll take pictures tomorrow. The other one has all kinds of tines hanging down I think.
Now that we have had the farm for a year and a half, well close to 2 years, my husband has finally agreed to move some things out of the barn that we really don't use, and put them in the pump house which is practically empty. So when we do that, and I hope we will at least start tomorrow, I'll take some pics.
Guess what, in March we are going to be in Le Point magazine which is the equivelent of Newsweek in France. Can you believe it? We are getting a lot of press, #1 becasue the oil is good and #2 because we are exporting it, particularly exporting it to top private country clubs in USA.
The French hear so much in their news about how all the Americans hate the French that when they get some good news, like top American Chefs are buying French Olive Oil, they are proud of that and write about it. I so much don't want to talk politics on this message board, I only said the above to put it into reference why we are getting such good press.
Just got a letter today that, again, for the second year our oil took top awards in Germany, against 700 olive oil producers from around the world. This is the biggest competition in the world that I am aware of. They selected the top 120 oils out of 700 and whoopie, we made it again this year. I hope they give us a good write up. The A.O.C., which is a blend, really really rocks this year, I hope we get a medal in Regional and in Paris. We will see...
It is like Green Acres! City boy and city girl move to a farm. You would not beleive the stuff we don't know!!!! Thankfully we have really good neighbors, well the guy in back can be a PIA, but he does know country thigs that we don't know.
We did not know one single thing about olive farming before we bought and moved. We figured, we would figure it out when we got here, and we did, well it is a work in progress.
Between the time that we made the offer and was accepted, and we closed was just about a year. In that time the US Dollar sank (which is good for Americans it makes our US products cheaper to buy and pushes up exports) and we needed to come up with $300,000 more than we were expecting. We sold our home and all our stock, except for retirement investments, and were short $60,000. My parents loaned us that, so until we have my parents paid back we are not buying anything we don't have to. We are doing really well paying them back though so it should only be another 2 or at the most 3 years, then we can breathe a little bit. We are not kids and impulsive, it takes what it takes, and when that debt is paid back then we can get new toys, but until then I am strictly window shopping and lurking about and learning from all you smart people.
I think you have figured out that I love our life on the olive farm, it is such a good life. Probably one of the biggest attractions was not having to worry about healthcare, and healthcare costs. We pay about $400 USD per month and we have full coverage (well our co-pay is 1 Euro) for doctors, hospitals, and all medecin. We have no paperwork, jsut a smal medical record card (same size as a credit card), we give that and there is no paperwork at all. That was a big huge draw for us to move to France. The healthcare here is very very good, it is not 3rd world at all. They have MRI's CT etc. You pick your own doctor, and if s/he wants to send you to a specialist nobody hasto give any authorization.
We are jsut now getting our French taxes done for 2005 which is the first year we sold oil so we will see how bad that is going to hurt, but all in all I pinch myself how lucky we are. We don't make near the money we did before, but you know what, we really don't need it. I buy generic brands and really watch prices which I didn't used to do that much before. It's a good life, a calm life, a peacefull life. I see why farmers hang onto their farms and keep farming even though they don't make a lot. It is a good life.
If you want to buy our olive oil, then jsut PM me and I'll let you know where it is for sale in the USA. I don't want to break the forum rules about "selling" We will be making a big shipment to USA within the month. Next year we are going to make olives, yum-yum!
I am almost done with this label for the bottles, whew, what a job. The bottles are a very unique design, typical of Provence. They have a big shoulder and then slant down, at the foot it has like a round stand, so to make a label that goes around the bottle is hard. I finally figured it out, I have to make is longer along the top than the bottom because the bottle tapers down, but I don't want any sharp corners... yadda yadda yadda, I ended up using arches in the Microsoft Drawing tools, and then connector curves. Just a bit more and I'll have this thing nailed.
Then, promise I will put up some more pics. My husband and I are going to clean out some stuff from the barn tomorrow and move it into the pump house. We have 2 mystery plows, one is, I don't know like a pointy triangle thing. I'll take pictures tomorrow. The other one has all kinds of tines hanging down I think.
Now that we have had the farm for a year and a half, well close to 2 years, my husband has finally agreed to move some things out of the barn that we really don't use, and put them in the pump house which is practically empty. So when we do that, and I hope we will at least start tomorrow, I'll take some pics.
Guess what, in March we are going to be in Le Point magazine which is the equivelent of Newsweek in France. Can you believe it? We are getting a lot of press, #1 becasue the oil is good and #2 because we are exporting it, particularly exporting it to top private country clubs in USA.
The French hear so much in their news about how all the Americans hate the French that when they get some good news, like top American Chefs are buying French Olive Oil, they are proud of that and write about it. I so much don't want to talk politics on this message board, I only said the above to put it into reference why we are getting such good press.
Just got a letter today that, again, for the second year our oil took top awards in Germany, against 700 olive oil producers from around the world. This is the biggest competition in the world that I am aware of. They selected the top 120 oils out of 700 and whoopie, we made it again this year. I hope they give us a good write up. The A.O.C., which is a blend, really really rocks this year, I hope we get a medal in Regional and in Paris. We will see...
It is like Green Acres! City boy and city girl move to a farm. You would not beleive the stuff we don't know!!!! Thankfully we have really good neighbors, well the guy in back can be a PIA, but he does know country thigs that we don't know.
We did not know one single thing about olive farming before we bought and moved. We figured, we would figure it out when we got here, and we did, well it is a work in progress.
Between the time that we made the offer and was accepted, and we closed was just about a year. In that time the US Dollar sank (which is good for Americans it makes our US products cheaper to buy and pushes up exports) and we needed to come up with $300,000 more than we were expecting. We sold our home and all our stock, except for retirement investments, and were short $60,000. My parents loaned us that, so until we have my parents paid back we are not buying anything we don't have to. We are doing really well paying them back though so it should only be another 2 or at the most 3 years, then we can breathe a little bit. We are not kids and impulsive, it takes what it takes, and when that debt is paid back then we can get new toys, but until then I am strictly window shopping and lurking about and learning from all you smart people.
I think you have figured out that I love our life on the olive farm, it is such a good life. Probably one of the biggest attractions was not having to worry about healthcare, and healthcare costs. We pay about $400 USD per month and we have full coverage (well our co-pay is 1 Euro) for doctors, hospitals, and all medecin. We have no paperwork, jsut a smal medical record card (same size as a credit card), we give that and there is no paperwork at all. That was a big huge draw for us to move to France. The healthcare here is very very good, it is not 3rd world at all. They have MRI's CT etc. You pick your own doctor, and if s/he wants to send you to a specialist nobody hasto give any authorization.
We are jsut now getting our French taxes done for 2005 which is the first year we sold oil so we will see how bad that is going to hurt, but all in all I pinch myself how lucky we are. We don't make near the money we did before, but you know what, we really don't need it. I buy generic brands and really watch prices which I didn't used to do that much before. It's a good life, a calm life, a peacefull life. I see why farmers hang onto their farms and keep farming even though they don't make a lot. It is a good life.
If you want to buy our olive oil, then jsut PM me and I'll let you know where it is for sale in the USA. I don't want to break the forum rules about "selling" We will be making a big shipment to USA within the month. Next year we are going to make olives, yum-yum!
