Harvest at the Village

Grandma Electra needed to go to Paphos on Friday and since it is a short drive to the village from there, we headed there for the night.  It was evening when we arrived and the night air was pretty chilly in the mountains.  Sofia wore the "light shoes" she got for her birthday and led us to Emilios restaurant for a light dinner.  Saturday was our mini harvest day.  The village house has a pomegranate tree and we picked three buckets full of large, ripe pomegranates.  We also went to a small piece of land that grandma owns that has some grape vines and almond trees.  The grape vines really aren't tended by anyone, but the almond trees were full.  Apparently the proper way to harvest almonds is to hit the branches with a long stick that makes them all fall to the ground.  Placing a tarp or blanket on the ground makes them easier to pick up.  The necessary stick didn't fit easily into our car so we left it behind and opted to pick them the hard way, by hand.  It wasn't that easy because most of the almonds were too high for us to reach and we resorted to climbing the tree.  In the distance we saw dark storm clouds approaching.  We filled a grocery bag halfway with the almonds and then headed back to the house for lunch.  Once we finished eating, a large thunderstorm arrived and even brought some small hail.  The power also went out.  We waited until the storm was mostly over before we packed the car and headed back to Nicosia.  The power was still out when we left, so hope we didn't leave any lights on.

Cracking almonds with a rock

Demetris picking almonds

The biggest nut in the tree

Here comes the storm

These morning glories were really beautiful