Fabulous Friday!

On Friday I did something I had never done before. I went on a tour of the Olive Mill in Queen Creek. I went with some friends from my Arizona Cruisers group and drug my Mom and Brenna along with me. And you know what? We had a really good time! Couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day either. It was about 72 with a beautiful blue sky and sunshine. What's not to love?





So, we learned all about what it takes to make extra virgin olive oil. The virgin part comes from the fact that there is no heat process in extracting the oil from the olives. They have about 2100 trees in this grove and produce about 40 gallons of oil every year. I guess that explains why it's so expensive!






This grove has the same types of Olive trees that are found in Italy and the Mediterranean area. In Arizona we don't have to worry about olive flies due to the heat here, so in some ways it's easier to grow the trees in this area.





We got to sit in a pretty little gazebo area for a short lecture about the trees and what they do to harvest the trees, that sort of thing. Then they took us in to the processing area and we got to see all that stuff. They use the left over olive pulp or "ca ca" as fertilizer for the trees.

This is Brenna, me and my Mom just before our tour started.

After the tour they have this really nice cafe and we got to have lunch. It was really yummy too! These are the other ladies that are part of my cruiser group. I'll have to tell you about them sometime! The Olive Mill naturally has a shop to buy products at too, so we all came home with some great stuff. You would think after almost 27 years of marriage that I would remember that Ron hates olives though! I guesst that jar will have to go to my Mom!

Queen Creek is pretty far from my house but there is a nice outdoor mall inbetween the two, so can you guess where we stopped at for a while on our way home? I'll give you 3 guesses and the first two don't count!