Early morning at the moulin

My dad has hundreds of olive trees. Our first morning there, we got up at an ungodly hour to take the freshly picked olives down to the local mill to have them crushed into olive oil. They use the old traditional method, whereby the olives are placed in a huge bowl and crushed with two giant stone wheels that turn around in the bowl. Those two big bumps on the right are the stone wheels. Then they spread the olive paste onto sheets, which are layered and pressed together. The oil drips down, and when it's done the remaining dry paste is scraped off and collected for later use as fertilizer. The oil is allowed to settle for a short time, then decanted into bottles. It is best when fresh.

The flash on our disposable camera didn't work, so these pics are rather dark, but they give the feel of the place.