This afternoon I went picking olives for the first time. I always imagined it a messy business, but it turned out to be quite painless. A pair of tarpaulin sheets is stretched under each tree, from which the olives are poured into plastic buckets. From the buckets, the olives go into plastic bags, and thence to the mill. Hand-held plastic rakes are used to scoop olives from the branches. Some leaves end up being scooped up, too, but not too many. The rakes are of the simplest design imaginable—very like hands with bent fingers. Come to think of it, they are like calloused hands with crooked fingers. Or gnarled fingers, to be a bit more precise. As I said, the simplest design imaginable.