This year 2013 is turning out to be an atypical year, season after season.
It is true that years that go as planned never happen, and each one of them has its own peculiarity, but this year has indeed been peculiar, with frequent rains.

 

We had just left behind a very rainy autumn and we started the year with a wet winter with mild temperatures. In January, the countryside was completely green and full of wet-earth colours, which gave the impression of being in an Atlantic climate –not frequent in these lands. This weather brought us some problems of puddle formation and in some stream beds we had to dig trenches and to drain in order to evacuate the excess of humidity. In the Juncal, nature makes easy days inexistent for one or another reason. It does not give us rest nor to olive trees, but at least, this winter we have managed to escape from the extreme frosts. Only from the extreme ones though, because the "simply-strong" ones happen even in warm years.

 

 

 

Spring did not bring calm but much more water. March was extraordinarily rainy, and it has not been only a rainy spring, but also fresh and long, which delayed blooming and fruition. When such delays take place in a short productive cycle as is the case in el Juncal, things become much more difficult.

 

June and July seemed like a late spring. The countryside kept its green exuberance and the heat found difficulties appearing. August brought things back to normal, to heat and to dry weather. Grass parched and haze faded away in the horizon. Everything was back to normal, although a little bit later than expected. Even those traditional summer storms –which so often lack in other years– arrived.

 

 

 

But such normality never fulfils and, as autumn started in the calendar, the hot and dry weather came back. October has also been an exceptional month, an October disguised as August, autumn of short sleeves and sweat. It seemed as if October had wanted to balance the delay that spring brought to the olive trees and had forced it in the last minute.

 

 

 

In the end, the result is that thanks to both the "favour" done by October and the precise and detailed management we have made of the labours and care of the olive trees, we have ahead a splendid crop of healthy and magnificently grown fruits that in a few days will become oil. It has been a peculiar and hard year. Just like every other year.