>There are literally tons of unprocessed olives around where I live. What
can
>you do with them? . They are
>certainly organic, at least mine are! anyone is welcome to them! and almost
>every neighbor on my street has an olive tree!


That is what i am waiting for so long. I will be very grateful if i could
get from you,  next season ,totally unprocessed olives.I used to harvest
olives in France from abandonned trees in december when the olives getting
all black are  slowly starting to dry on the tree.
because i don't know the variety of olives you have around and the wheather
patterns in california i don't know if it is for you possible to let them
ripen on the tree (the variety that i was harvesting were small ). if it is
not, it is possible to harvest the olives while just starting to become
black and put them in a glass jar closed tight, that way they can be kept
long, til they ripen completly and being shiped . They can be dried in a
dryer below 105 f temperature, but fresh and packed in glass jar is the best
taste wise (juicy ), since i left France i don't have access to them and
after years of missing them i decided to try olive oil to compensate but
have been very disappointed with the result (giving me greassy hair and skin
and getting addicted to it ) The oil might be quite different in the fruits
and the extracted oil , (over than oxydation problem) because a big
percentage of the oil is extracted from the pit which when eaten whole, have
an unpleasant taste. The fruit itself can be experienced bitter by someone
not needing them but taste wonderful to me and other instinctive eaters when
needed  (i experience the same radical change in taste with cocoa beans in
their raw state.)
Contact me when the fall is coming to let me know how your olives are doing
, and we can try , you sending me a jar at different stage of ripeness and
learn from that experience

<Around here they are viewed as a nuisance

This is not surprising to me that the most healthfull  foods are left to rot
on the ground while people spends a lot of time and effort at growing
unhealthy foods.
during my trip in India , i saw nut trees that were not considered as food
scattering their seeds on the ground and eaten only by animals while humans
were working very hard at producing rice for subsistence . I gathered thoses
nuts and brought them back with me and enjoyed them for a long time (their
meat were very buttery and soft, they had grey shells and were encased in a
hard  brown pod in the shape of a quarter of the moon and oppening on the
side.) here there is tons of very good apples  from uncared trees rotting on
the ground , and peoples prefer to buy imported ones , at  the
supermarket...
Thank you Mary
jean-claude