The olive tree in Haute-Provence

The olive tree is emblematic, symbolic; the olive tree does not die and must not die. The olive tree will live and the olive tree lives again. And the good oil flows… There was frost and desertion, there was hope and recovery. The olive tree is a stubborn tree, and in Haute-Provence it has shaped people in its stubborn image! People who have continued in abandonment. People who rolled up their sleeves. Women and men who went to the fields, to the benches; who went to the offices to ask for help and propose solutions. Local people who handled the hoe, the pruning shears, the chainsaw, the pen, the computer and the paperwork. The result is there: in the Alpes de Haute-Provence live the aglandaus and other olive trees… and the good oil flows! These people make you participate in their enterprise, they introduce you to the country, they explain the tree, how to look after it, how to plant and look after a small olivette with words, pictures and sketches; they tell you about the oil and how to consume it. We understand their efforts and their serene certainty that the olive tree will continue… Longo maï !…