...
Still half on holiday, as I'm only working afternoon-evenings till the kids go back to school and our students start on the 15th. We should be doing the traditional activity in September - picking up our carob beans but... the thing is that this used to be an important task back when people had very little and everything counted. Carob beans provided a good source of food for livestock in the winter. When people stopped depending so much on the land, the next generation would still collect them to sell as apparently they are used for interesting processes. The seeds from the bean, correctly processed, provide an interesting thickening agent for ice cream and many medicines apparently. Nowadays, though, even this market has fallen through the floor and you'd be lucky to get a couple of €uros for a sackful of beans despite the back-breaking work it entails, in hot sticky September weather. I'd leave ours on the ground but the problem is they fall on our "nice neat gravelled" patch of the garden [see photo] so need collecting anyway, whether we sell them or not. Plus they attract rats. Rats just love to eat them.
However, given my back and leg problems, I'm gonna take it easy - in 15-minute sessions (probably still be after them when next year's harvest comes along!). Much prefer to go to the excellent secluded beaches we have around here...
