I think that I shall never see / a poem lovely as a tree

One of the things that struck me most in Greece were the olive trees. Notably, their color. They're silver. I know what you’re thinking: ‘No effing way.’ Or maybe, because you don’t really care about trees, you’re thinking, ‘That’s probably the ouzo talking.’ But SERIOUSLY. I can’t make this stuff up. I’m not Garcia-Marquez. Take THIS, for example:

Look at the tree on the left. All nice and yellow and sunset-y. Look at the tree in the middle, happy and gay and green. Now look at the one on the right. Holy. Crazy. SILVER TREE. This is the olive. It’s un-buh-leevuble. You should see a whole grove of them. It’s pretty much the most unphotogenic thing in the world, or I’d post a photo of one here. Aw, heck. I will anyway. Just so you know, this is NOT under-exposed. I took about a kazillion of these photos trying to find one that worked (less sky! more grass! less grass! more leaves! more sky!), but apparently trying to make a grove of olive trees look good is like trying to put a leprechaun in your pocket. Something else I've tried on a number of occasions.

Check out this netting. Apparently when the olives are in season, they just roll the nets out to cover the ground and catch them. And when olives aren't in season, they roll them up like you see above (and below).

I liked the mystical look of all these black shrouds draping down the mountainside. The gravelike aura they gave was wonderfully spooky. It also made me glad that I had a leprechaun in my pocket.