Around one corner of the Thyme Track we are surprised to find a grove of felled olive trees. The location of each tree is marked by a wide shallow hole and a pile of roughly chopped timber. Our first thought is horror at the uprooted trees, disappointment at a now bare space.  But that is our urban reaction and is a small reminder that olive trees are farmed, they do not grow wild. They are managed and are farmed as a crop, and sometimes that crop is timber. Notoriously olive wood burns poorly, giving off a lot of smoke, so locals prefer to burn walnut or oak if they can get it. Perhaps it is a sign of the bad economic times in Spain that olive trees deemed poor fruiters are destined for the fire.  The wriggly roots do not look like the neatly sawn logs we recognise as firewood, these are more roughly hewn, more organic. Olive wood is notoriously hard to cut, the grain tight. All in all, I prefer the trees which in their most severely pruned forms look like Ents. 5 to remember
la posición – the location
poco/a profundo/a – shallow
la madera – the timber
el horror – the horror
la decepción – the disappointment

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A hole in the ground & a pile of timber: felled olive trees in #Spain via @Spanish_Valley http://wp.me/p3dYp6-98