Winter Oil

They say if you want the best oil, you have to get up pretty early in the morning. A few years ago, I took a trip up to Sequim, Washington. They grow a lot of lavender there. It is home to one of the largest lavender festivals on the West Coast in July. Anyhow, I was talking to one of the growers, and she told me that the distillers like to start early. They would be up before sunrise to begin distillation. Well, I do want the best oil, so why question what is already known. I got a break in the weather. A full day without rain. So I went outside at 6 in the morning to start up the distiller. It was quite a beautiful morning. Imagine if you will absolute silence. No sound whatsoever. Absolute stillness. To the west, just over the lavender fields, a full moon was quietly setting. With this backdrop, I started my business, turning on power and water, filling the boiler, lighting the furnace. And I sat in the darkness and waited for everything to warm-up. To begin making golden lavender oil from the lavender I had picked up from Ann a few days before.

Opening the sacks of lavender releases some of the wonderful scent. Here you can see a handful of the loose buds contained inside. This is the good stuff. I loaded buds from the sacks into the basket, taking care not to pack them too firmly down. The warm steam will need to permeate each and every bud to release it's treasure, therefore, the more loosely packed the load, the better.


As the buds go into the distiller they have a delicate purple color to them. They are quite pretty. Much different than when they come out, as you will see later in the process. In the photo to the right, you can see the vibrant color and life the buds contain. Our extraction will condense this vitality into the oils that we remove. Pure concentrated tranquility, ahh!


After loading the distiller with the lavender buds, I got to take a break. The sun has now been up for a while. All of the mist and clouds of the morning seem to have disappeared. The air temperature is already about 70 degrees in the sun. Wow, what an amazing day this is turning out to be. In the middle of December too. I took a break from the morning work of setting up the equipment and unloading lavender to take in the warmth and beauty of the day. It is still quite calm out, though the stillness is disturbed by the birds flying about and occasionally chattering at each other, as well as the bees which seem to have emerged to take advantage of the warm weather for a cleansing flight and perhaps a serendipitous forage venture.

Suddenly, my senses were overwhelmed. Now, I've been working with lavender all day, so it's not like I don't know what it smells like. But suddenly there is an intensity that is unlike anything experienced yet today, including when I opened the big burlap sacks shown above. Looking over at the condenser emitter, I see a faint mist, and then shortly thereafter, fluid begins to flow. Here on the right, you can see it coming from the emitter and dripping into the essencier. Now this fluid contains both the essential oil, as well as the hydrosol. The essencier will separate the two from each other, as we see below.


Inside the essencier, the oil and hydrosols are separated. The oils come bubbling up into the glass tube and cascade over the top, where it is collected and bottled. It is always fun to watch the "eruption" as I call it when the oil first starts flowing. It bubbles up in the tube like a fantastic smelling lava lamp. I don't have a video camera, but I wanted to capture what this is like for you. So I put my camera on autodrive, and try to capture the motion in this image. Now, if only there were a way to digitize smell!

When I am at farmers markets with my lavender, one question I get a lot is: "What can you do with essential oil?" I should dedicate an entire blog entry to this question some time. But to help people enjoy lavender and the amazing properties of the essential oil, I started carrying pendant diffusers. These are little terra cotta pieces stamped with different designs (mine has a kokopeli dancer on it). The terra cotta is porous, so a drop of essential oil is absorbed into the pendant, and it's calming, de-stressing effects can be absorbed all day long. Really something useful in these stressful holiday times, and especially so in these times of economic uncertainty which is gripping the world. We can't always fix everything that's wrong with with the banks, with the auto industry, and even the impacts this has on our own local economy, but we will be much healthier and able to do what we can if we can keep a calm perspective on events that are sometimes out of our control. Here you can see me anointing my pendant with a sterile cotton swab directly from the fresh oil. Ahh. I am wearing it now, and can smell the sweet scent even as I type this blog.

While I was distilling, my friend Tara paid me a visit to see the operation. Tara is an aroma therapist. (You can visit her at her website at www.taraspa.com) She knows everything about scents, and how to use them for health and well-being. While we were watching the oil bubbling out, she said that one of the big challenges in here work is educating people that aroma therapy is important to their health, not just a luxury. That is so true. Health is not a luxury. Without health, what do we have? I package a terra cotta pendant with a bottle of lavender oil together in this all natural Carmel Lavender gift box. What better gift to give a special friend or lover than tranquility and health! We will have these available at a Holiday Faire this Saturday, December 20th, from 4pm to 6pm at the Monterey Stone Chapel, right next to Tarpy's restaurant in Monterey. Or you can contact me through this blog. Okay, commercial is over :) Hey, I have to make a living too, you know!

Once the oil stops flowing, it is time to remove the spent lavender and start a new batch. I have included an "after" shot of the basket with the lavender buds that have been processed. Look at the difference in color. The vitality that it had going in is entirely gone. The buds no longer have a vibrant purple hue, but rather are a pink-tan color. They have given up their essence and life. The buds will be taken over to the compost heap, where they have a chance to bring new life to the soil. The essential oils and hydrosols will be used to make our lives more rich and healthy. I guess that is what it is all about. Let us take a moment and be thankful to these flowers for bringing us such magical benefits. Thank you, Lavender!