Drat those bats!

I’ve considered myself an environmentalist for over 30 years now. I used to spend hours with the latest edition of The Mother Earth News and tried to reduce my carbon footprint long before the term had been coined, or at least became widely used. So in the early 90’s, when a family of bats moved into one of the walls of our winery, I thought it was pretty cool and that we could peacefully co-exist. And we did, for quite some time. The problem was, the bats wouldn’t leave their humble abode to defecate & urinate. And after a while, the bat generated odor was not conducive to tasting fine wines. We just had to convince these much maligned little mammals that their quality of life would be better at a new address. My first effort to do this involved beating on the interior wall with a board. I figured that anything that was 50% ears would not take kindly to this treatment and leave. Not so, and yes, I still feel guilty about doing that. So I did a little research on bat eviction, and discovered a bat exclusion method. The suggested method was to make it possible for the bats to leave their home, but not be able to return. So I placed two flaps over the opening that would allow the bats to exit between the two flaps, but not be able to find their way back in between the flaps. And it worked… sort of. They couldn’t get back in, so they took to hanging on the board under the flaps. This was as close to “home” as they could get. And my guilt increased. It was time to call in professional bat people. I called Greg Tatarian of Wildlife Research Associates ( http://www.wildliferesearchassoc.com/ ).
Greg surveyed the situation and built a bat house of his own design, to provide a more attractive alternative to our little friends. He mounted the house in the winery eaves. And it worked… sort of. The bats moved in and began multiplying and eventually overpopulated the house. Two years later, in 1997, Greg built a second bat house to accommodate the increased population and attached it close to the first bat house. And it worked… sort of. The bats moved in there and overpopulated that house, too. This only became evident during periods of extreme heat. To escape the congested habitat and extreme heat generated inside the house on those afternoons, large quantities of both infant and adult bats would move to the outside of the box and cling on to the outer surface as much as possible. It was very disturbing to witness the infants that would fall to the ground unable to navigate to escape the heat. Efforts to return them to their bat house would prove unsuccessful. In the winter of 1998, the houses were removed from the side of the winery and mounted back-to-back on steel poles partially shaded by Eucalyptus trees to provide a cooler site with better air flow. And it worked… sort of. The number of bats inhabiting these houses was estimated at between 600 & 900 at one point. Occasionally during the summer months, Cindy & I would have friends up to the winery right around sunset. We would set up aluminum chairs and sip wine while waiting for the bats to exit for their evening of feeding. First, one or two would come out followed by maybe 3 or 4 more. And then it was like the order was given to vacate the premises. Over the next minute, the bats poured out of the holes in continuous ribbons. It was very exciting to witness one of nature’s finest moments.

One summer period of extreme heat occurred so early in the day, that the houses were still in the full sun. I was saddened by yet another significant die back, mostly of infants. That winter, we relocated both houses, still on the poles, to the interior section of an old Oak tree by one of our vineyard blocks. This was to provide shade at all times of the day. And it worked… period.
So, we are landlords to two different types of bats; The Mexican Free-tailed bat and the Pallid bat.

I read with interest a recent article (By ROBERT DIGITALE) in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat about bats. Patricia Winters, president of the Forestville-based California Bat Conservation Fund gave a presentation to grape growers and pest workers on the value of bats in insect management.

The following excerpts are from that Press Democrat article.
RE: The Mexican Free-tailed bats
"She's a little bat," said Winters, known to Bay Area schoolchildren as the Bat Lady. "But she can fly faster than any other bat in the world. And she can fly up to two miles high, and all she eats are crop pests."
Winters showed graphics from Doppler radar and thermal imaging to depict billions of moths moving north from Mexico into southeast Texas at a height of almost two miles. Each night the moths run into what Winters called the largest concentration of mammals on the planet, an estimated 200 million Mexican free-tailed bats living in caves outside Austin and San Antonio.
Only 2 percent of the moths ever make it past the bats, which can fly at speeds of 60 mph, Winters said. One recent study estimated that the bats prevent about $1 billion a year in U.S. crop damage.
RE: Other bats
Winters told the group that a lactating Big Brown female bat, a species found in Sonoma County, can eat twice its weight in insects each night.
Kathy Cowan, who volunteers with Winters, said she has a standard argument for convincing women about the value of bats. She focuses on the work the animals do in pollinating tropical fruit and reseeding rain forests.
"If we didn't have bats," Cowan said, "we wouldn't have chocolate."
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Click here for the entire article and to see a great picture of a Pallid Bat:
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20081213/NEWS/812130315

The Black Sheep of the Pina Family

Wikipedia tells us this about the term Black sheep:

Black sheep is an English language idiom which describes an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within one's family. The term has typically been given negative implications, implying waywardness.[1] It derived from the untypical and unwanted presence of black woolled individuals in herds of sheep, which was undesirable because wool from such sheep could not be dyed.

All four Pina brothers attended St. Helena public schools, and since there are only about six years separating us, we shared lots of the same teachers. One teacher that we all had was Martel Cooper. He taught the Ag Classes and metal shop. I liked Mr. Cooper, even though after one incident at school, he referred to me as the Black Sheep of the Pina Family. I accepted that he was accurate in his assessment, and carried that burden with me through the years. My guilt lessened over time as I heard more & more stories about the escapades that my brother John participated in. By comparison, my activities were quite tame. So maybe it’s a good thing that the word “sheep”, can be singular or plural. Because I’m convinced that in this instance, the Black Sheep of the Pina Family should be a shared title.

For most of our open–house type events, all four brothers will be there participating. I’ve had as many questions from of our visitors about the 4 brothers, and how they get along running the winery, as about the wine. We’re all very different, but we are able to have lively discussions at our weekly meetings and arrive at consensus decisions fairly well most of the time. Of course it’s easier, quicker and better if they just agree with my views early on in these discussions (And I’m still working at convincing them to adopt that philosophy).

One area we differ on, is our favorite Pina wine. I think I’m alone in preferring the D’Adamo over all the others. Now if I’m having steak or lamb, I might go with the Buckeye Howell Mountain Cab. But since that doesn’t happen very often, I drink more D’Adamo than all of our Howell Mountain, Oakville, Rutherford and Yountville Cabs combined.

With that in mind, I was pleased when the following blog was posted:

http://www.chow.com/wine_and_drinks/5570 (Updated on 1/20/2009)

D’Adamo was finally getting the recognition I felt it deserved. From this, I couldn’t be sure the writer would prefer the D’Adamo over the others. But he thinks it’s pretty good wine so I’ll accept the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell strategy with his endorsement. In no way can/should it be considered a Black Sheep within the Pina wine family – Not sure I can say the same about brother John.

Treading Lightly – The Kubota Secret

The Kubota Secret

I have several childhood memories of growing up in the middle of vineyards. One of the images that I’ve carried with me is my father driving a Caterpillar D-2 pulling a disc through the vineyards on a brilliant spring day. There was a lush crop of Mustard, so tall that the tracks of the CAT were not visible – Just the upper half of the tractor floating through the Mustard with my dad at the helm. There was a small flock of red-winged blackbirds following closely, ready to swoop in and snatch earthworms as their world was turned upside down.

Over the years, Pina Vineyard Management (PVM) has had many Caterpillar tractors. They are great machines. In recent years, we’ve been adding some John Deere tractors to the fleet. The overwhelming factor when purchasing these tractors was function. They were chosen to get the job done, pure & simple. And PVM also has lots of Kubota tractors chosen for the same reason.

In the Spring of 2006, the local Kubota tractor dealership approached us with a unique proposal. Kubota had been working on a new tractor and they needed somebody to give it a well rounded field test: Work it hard, find its strengths & weaknesses – If you find problems, we want to know. Say no more, just give us the key. But, they said, there is one more thing:

Keep it a secret.

The tractor was delivered on an overcast day after a period of rain. It came with at least a half-dozen Kubota Engineers that were eager to test the metal of their baby. Their enthusiasm was admirable. After several hours they left and headed back to Japan.

After looking at the top picture, you may be wondering what the big secret is. It’s the side-view picture that will give you the answer.

Yes, a wheel tractor that also has tracks or a tracklayer that also has wheels.

Pina Cellars (in cooperation with Pina Vineyard Management) hosted the Kubota new tractor unveiling for the media and some local farmers. In the picture above, that’s brother Davie explaining our involvement with the project and describing our “testing” of the new Kubota Power Krawler.

You can check out the Kubota website for more information:
http://www.kubota.com/f/aboutkubota/prl67.cfm

If you do, note the pictures that were taken in the PVM vineyard that sits high above Miner Winery. It’s a bit too steep to feel comfortable in most tractors.

After a day of testing - Kubota’s dirty secret

This is beginning to sound too much like a Kubota advertisement, so I’ll get to the point that I intended to make. And that is that new vineyard equipment is changing to meet the needs of new vineyards.

New vineyards/old vineyards, what’s the difference?

Well, for starters, new vineyards are typically planted in much closer rows than old vineyards. My dad’s old CAT D-2 wouldn’t fit down the rows of most vineyards planted these days. As a result, many tractor manufacturers are now offering narrow gauge tractors.
A growing concern among growers is soil compaction. Those old CAT D-2s looked pretty heavy, and they were, BUT the weight was distributed over a much larger area than today’s wheeled tractors. And that’s one of the big selling points of the new Kubota Power Krawler. It doesn’t compact the soil as much as a similar sized wheel tractor. How innovative of Kubota you say? Well, yes and no. It’s not like they invented the concept.

Photo courtesy http://www.fightingiron.com/FI-Heritage.htm

PVM gave the Krawler a thorough testing with several different implements and we were impressed. PVM now owns one of the new Kubota Power Krawlers, and will continue testing another production model for Kubota. Great machines – but I’m thinking the image of the driver sitting in a “climate controlled” cab with the high tracks visible while discing down the mustard is going to fall short of my recollections from the good old days.

Screw caps vs corks

A lot of people are on the fence when it comes to screw caps vs corks. For the most part, they think great wines have corks. Yes, screw caps are convenient, but…. Great wines have corks. But I wasn’t one of them. Nope, not me - I could only see the advantages of screw caps. I felt I was being very logical about the whole issue and a screw cap would always preserve the wine quality as good as a cork. And there is no possibility of cork taint, so we should be putting our wine in screw caps.

At least that’s the way I used to feel.

It’s the evening of New Years day and we are at our trailer at Dillon’s Beach, Lawson’s Landing to be exact. Earlier today our new neighbors from Roseville rolled in. We really didn’t know them very well, so when they invited us over for a glass of wine after our sunset walk, we accepted. Nice people! One glass turned into two glasses, and so on. Eventually (They might say Finally) we left & returned to our trailer. We finished off a partial bottle of wine and I selected another to open. By now, I have discovered wisdom and a keen insight into all things philosophical. As I pushed the point of the cork screw into the cork, I surmised that if I had a screw cap bottle, I would already be pouring the glorious nectar. And then I focused on the task at hand. The cork screw had penetrated the cork far enough for me to start the actual screwing process – sorry if that sounds unrefined, but as I was searching for more appropriate words those inappropriate words called out to me first. In that state of mind it was mesmerizing to see the corkscrew getting shorter & shorter. The screw part had all but disappeared when I stopped screwing. And then there was that 2 stage leverage applicator thing. Remember the lever? That’s the thing that first separated us from the other animals. We used it to move rocks around and make fire rings as we waited for someone to invent fire. That 2 stage lever thing makes pulling corks so easy and in my current frame of mind, almost fun. So when the cork had finally & officially exited the bottle, it seemed a victory had been earned. It was cause to celebrate, so I poured My Rudder & myself another glass of wine. I frequently tell my wife Cindy that she’s my rudder in life. That if not for her, I would just float around aimlessly, without direction. Because of that, she’s “My Rudder”. Now that I think about it, I guess she is also my propeller. But try to stay focused, I’m telling a story here.

So anyway, that whole time and labor-intensive process of removing the cork struck a chord with me. It seemed just the right thing to be doing. It was the proper introduction of that wisdom & philosophy inducing beverage as it splashed in the glass. In less than a minute, I had gone from being a screw cap proponent to being on the fence with those other folks. And why is that? Tradition! And as I type that word, Tradition, I can’t help but note the similarities between myself & Tevya from Fiddler On The Roof. Because of tradition, I find myself balancing on the fence the same way the fiddler balanced on the roof. And I have a profile similar to Tevya. Ah yes, If I were a rich man…

Footnote: Yes, when I wrote that I was guilty of BLUI (Blogging under the influence), so cut me some slack. But I do recommend those 2 stage cork-pullers.