I don't normally get this up close and personal with a wind machine. This particular fan has been moved to the perimeter of the Far Niente vineyard for repair. The grey, ominous skies added to the atmosphere of doom and gloom for the future of the burgeoning 2009 vintage. There may be cloud cover now but, just wait a day or two, the frost will be back.Seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was stalking his wind machine, the vineyard manager filled me in on the prognosis for this particular fan: propeller, half broken off....then inquired, in a most genuine fashion, if the noise bothered me at night. How polite!
I hope he gets the fan fixed. Despite the overnight disturbance of something akin to a helicopter hovering over your bedroom, I hate the thought of a diminished vintage. I will sleep more soundly when the threat of frost has passed.
5 comments:
Thanks for getting back to me about the "red leaves." That's a relief. Unfortunately, just found a sharpshooter in the vineyard! Sorry for the long posts. For me, the blog is for writing chapters in a story, and there's much to write, isn't there. However, we're now on twitter, which you'll appreciate. I'm limited to 140 characters. Check it out! http://twitter.com/bluemerlewinery Are you on twitter? You can set it up to feed into your blog. Cheers!
Sharpshooters can be poisoned, or fended of with "admire" (which, after all is a derivative of nicotine). We just have to deal with them down here. On the other hand, I'm afraid "Crazy Ladies" we need to put up with -- wait a second ... if nicotine keeps the sharpshooters away, I wonder if I blow cigarette smoke in her direction it might keep her away? I made a bold statement: Crazy Ladies are everywhere ... in my neighborhood, at John McCains rallies...but how about Napa Valley? (Please excuse me for posting on your blog, but I don't have an e-mail address.)
For those who have not experienced the frost fans, you can imagine being at an air show with WWII airplanes all warming up their radial engines at the same time but parked in various locations on the airport. Few of them are synchronized and it is the variation in the sound rather than the volume that is disturbing in the early morning hours. Still, a destructive frost as we had last year is worse than a month of restless sleep. I am sure that Vinogirl with her canine like hearing is far more bothered than deaf, old Vinomaker. Age does have its advantages occasionally.
Vinomaker...W.W.2 radials warming up all over the place...sounds like heaven...or at least a wierd version of it.
They installed a new fan and it's a lot quieter. Sorry Thud.
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