Frost Fans Active 22 September 2011

The title says it all.
While not a very noticeable frost, there were fans active from about 3am till morning.

First Frost Fan Activity of the 2011 Spring Season

Reports are coming in now of the first frost fan activity of the growing period.
Not too soon and not too late.

Isn't the answer obvious?

So an article on stuff.co.nz about contamination from wineries being found at disposal sites is interesting.

But wait...

It says there that it takes 7.5 litres of waste water to make a single 750ml bottle of wine.
Surely we should be bottling the water and selling it instead of making the wine? Isn't this a win-win?
Bottled water sells like hot cakes. (or at least it's holding up better than wine prices)

Boom and Bust. It’s not bad luck. It’s bad management.

This weeks Listener is carrying an article by Karl du Fresne which explores the career of Peter Hubscher. He is arguably one of the pioneering greats of the wine industry in the sense that he was at the forefront of the establishment of New Zealand as a producer of quality wines on the international scene. The peak of his achievements saw him running Montana for over 13 years in its heyday from 1991 to 2004.

The Listener article is a great read. I encourage those who wish to get an inside view of his opinions and philosophy to purchase a copy.

Sadly, the message that predominates throughout the feature is the recent mismanagement of the industry that saw it succumb to the worst aspects of greed and excess at the expense of sound planning and strategic thinking. To use a quote from the excerpt at the Listener site “An industry touted a few years ago as a glittering success story has fallen victim to the classic boom-and-bust cycle, led astray by short-term expediency, greed and feckless corporatism”.

Strong words and some might be thinking that there is a sense of sour grapes as a result of Hubscher’s experiences with the Te Kairanga vineyard. Here he took over a vineyard that was suffering as a result of poor crops and bad press (think back to the shipment of wine to Germany with excessive copper in 2007). He made good progress with his new project but he couldn’t escape the financial disaster of the wine industry and left the company in the middle of 2010.

The Listener article claims that he was advising caution of the possibility of a wine glut as far back as 2000. A quick search will supply just such a prediction. In May of 2000, the then managing director of Montana, Hubscher was brushing off the previous vintages lower than average crop which had affected Montana to a far smaller extent than many others. At this time he posted a warning that while the bigger players in the market could cope with the variation, “The bigger problem for some will be if there's a big crop the following year coming off a difficult financial base”. As it turns out 2001 was another troublesome year, but in 2002, there was a record harvest of 118,700 tonnes.

In 2001 Montana merged with / bought Corbans. This made the company the owner of 57% of the local market and responsible for 49% of international exports. At this stage, there was speculation of whether Lion Nathan or Allied Domecq was going to purchase the group. Ultimately the prospect of effectively purchasing the NZ Wine industry was too much for Allied Domecq and they purchased Montana later in 2001.

In 2002, on the back of the record harvest, the then chairman of New Zealand Winegrowers, Peter Hubscher predicted in the annual report that the “record” 2002 yield would be short lived, effectively changing the supply landscape for the industry. “It now seems reasonable to assume the producing vineyard area will reach 20,000 hectares by 2006, making vintages of 200,000 tonnes or more a real possibility within five years. A 200,000 tonnes vintage is two thirds larger again than this year’s record harvest and represents nearly three times the current total level of industry sales”.

Peter stayed on at Montana, but in 2003, further rumblings began to be felt. Martyn Nicholls helped design the vine cull subsidies that knocked out a fifth of New Zealand's vineyards in the mid 1980s. In 2003 he had just completed his Wine MBA, and was raising a warning that the country was entering into a global wine glut and will be hit hard. In his words “To meet the upcoming oversupply we will need to quadruple our exports in the next four or five years in some varieties. I challenge anyone to explain how that is going to happen.”. Not everyone was downbeat however. Allan Scott is quoted in the same article saying “Messages of doom and gloom had been circulating for the past 10 or 15 years and the region's wines had yet to take a hit. It is hard to know, but our experience has been that the market for sauvignon blanc is insatiable.” Those words must have a sting nowadays.

In 2003 Investigate magazine published the article interestingly titled “The Grapes of Wrath” (The same title as this weeks Listener article). In it, the surge of planting grapes as an investment is suggested by Hubscher as a trend to capitalize on the “current industry hype”. The article goes on to state “Statistics show that the New Zealand market for our own wine is not only small, but it is also static. Over the last decade, annual consumption per capita has, more or less, hovered around the 10 litre mark. Even Hubscher acknowledges that the domestic growth of sales is limited. Essentially what is happening is there are more grapes being grown, and more wineries producing greater volumes, but the same amount of wine is being consumed. As Hubscher says, "the principle growth opportunities for our wines are in the international marketplace," suggesting the only option is to export the surplus.” The article also quotes Professor Kym Anderson of the Adelaide University, who states that the predictions for World prices are dire. The only means for New Zealand to compete is in the upper end of the market. The bottom end is awash with wine that is cheaper than we can produce and at vastly greater volumes than we could hope to generate. Observes Neill Culley of Cable Bay Vineyards - there’s a market for large volumes of cheap wine and small volumes of quality expensive wine. “Because we are not a low quality producer, that’s one of our biggest assets.”

Observes Jon Harrey of Te Mania Wines - it won’t be the wine that suffers - it will be those speculative growers who don’t have a contract with a winery. Although the number of wineries has increased dramatically, he suspects there isn’t going to be adequate infrastructure to process the increasing volumes of grapes that the industry has predicted.

Further on the article states - some in the boutique industry reckon Hubscher’s warning is just sour grapes. They acknowledge the possibility of a fall in price but say bulk wine is going to suffer the most, like it has in Australia. Then again, Hubscher could be right.

Further in the article - only the future will reveal whether or not a wintry world wine market stems the prolific growth of our industry. But what emerges from the argument about a ‘wine glut’ is that some healthy balance, clearly absent at present, needs to be struck between supply and demand for grapes in the local market. If it isn’t, those landowners gate-crashing the party by planting more vines may end up with a bitter taste in their mouths when they find no winery needs their crop. As the saying goes, "Wine grapes are only good for one thing…"

Let’s remember, this information is from 2003. The warning signs of New Zealand’s involvement in a global market where we could never compete in bulk wine sales was evident. The industry at the time was concerned at the increase in planting and the lack of infrastructure to process it. It was recognised that New Zealand’s only hope of succeeding was to ensure that it’s wines were seen as high end luxury goods. The wine industry knew that they were overextending raw production at the expense of processing and that without NZ wine being seen as a quality product, the industry was going to be crippled.

In 2004 Peter Hubscher retired from Montana, just as it was being re-branded by its foreign owners “Allied Domecq Wines” In the 2011 Listener article he is massively critical of the disposal of the Montana brand. In a eulogy of sorts, Keith Stewart wrote in the Listener in 2004 that “In the wine industry, one of his legacies will be the co-operative organisation that he championed between the winemakers and grape growers. These two groups have little common ground. Because the merger improved the power of large wine companies who buy growers’ grapes, the ramifications are likely to trouble the wine industry for some time.” In today’s climate we can’t say the same thing. With the removal of Peter Hubscher the industry faltered. There was no strategic vision, there was no New Zealand Connection and the marketing of wine as an investment opportunity drove the market to an excess that ignored economic and practical signs of implosion.

The 2004 Listener article finishes by saying “Reflecting on Hubscher’s career in another generation, it could be that he will be remembered not for creating in Montana New Zealand’s largest wine company, but for creating the world’s largest wine boutique. That would be a fine achievement, indeed. ” It would have been, but for the greed and excess of those who would succeed him.

And so we come to today. Another bumper harvest coming up (the season has been extraordinary for growth) There has been no improvement in processing since 2008, yet the massive planting that was underway in the years up till then is now coming on stream. Little wonder then that we are filling shipping containers with bladders and sending them to Australia for processing as bulk wine. The vineyards are manned by machines, with the subsequent reduction in quality and costs. The strategic vision comes from NZ Winegrowers pleading (or demanding, depending on your viewpoint) with growers to reduce harvested volumes, but the relationships with the wineries is broken. Now it’s all about money. The small players are going under and the banks can’t even sell the mortgagee properties. New Zealand’s reputation as a producer of quality wines is all but eroded as investment monkeys scramble to salvage anything from the debacle and sell anything at any price.

This is not the legacy that Peter Hubscher wanted or deserves.

I assume you were misquoted!

I'm sorry, but what sort of rubbish is being spouted in the media thats attributed to the lawyer for the New Zealand Winegrowers?
According to the news report here, The Hurunui District Council and the NZ Winegrowers came to an agreement to limit the noise from frost fans last year and the rat-bag local residents kicked up a fuss.
Err... Now correct me if I'm wrong. The Hurunui District Council did the whole consulting with the residents and local industry thing and put forward a plan change. But it wasn't the local residents kicking up a fuss was it?
No, you will find that it was the NZ Winegrowers who appealed parts of the change and and the HDC was the Respondent. There were local residents as section 274 (interested) parties, but it wasn't them that took the Council to Court.
Word on the street is that the plan remains pretty much the same as before the appeal with progressive moves on  frequency of use and cumulative effects. I suppose if you've got your clients to spend all that money on legal advice, you've got to tell someone that you've won right? Especially in these hard economic times. I mean I'd hate for the people who actually paid the money to the NZ Winegrowers in the first place to think that their cash was going down the gurgler faster that 2010 Sav Blanc.
Well done. You're on a roll. Boy you really showed those locals! How dare they complain about the introduction of industrial noise to the peaceful countryside. They got what was coming to them.
And you know what? I think they actually did :-)

More progress in hot spot resolution?

Further news (apologies for the delay) on one of the more prominent problem areas being addressed has surfaced in the Marlborough Express. Tidbits that hint at moves towards a resolution.
After this length of time is it really something that is going to happen or simply another delaying tactic that promises much, but fails to deliver?
I think all sides will be hoping for this to be a genuine effort, but if past experience has been an indicator, the bait and switch game is alive and well in the wine industry.

This is how it ends

It starts with an industry offering to help a community.
To provide jobs, money, lifestyle.

It ends with rank industrialization  blighting the landscape, poisoning the environment and sending what meager profits are left, off-shore.

Look to the Manawatu where Fontera are applying to continue to poison the river for a further 20 odd years. This at the end of a process that has already left the river trashed.

Sound familiar?

The New Dawn Chorus

By my count this would be the 4th time this spring that I've had my sleep disrupted by the thumping of the frost fans. By anyone's count this is a spectacularly low number. Although I understand that there are some parts of the country that have not been so lucky. I say lucky, but its kind of like saying "Wow, that was a bad mining disaster. We were lucky only 4 people were killed.".
Additionally, the spring isn't over yet, so I suppose there's still plenty of opportunity for more.

Isn't that lucky?

First Decent Frost of the Spring

That has been a long time coming.

And I suppose it provides the lead-in to the debate about how many frost fan events are too many?
There are no prizes for guessing what side of the fence I come down on.
I only have to wonder if it's possible for a person to be affected by  a single night without sleep.
Should your nurse be administering medication? Should your taxi driver be taking the no-doze? Should the World be a reasonable place?
When in doubt, take the day off. Call in sick. You aren't responsible for your actions when sleep deprived. The body isn't designed to cope with the stress and strain and confusion. Call your boss and explain. Send your bill to the NZ Winegrowers and Horticulture NZ. They think its ok to make as much noise as they want. Don't forget to write into the paper and remind them of the lost productivity and the hidden cost to the rest of the community. Don't risk your life or those of others by doing something that could result in harm if your concentration is impaired.

Something is better than nothing.

The recent article in the Marlborough Express which described the possibility of the MDC stepping in to help resolve the particularly heinous siting of frost fans just over 100m just next to a home in the lower Wairau Valley, is a step in the right direction.
To be perfectly frank the options were few.
The absentee owner of the vineyard Ross Low appears to have been reluctant to remove the fans because he believes he complied with the Council Requirements when installing.
The owners of the home shouldn't need to move because a neighbor has made their home unlivable.
The Council on the other hand have allowed the result of some sort of heinous clerical error when setting a rule in the District plan to stand (allowing fans within 100m of a home), when it was clear that this would produce unreasonable noise levels.
The group that has blood on it's hands most is the Council. Not the callous indifference of Mr Low or the Vineyard he supplies.
I can only hope that some common sense filters through and that whatever solution is enacted, it results in a reasonable nights sleep, because that's a pretty basic requirement for a human being.

Tentative Start to Spring Frosts

Well, hasn't the weather been a mixed bag?
Plenty of rain and cloud cover keeping the frosty temperatures at bay.
This morning was the first slim sign of a frost and I have heard reports that there was the occasional sound of a fan going off. Pretty quiet in general though. I suppose both sides of the frost fan debate can share the desire to minimize the number of frosts :-)

I'm confused. How about you?

In an article in tonights Marlborough Express, there were a few interesting observations.
Firstly, there's been a resource consent granted to use a Defender fan on a block out Seddon way. I'm going to assume that this means that the new Defender has been tested and has passed the requirements under the proposed plan changes. Good news for them.
I'm still a bit in the dark of course. I mean they appear to have a new fan doing the rounds, but it's a picture of the old one that appears on their web site along with their historical shocking propaganda 'testing' data from the University of Canterbury. It never fails to surprise me that people can spend a bazillion dollars on R&D and still expect to put up a public 'face' on a web site with incorrect data and in one case even a missing image.
Secondly, there's some information on the long running battle up the Waihopai with Waihopai Holdings or Mount Riley as the parent company's called. To be brutal, it would appear as if the person writing the article has got things a bit topsy turvy, unless of course there's been some RADICAL changes in the way that bun fight has developed. Interesting to see that they appear to have been granted a right to use one fan and are applying for another?? I thought this was all heading to court to sort out, so perhaps there's been some movement.
This all smells a bit fishy and half-baked fish at that.

Who's winning here? Not the Grape Growers. Not the Sleepless Residents.

The Marlborough Express is reporting that the recent Hearing decision on the Marlborough frost fan rules is being appealed by the NZ Winegrowers and Horticulture NZ.
Hardly a surprise, since in these troubled times of receivership and strife, the only people who can make money are those who create strife. Bureaucrats.

Is it just me, or was there a considerable amout of trumpeting recently about the significant increase in export earnings from the wine industry?
Wine export growth outshines all others

New Zealand wines have gone from zero to hero
Yet for some reason, there are vineyards going down the gurgler and sav blanc may as well be hemlock
Wine Country over a barrel?
Twenty drinks to avoid in 2010

Wine hard to sell

Say it with me.... Dichotomy.

So in these incredibly successful, but financially crippling times, lets plough money into Bureaucracy. Here's the trick. Hype the profit margin and skim the surplus.

Grape growers sign off on industry levy

You're a grape grower under financial pressure. You voted to increase the levies to an organisation that skims money off you via an act of parliament right?

So back to Court they go. 'Cos that's where the money is. It won't matter if you're fighting a battle that is lost already. It's not the winning that counts. It's the fighting. I'd be increasing the levies again. They'll need it. If it's not here, it'll be in Tasman or the Hurunui or Otago or Hawkes Bay. Money going down the drain faster than 2008 Sav Blanc.

Why is there a Defender Blade on an Orchard Rite pole?

So, why would we be seeing a Defender blade on an Orchard Rite pole on one of Royce McKean’s properties?

As I stated yesterday, the simple answer is that there is a new broom coming in terms of noise regulations and like the shrewd businessman Royce is, there is no doubt that he will be hedging his bets to provide options if he finds himself in a tight corner and being forced to actually COMPLY with a noise level.

But that’s not all.

This is an Orchard Rite pole, this is an Orchard Rite supplied engine and control and monitoring system. Royce went with Orchard Rite because  “The length of time they’ve been in business and what they’d be like to work with longer term also contributed to our decision that these are the type of people we want to do business with.”

Yet what have Orchard Rite done lately to move their product forward? Sure there are commercial considerations to weigh up. Can we make it cheaper? Can we provide more coverage? I don’t know if Orchard Rite fans provide any advantage in either of these areas, but one thing is for sure, reducing the noise of these fans has not been Orchard Rites primary focus. They are renowned for being the noisiest of any fans and while some might blame the installer or the owner for turning the fans up to an unreasonable level, Orchard Rites attention to noise has been nil.

While the Amarillo has morphed into the Defender in an effort to get quieter and the already quiet 4 bladed Frost Boss has pushed the envelope with the C-49. What have Orchard Rite done?

Good news.

Their research and development department has been hard at work. They have burned the midnight oil, conducted countless aerodynamic tests and I hear that they used a supercomputer normally reserved for nuclear detonation simulations to finally produce this…

 So what are you looking at?

Well, I’m no expert, but it looks like they took normal blades and extended them by inserting a longer centre section.

Seriously, this was installed next to one of the Marlborough noise hotspots in the Wairau valley. This is Orchard Rites answer to noise problems with frost fans.

For crying out loud. Is it any wonder that Royce McKean is going to risk voiding a warranty on an Orchard Rite frost fan by trying the opposition’s new blade when this is the best that Orchard Rite can come up with?

I can only hope that this is the product of Spanners Watson the retarded South Island mechanic rather than an example of the finest engineering brains of a country that sent men to the moon.

Pathetic.

A single 11 hour frost event is not strange, but this fan is.

Royce McKean and Waiata Vineyards have often annoyed the residents around the Hurunui with their massive installation of Orchard Rite frost fans.

What a marvellous surprise it was to find the following (2007) article in the ‘Fruitfed News’ that espoused the wisdom and foresightedness of Royce in purchasing 53 of the 3000 series Orchard Rite fans for his Waipara vineyard.

This is the same model fan that when measured by Hegley Acoustics in 2005 could only meet the old noise restrictions of the Marlborough District Council if wound down to the point of uselessness. So you can safely assume that they have never been run at this speed and for some reason the residents have complained. The nerve.

But let’s take a moment to have another look at the ‘Fruitfed News’ article again.

What’s that they say?

“The 53 Orchard-Rite wind machines installed on Waipara vineyard this winter have already proven their worth during an eleven hour frost event says viticultural manager Dan Riddell.”

Gosh that’s interesting. You see one of the basic tenants that’s being pushed by the NZ Winegrowers Association is that because the fans are used for such a small amount of time, the disruption to sleep is minimal. In fact during the recent frost fan hearing in Marlborough, figures of less than 10 hours use in a year were submitted by growers.

That must be comforting to know for those Hurunui district residents who suffered through a single 11 hour event. This is not a cumulative total over a season. This is one night. One night without sleep and then back to work the next day. Driving to and from work, operating heavy machinery, trying to make decisions while sleep impaired. ONE night is intolerable. And it’s never just one night is it?

Good show.

What about Orchard Rite? Did they sell Royce a pup? In a quote from the advertising Royce went with them because “Not only were the technical considerations important, but also the philosophies of how the Orchard-Rite people do business. Ultimately, we had a lot of confidence in the key people at Orchard-Rite and that they’d stand behind their products.”

That’s given me a warm glow.

However, it was interesting to note in a picture donated from an interested citizen that Royce has begun testing a different fan up the Wairau Valley. If you look closely on one of his noisy Orchard Rites, you’ll see a brand new Defender blade sitting on it.

Now, to those not in the know, this is taking two competing companies and making their evil love child. To be perfectly honest that’s not fair to the Defender, since in spite of my serious misgivings about this blade and its woeful testing, there would be no doubt in my mind that it would be a generation ahead of the Orchard Rite blade it replaced (not that being less noisy than an Orchard Rite is anything to crow about).

So the question remains, why would you do it?

Well there’s the obvious answer and there’s the one that Orchard Rite would rather you didn’t know.

The obvious reason would be that Royce knows full well that the jig is up and that his current fans are stupidly noisy and are likely to get dealt to by the new raft of Council rules being enacted all over the place.

I will let you know what the less obvious and far more worrying reason is tomorrow.

NZ Winegrowers is your nose growing?

12 July 2010.

It was released in the press that the New Zealand Winegrowers had been told off by the Commerce Commission for telling its members to limit the amount of grapes they harvested.
The commission investigated after receiving three complaints about New Zealand Winegrowers’ conduct during the 2010 harvest.

Apparently the Commission were concerned that the industry group had gone beyond making recommendations about volumes of grapes that were to be harvested and that they had effectively directed growers to harvest only set amounts.

It turns out that this would have been illegal and the Commerce Commission were therefore concerned. They went so far as to issue compliance advice to the New Zealand Winegrowers, which some assumed to be an indication that they had been guilty. However, New Zealand Winegrowers chairman Stuart Smith said he believed the commission’s statement cleared the group of any wrongdoing.

Additionally, Belly Gully (eminent Lawyers that act for the New Zealand Winegrowers) Proudly report on their web site that they have “Acted for New Zealand Winegrowers in relation to the Commerce Commission's investigation into the conduct of New Zealand Winegrowers, as the industry body, regarding grape harvest and wine production levels. The Commission concluded there was no breach.”

This seemed like a bit of an incongruous thing to do. One side (the Commission) says “Bad Winegrowers. Don’t tell growers what to produce.” and then the other side (Winegrowers) says “Good news! The Commission have cleared us of any wrongdoing”.

I for one was confused.

It got better.

15 July 2010:

It was released in the press that The Commerce Commission is offering an amnesty for wine growers (the people who ACTUALLY grow grapes) who own up to colluding over grape prices and harvest yields.

The commission sent New Zealand Winegrowers a letter after an investigation into complaints about the way the group advised members to restrict harvests to meet production targets for the 2010 vintage.

The commission noted it did not have evidence that individual members of New Zealand Winegrowers were setting prices or targets independently of the organisation, but offered immunity from prosecution to the first person to come forward and reveal examples of it happening.

At this point it looks like the Commerce Commission were dredging up a case of sour grapes (everyone loves a pun). I mean what’s going on with the Commerce Commission? Accuse a National body of an illegal act and then offer amnesty for any growers that come forward to confirm it? Frankly it smelled like a fishing trip.

Like any good tale there’s a twist.

Fade back in time……..

5 October 2009:

It was reported in the NZ Herald that “New Zealand Winegrowers has for the first time told wine producers how much fruit to harvest, in an effort to address the oversupply problem. Growers have been told they should harvest no more than 8 tonnes a hectare in the 2010 season. This compares with about 10 tonnes a hectare in the past couple of years.”

The article reports several facets of the reasons why this seemed like a good idea. But I’m pretty sure that the headline for the article sums it up succinctly;

“Winegrowers body sets harvest limits”

So here’s the corrected timeline;

October 2009: NZ Winegrowers appears to direct growers to limit their harvest.

July 2010: NZ Commerce Commission reports that NZ Winegrowers have breached some legal point by telling the growers to harvest a set amount.

July 2010: NZ Winegrowers claim that there was no limit imposed and that (in the words of Stuart Smith) “I do not know why complaints had been made to the commission about the association. Growers had come to the association for guidance after the 2008 harvest created an over-supply of grapes which had damaged the market”

DANGER SPIN ALERT!!

We didn’t tell the growers how much to harvest (like was reported in the press). We just gave them advice when they came to us with a problem.

I think that the smell that the Commerce Commission has picked up is not so much a delicate bouquet that tickles the nose, but a ripe, festering pong that assaults the senses

Apologies to Al Nisbet and The Press

All hail Al Nisbet. I couldn't find the original on-line, but came across the attached perversion of his brilliant original that appeared in The Press a week or so ago dealing with wind farms.

NZ Winegrowers Heads to Court (In the Hurunui and Marlborough)

As reported in the Christchurch press and in rumors coming out of Marlborough. The NZ Winegrowers are appealing decisions to amend noise levels from frost fans to reasonable levels and are heading to the Environment Court to try their luck.
So apart from being told by countless sleep deprived homeowners, apart from being told by acoustic experts, apart from being told by the local Councils, apart from the wine economy dragging respectable (wine-growing) businesses into the mire, they still think that they can make as much noise as they want whenever they want.
They would far rather spend more of the money that they have leached from the growers or have been handed from the government.
Who wins?
Administrators
Lawyers
Red tape connoisseurs
NZ Winegrowers (not NZ wine)

[Late edit]: It would appear that NZ Winegrowers will be appealing the Tasman District Council frost fan rules as well (why should they miss out).

Golden Hills. Excessive Noise.

Jeff Marr has had an opportunity to defend the use of frost fans on his Golden Hills Estates vineyard in Nelson and has put forward an extremely compelling and thought provoking argument.
As reported in the Nelson Mail and featured here, Jeff has once again raise the bar on making sure that the community he so proudly calls his own is cared for and nurtured. 
Quotes attributed to his golden tongue include...
"My neighbors hate my machines. I've no doubt about that at all, and it's inevitable"
"I use helicopters as well, and those neighbours hate them more. They're a lot noisier, and fly right over their house."
"We don't do this to annoy people – it's a necessity."
"If people choose to live here, they have to put up with it."
"If you don't like living in the country, f... off into town"
Ahh... Jeff.
Poster child for the responsible grape grower. How fondly I remember you from 2008.
Although, technically those rat-bag people who complain about the noise aren't Jeff's neighbors. He doesn't actually live on the property (who'd want to with those fans going). He lives about 4km away from that particular block. Closer to the other block that is over by the landfill.
I notice you're still running the old style Defenders (x3) on one block. How are they performing? Noisy? Must be quieter than the two Orchard Rites on the other place. 

Painless Frost Protection

Just thought it would be a good opportunity to update the blog with information on the progress of the Raytheon sponsored microwave frost protection system Tempwave.
It would appear that they have been running trials in an Ontario vineyard over the Northern Winter.
Follow the links for updated information and new pictures.
http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/technology/rtn09_tmpwv/index.html
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/06/25/raytheon-turns-swords-into-plowshares/
http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm?section=news&content=73695