Laetitia Vineyard nighttime harvest

Our neighbors Laetitia Vineyards have started their grape harvest.
They work around the clock and through the nights so they can get
all the many hundreds of acres harvested on time.
At nighttime they truck in these large lights operated by generators.

In general I know they try to adhere to sustainable practices.
They use bio-fuels where they can. They use drip systems and install raptor perches.
They have been inspected and found to be holding to sustainable ag principles

However sustainable agriculture has different interpretations.
And I don’t like that they seem to be sucking up all the water.
Sustainable means it can be sustained at that level indefinitely
(that means generation after generation for like… a thousand years!).

I also start to get an uncomfortable feeling when local ‘big-business people’
actually spend much of their time a hundred or miles away on another place…..
and when they have several of these large farms here and there….
Maybe that’s the European Kulak in me…
and the Southern small farmer

When I drive this road at night, usually there are miles I go with no lights to be seen…..
then to all of a sudden come around the bend and see these lights,
like some movie being filmed is disconcerting.

But I am glad to see work being done, production etc.

Yet a number of us have allied together to fight the latest expansion of these fields….
an expansion that includes a ‘Dude Ranch’
with stables, private houses, and rental cabins.

Yet I am also conflicted with all the fuel used for lighting,
and the massive use of water the vineyard takes.
Since they put in the vineyards, the water level in the creek lowered,
and it has now stopped running for several months.

Nighttime grape harvest at Laetitia Vineyard on Calif Central Coast

My sense of capitalism says a person can do what
they want with their land within limits….
but do those limits extend to overdraft of the limited local water supply?

Lao Tzu
Chapter 53

The gentry wear elaborate richly embroidered clothes,
eat and drink in excess with their sharp swords at their sides,
these are surely the robber barons.
This is not in keeping with the Way.

Nighttime grape harvest at Laetitia Vineyard on Calif Central Coast

These several thousands of Corporate acres are owned by one person,
and many of the people in that field are given work
for a short time during this harvest season.
How much better off would they and me all be if this land
was held by several hundred small growers?
Each trying to live a regenerative low-impact lifestyle, growing local foods…
and pooling resources to send co-operative food to further areas.

Lao Tzu
Chapter 77

The way of nature is much like the drawing of a bow.
That which is high is lowered,
and that which is low is brought up.
The excess is removed,
and where there is deficiency more is added.
The way of nature is to reduce the excesses
and spread them to where there is deficiency.

The way of Man is otherwise,
Mans way is to take from those who have little,
and give to those who have much.

Who is it that can offer more to the world, and have still more to offer?
Only the person of the Tao.

Therefore the sage acts without laying claim to the act.
He can accomplish without boasting.
He has no wish to appear superior.

Nighttime grape harvest at Laetitia Vineyard on Calif Central Coast

They could be using water-capture techniques to hold rainwater
so they’d pull less from the ground.
Individual small landholdings of five acres of good soils like this
can be effectively and intensively farmed.
Resulting in overall less water use than currently, more infiltration,
less water run-off and more of a diversified environment.
The mono-culture of hundreds of acres of one plant encourages insect and disease issues.

No wonder grapes are one of the most intensively sprayed crop in California.

Luckily, although we consider them neighbors…
they are still some four miles from our place.

Nighttime grape harvest at Laetitia Vineyard on Calif Central Coast

Tao teh Ching
Chapter 80

I see a small country of small population.
A simple folk, who even if highly skilled work simply and easily.
Tools are seldom used. They do not bother to invent time-saving appliances.
They would dearly love life, and would take care to avoid death.
Since they would love their homes and land, they would not care to wander.
Even with their horses, boats and carts, they do not wish to travel about.
Though they may have armor and weapons, these are kept out of sight.
These people would return to simple techniques for record keeping.
Their food would be tasty but simple; their clothing would be unpretentious.
They would be content with their simple homes,
and the simple pleasures and customs of a simple people.
And even though there might be a neighboring land within sight,
so that the crowing of roosters and the barking of dogs can be heard from it;
these people will have lived their entire life without ever having gone to that country.