Sounds Like...

Posted 03/31/2008 at 03:16 AM by Dirk

Do you ever think about the sounds of a particular place? How about the sounds of a particular time? I just got back from skiing (actually, FANTASTIC spring skiing in Sun Valley with six inches perfect powder on Friday night...). These two valleys, Napa and Sun Valley, sound completely different.

Beautiful Bald Mountain in Sun Valley, Idaho © Sun Valley Resort

This morning in St. Helena, it was cold. That is, cold for Napa Valley with tender shoots exposed. It was cold enough for the frost on the ground to glisten in the morning sunlight. The cover crop was mowed and disked last week to help air drainage and reduce the risk of frost. As with all farming, timing is everything. Dragonfly Vineyard looked beautiful...but chilly.

Frost doesn't have much sound but frost protection is another matter. Our neighbors were busy.  The closest vineyard used overhead sprinklers. I love the sound of the old-fashioned rainbird sprinklers. Each time the little metal swing bar hits the water stream, it pushes the spray to the side, but more importantly, it makes a great sound. That tchk, tchk, tchk sound is one of the sounds that defines summer for me. Of course, in summer it is a sound that belongs on a lawn. In springtime, it means someone is up early protecting the vines.

Surprisingly, water that freezes to ice on the vine, traps the plants heat and protects its tender growth from the chilly air. Photo © Paul Bush

Gil, who started Far Niente, truly was a rocket scientist, so he understood the physics and thermodynamics of protecting a vineyard using the freezing of water. It made quite an impression on me when he performed the calculations of the immense amount of energy being released as all of the water was turned to ice. (That energy conversion is one of the unusual facts that make water confusing to people like me.) In fact, his calculations showed that the energy release was so high, that our vineyard could be in danger of bursting into flames and burning to the ground. In spite of that risk, we used the frost protection system. (That is an example of why experience can be better than scientific research.)

While sprinklers are a gentle sound at 3:30a.m., the other form of frost protection is harder to ignore when you are trying to get back to sleep. Wind fans are noisy. If you ever had one of those desk fans that slowly rotates, a vineyard wind fan is like that, but on more steroids than Roger Clemens. They move the air around to mix the coldest low-lying air with the marginally warmer air above it so that the vines don't get cold enough to freeze. They need to move all of the air. Each rotation brings the loudest exposure directly to your bed. (Pillows don't make great ear plugs.) Actually, I view that wind fans are one of the sounds of spring and remind us where we are and what season we are enjoying.

All of us get questions about the wind fans. There was a newcomer who heard them, got up in the dark, and thought that Napa Valley was being attacked by lots of low flying planes! While it does sound like a B-17 is in the back yard, I have never seen a frost fan take off.

Sun Valley has a different set of sounds at this time of year.  I guess it starts with the absence of sound. While it was snowing Friday night, it was quiet. (Quiet as if someone had hit the mute button.)

The next morning there were other sounds. While it was dark, I wondered if I heard low-flying jets (very dumb idea in the dark in the mountains). This sound of thunder and jets went by several times before I realized that it was the Idaho Highway Department plows, duh...

The next sound reverberating through the valley was the sound of avalanche control. A muffled explosion in the distance that was more of a "thud" than a bang, but my kids aspire to being the ones who get to toss the explosives onto the upper reaches of the bowls.

Later that day, the real sound of spring in Sun Valley was to be found everywhere. It was the sound of dripping water. In some places it was slow and in others it sounded nearly like rain. With over two feet of snow on the roof, there is plenty to melt and drip. (The icicles make great swords.)

These sounds describe and contrast these valleys and I hadn't really thought about the audible differences until I was lying awake this morning with Spottswoode's fan stirring up the morning air as I wondered what the skiing was like on Baldy.

 

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