New Tab: Vineyard Sightings

My husband recently sent me a link to an article called Heading Toward the 'No-Touch' Vineyard, that appeared in the trade journal Wines & Vines. The article reported on the discussion by a panel of growers at this year's Unified Wine & Grape Symposium regarding their work on mechanizing vineyard operations. The panel discussed:

• unmanned aerial drones
• self-driving tractors with robotic implements
• elaborate real-time monitoring systems

The economic underpinnings of mechanization are real and compelling. One grower mentioned that a totally mechanized vineyard might be a reality in 5-10 years.
I can understand how growers with large vineyards would want to mechanize aspects of viticulture. Totally, on board. We have a tractor (although sometimes, I would like to do things with horse, that is totally a pipe dream). But one of the exciting things about having a vineyard is actually going out into the vineyard and seeing things up close.
Since we are in the middle of the blizzard of 2017, I have been going through all of the blogs that I have posted and curated them into their appropriate categories. As I went through the blogposts, I came upon many postings I wrote about but did not categorize on the cool things we saw in the vineyard as we worked. So, I collated them under the heading Vineyard Sightings.

Two of my favorite vineyard sightings are
(1)Seeing a murmuration of starlings one fall morning:
Birds: Director's Cut
(2)A flock of around 30-40 turkeys in a race with my husband on a tractor:
Turkeys vs. Tractor