On June 6th, the Husband and I drove down to my parents’ place in Monterey so that we all could go to the Heller Estate Ladybug Release Party, which they were holding for members of their wine club. The vineyard is up in Carmel Valley… it took us about an hour to get there from Hwy. 1.

Vines

There was wine, cheese, fruit, that sort of thing. I was very upset about not being able to drink anything (vicodin and wine don’t mix), but was glad that that didn’t mean I go stuck driving those hideous winding mountain roads to get there. There were kitties who were very friendly — the orange and white tabby was named Chardonnay, and the grey tabby was named Merlot. Since I spent a lot of time sitting in one place, they seemed to have no problem with wandering over to let me pet them.

We were given a short tour of the winery… the tour was short only because the winery is small. The vintner and the owners talking about making organic wines and what is involved. The vintner even showed us his prize compost heap. Barn swallows nest in the eaves of the building and eat lots of insects. The have owl houses to bring in nesting owls, which along with the cats, help with rodents. They also release ladybugs to control aphids. We split up into groups of two, and each group got a container of ladybugs and a spray bottle with a sugar solution. The instructions were simple… open the container, spray the lady bugs, spray the vines, shake out the ladybugs.

Unfortunately, I found aphids on my chives a couple days later… I should have smuggled some ladybugs home with me.