Two guys, say, Gerard and Frank, talk about the news.
Gerard: So, I hear that Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Vineyard Owner, says that the immigrants are needed "to pick our crops."
Frank: Yeah, that’s what she said. One wonders, however…
Gerard: Wonders what?
Frank: Well, I wonder about the grape equation.
Gerard: The what?
Frank: Grape…grape equation. You know, how many pickers one needs to pick grapes in a vineyard.
Gerard: We can figure that. I read online that a typical grape vine can produce 40 bunches of grapes, maybe with a 100 grapes each. So, that’s 4,000 grapes per vine.
Frank: Sounds approximately right. But it could be an overshoot. Maybe not quite that figure, but let’s go with it. Okay, so how many vines in a typical vineyard?
Gerard: About 1,000 vines per acre.
Frank: So, 4,000 grapes per vine times 1,000 vines would equal four million grapes. Yep.
Gerard: And what’s the estimate on number of illegal immigrants encountered at the border in during the Biden presidency?
Frank: That’s a tough one because there are estimates for "getaways" and counts for those caught, but let’s run with four million. There are estimates that take the number to five million just since Biden took office.
Gerard: So, let’s settle on four million to make the math easy for that grape equation. If each illegal immigrant picked just one grape, then they could handle an acre of vineyard easily. But, of course, vineyards have more than one acre. Nancy Pelosi has 16.55 acres. So, 16.55 times four million grapes equals 66.2 million grapes. That means that each immigrant has to pick 16.55 grapes—which doesn’t sound like the most effective use of cheap labor. Of course, I'm joking. An immigrant can pick more than that in a day, and given months of harvest...heck, a single migrant could pick thousands, tens of thousands...especially since they grow in bunches. It's not like going out into the woods to pick wild blackberries one at a time.
Frank: There are thousands of acres devoted to grape-growing in California. I don’t know how many, but there have to be thousands with a growing-and-harvest season that probably runs from May to January. i wonder how many acres...
Gerard: Why bother to guess. There’s an official report by the CDFA. It’s online. Wait. Hmmmmnnn…Here it is. California Grape Acreage Report, 2019 Summary. * Let’s see…
"California’s 2019 grape acreage totaled 918,000 acres. Of the total grape acreage, 860,000 were bearing while 58,000 were non-bearing. The wine-type grape acreage is estimated at 635,000 acres. Of the total acres, 590,000 were bearing and 45,000 were non-bearing. Table-type grape acreage totaled 130,000 acres with 121,000 bearing and 9,000 non-bearing. Acreage of raisin-type grapes totaled 153,000 acres, of which 149,000 were bearing and 4,000 were non-bearing."
Frank: Shrivel me up and call me Raisin. That’s a lot of grapes.
Gerard: Funny you should say that. The report also categorizes the number of acres used for raisins, and it mentions…look here…1,2,3,4,5,6.7….Geez! It lists over fifty kinds of grapes, from Allison to Vintage Red, used for raisins, and…Let me see…1,2,3…over 30 types for white wines and about the same number for red wines. Hard to keep the immigr…er…number of grapes in mind, especially because the report also lists synonyms, such as Trousseau Gris for Gray Riesling and Muscat Yellow for Moscato Gaillo.
Frank: Big business. No wonder Nancy wants immigrants to pick the crops. I mean, what else could they do? It isn’t as though they could enter the country, go to Massachusetts, get a job, get an education, start a business, become successful, and start a vineyard on, of all places, Martha’s Vineyard, where recent immigrants were personae non grata. I mean, they’re grape pickers in her mind, aren’t they? Suited to pick crops, maybe to do her ironing, and possibly cook for her. Talk about stereotyping! Talk about racism! Talk about demeaning an entire population! But it’s the conservatives who are racists—has to be. The President said so, and just about every mainstream media pundit echoes that as an indisputable fact.
Gerard: Anyway, looks as though Nancy and the Democrats have a plan for four or five million immigrants, one that will be good for them and good for Nancy. And that work of picking grapes will have job security. Almost a million acres of vineyard in California alone at four thousand grapes per acre…that’s…Holy Cow! That’s a really big number of grapes. FOUR BILLION!
Frank: Now you see why a vineyard owner like Nancy Pelosi and many of the owners of the 3,000-plus wineries in California probably have no problem with illegal immigration. Keep ‘em comin’ and keep ‘em pickin’.
Gerard: You know, all this talk about grapes has made me thirsty for some wine. Am I a hypocrite if I go out to buy a bottle of California wine for supper tonight. The missus likes white, but I prefer red regardless of the meal. Take it like medicine, you know, for the Resveratrol…source of antioxidants and all that.
Frank: You’ll be no more hypocritical than some wealthy celebrity flying off in a private jet to discuss climate change at a conference that serves expensive wines made from grapes picked by illegal migrants in the service of Nancy Pelosi and her Napa Valley cronies.
*April 21, 2020. California Department of Food and Agriculture. California Grape Acreage Report, 2019 Summary. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Specialty_and_Other_Releases/Grapes/Acreage/2020/202004grpacSUMMARY2019Crop.pdf Accessed October 1, 2022.
Gerard: So, I hear that Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Vineyard Owner, says that the immigrants are needed "to pick our crops."
Frank: Yeah, that’s what she said. One wonders, however…
Gerard: Wonders what?
Frank: Well, I wonder about the grape equation.
Gerard: The what?
Frank: Grape…grape equation. You know, how many pickers one needs to pick grapes in a vineyard.
Gerard: We can figure that. I read online that a typical grape vine can produce 40 bunches of grapes, maybe with a 100 grapes each. So, that’s 4,000 grapes per vine.
Frank: Sounds approximately right. But it could be an overshoot. Maybe not quite that figure, but let’s go with it. Okay, so how many vines in a typical vineyard?
Gerard: About 1,000 vines per acre.
Frank: So, 4,000 grapes per vine times 1,000 vines would equal four million grapes. Yep.
Gerard: And what’s the estimate on number of illegal immigrants encountered at the border in during the Biden presidency?
Frank: That’s a tough one because there are estimates for "getaways" and counts for those caught, but let’s run with four million. There are estimates that take the number to five million just since Biden took office.
Gerard: So, let’s settle on four million to make the math easy for that grape equation. If each illegal immigrant picked just one grape, then they could handle an acre of vineyard easily. But, of course, vineyards have more than one acre. Nancy Pelosi has 16.55 acres. So, 16.55 times four million grapes equals 66.2 million grapes. That means that each immigrant has to pick 16.55 grapes—which doesn’t sound like the most effective use of cheap labor. Of course, I'm joking. An immigrant can pick more than that in a day, and given months of harvest...heck, a single migrant could pick thousands, tens of thousands...especially since they grow in bunches. It's not like going out into the woods to pick wild blackberries one at a time.
Frank: There are thousands of acres devoted to grape-growing in California. I don’t know how many, but there have to be thousands with a growing-and-harvest season that probably runs from May to January. i wonder how many acres...
Gerard: Why bother to guess. There’s an official report by the CDFA. It’s online. Wait. Hmmmmnnn…Here it is. California Grape Acreage Report, 2019 Summary. * Let’s see…
"California’s 2019 grape acreage totaled 918,000 acres. Of the total grape acreage, 860,000 were bearing while 58,000 were non-bearing. The wine-type grape acreage is estimated at 635,000 acres. Of the total acres, 590,000 were bearing and 45,000 were non-bearing. Table-type grape acreage totaled 130,000 acres with 121,000 bearing and 9,000 non-bearing. Acreage of raisin-type grapes totaled 153,000 acres, of which 149,000 were bearing and 4,000 were non-bearing."
Frank: Shrivel me up and call me Raisin. That’s a lot of grapes.
Gerard: Funny you should say that. The report also categorizes the number of acres used for raisins, and it mentions…look here…1,2,3,4,5,6.7….Geez! It lists over fifty kinds of grapes, from Allison to Vintage Red, used for raisins, and…Let me see…1,2,3…over 30 types for white wines and about the same number for red wines. Hard to keep the immigr…er…number of grapes in mind, especially because the report also lists synonyms, such as Trousseau Gris for Gray Riesling and Muscat Yellow for Moscato Gaillo.
Frank: Big business. No wonder Nancy wants immigrants to pick the crops. I mean, what else could they do? It isn’t as though they could enter the country, go to Massachusetts, get a job, get an education, start a business, become successful, and start a vineyard on, of all places, Martha’s Vineyard, where recent immigrants were personae non grata. I mean, they’re grape pickers in her mind, aren’t they? Suited to pick crops, maybe to do her ironing, and possibly cook for her. Talk about stereotyping! Talk about racism! Talk about demeaning an entire population! But it’s the conservatives who are racists—has to be. The President said so, and just about every mainstream media pundit echoes that as an indisputable fact.
Gerard: Anyway, looks as though Nancy and the Democrats have a plan for four or five million immigrants, one that will be good for them and good for Nancy. And that work of picking grapes will have job security. Almost a million acres of vineyard in California alone at four thousand grapes per acre…that’s…Holy Cow! That’s a really big number of grapes. FOUR BILLION!
Frank: Now you see why a vineyard owner like Nancy Pelosi and many of the owners of the 3,000-plus wineries in California probably have no problem with illegal immigration. Keep ‘em comin’ and keep ‘em pickin’.
Gerard: You know, all this talk about grapes has made me thirsty for some wine. Am I a hypocrite if I go out to buy a bottle of California wine for supper tonight. The missus likes white, but I prefer red regardless of the meal. Take it like medicine, you know, for the Resveratrol…source of antioxidants and all that.
Frank: You’ll be no more hypocritical than some wealthy celebrity flying off in a private jet to discuss climate change at a conference that serves expensive wines made from grapes picked by illegal migrants in the service of Nancy Pelosi and her Napa Valley cronies.
*April 21, 2020. California Department of Food and Agriculture. California Grape Acreage Report, 2019 Summary. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Specialty_and_Other_Releases/Grapes/Acreage/2020/202004grpacSUMMARY2019Crop.pdf Accessed October 1, 2022.
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