Sunny Days

In my last post I predicted the grass would start growing. Call me Nostradamus because I called that one perfectly. Other than a few shaded areas and some north facing slopes the grass is well awake. Before our focus shifts to mowing next week, we have been able to take care of a few projects.

On Tuesday morning Dave, Omar and Angel braved the cold depths of Lake Mendota to hook up our intake pipes while the rest of us stood on shore sipping hot chocolate (also known as preparing the baskets, gaskets and nuts/bolts depending on which crew member you ask). Having the irrigation system ready to go is always a great feeling.

In order to minimize any problems we also spend time checking each head. It's much better to have a break while we are here to fix it. So far all the greens and tees have been run briefly and we did have a problem on 13 green.

A cracked sprinkler body led to this river across 13 green

Rather than letting this happen all night, it lasted only a few minutes until we got to the isolation valve to shut it off. After a quick repair by Omar it ran like new.

A few other updates include the yearly burn of the prairie on 3, the first tee mowing for 2016 and the opening of both bathrooms and the ice machine near 6 tee.

Burned prairie and bluebird nest box near 3

We've also started monitoring our bluebird nest boxes for the year. A few nests have been started and a few are still empty but it's too early to tell exactly who is moving in.

Looking forward, fairway aerification is scheduled to start Sunday April 24th and we should have everything done by Tuesday April 26th.

I hope everyone gets a chance to enjoy the great stretch of weather we are having with a couple rounds of golf!