Turn On The Irrigation

 

After 8.4 inches of rain in June, July ended up much drier than normal with only 2.4 inches.  I finally watered fairways last week for the first time.  Cooler temps are coming next week.  The days are getting shorter so we will need to change our start time to 5:30 am.  The crew will like the extra 30 minutes of sleep.

 

This morning before day 1 of the club championship.

 

Blue moon this morning.

 

Juan is an 8 year veteran here at Lansing Country Club.  He can be found mowing greens, tees, fairways and rough along with about anything else we need him to do.

Too Much of a Good Thing

 

Another .9 inches today brought the total since last Sunday to 5.15 inches.  We were able to cut greens and most of the tees today.  Fairways and Rough are getting very long.  It looks like Tuesday will be cool and dry.  Lets hope for continued dry weather.  Not carts for the near future.

 

Guy Liptack is almost finished getting us up to code with a new railing in the shop.  Thanks for your time and effort on this project.

 

Mike Ogorek has been catching catfish this past week.

 

In about a month, we should start seeing tomatoes for use by Chef Dan.

 

It's almost over.  This is looks like some new turf disease but is actually cotton.  I'm guessing there about 100 cottonwood trees in the ditch line.  These trees release cotton for about a month this time of year.

 

Not only are many people allergic, but the cotton sticks to machines and clogs up radiators that can cause them to overheat.  Its nearly impossible to get a nice even cut under these conditions.

Tony Lema Memorial, 3 Inches of Rain

 

In memory of "Champagne" Tony Lema, Jim Weidenfeller along with help from Jose, made this memorial on #7 tee near the site of his plane crash.

 

 

Never a dull moment on the golf course.  We are hiring a company to pull this out of the lake.  I hope to have it removed by next week.  It's much too big for our equipment to remove safely.

 

A killdeer seems to like nesting on #13 cart path every year.

 

Purple Martin.

 

The front entrance is looking better.

 

3 inches of rain this month has made it difficult to mow.  This is 6 days of growth on a fairway.  We normally cut them 3 days a week.  I haven't needed to run an irrigation cycle yet this season.

 

Thanks Guy Liptack for getting us up to code with a new hand rail.

Open for Golf

We're open for golf with carts as of Wednesday.  We should be ok for the weekend unless we get too much more rain.

 

 The first mowing 2 week ago.

 

Yesterdays warm weather helped green things up.  Today I mowed greens for the third time this year.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wednesday was the first day for cart.  We got .35 inches of ran Thursday.  Just be careful where you drive.  All tees were mowed on Tuesday and all fairways on Wednesday.  Bunker work was started on Wednesday but stopped today because of rain.  Some course accessories have made it to the course.  Everything should be out by next week.

 

 

 

I'm hoping to attract Bluebirds this year.  This house was placed between 17 and 14.

Spring?

75 today, but back to the normal 40's the next couple of days.  No carts for at least a week or two.  Walkers are welcome.

 

 

First group of the year.  Last week Bong and Bob were our first group to play.  They played the front.  We've been pumping the back nine for several days and it should be ready for walking Monday.

 

Number 16 after pumping.  Below before pumping.

 

Pond left of number 2.  They outlet drain doesn't work as well as when I started in 2008.  We will try and get a trencher and put in a new line.  We'll have to be careful as there's an irrigation line along with wire between the pond and the ditch.

 

Overall we had a much better winter with only slight damage on some low fairways.  The snow cover insulated the greens from the extreme cold we had in February.  We also didn't develop any ice damage like last winter.  There was some mole/mouse damage on the putting green, 7 green and 8 tee. 

Winter Work

 

Jose and I have been busy working outside in January.  We've cut down 8 ash trees this month.

 

This ash was from #8 and over 50 years old.

 

We've been burning much of the branches and logs in our fire pit.

 

The coyote has been around more this winter.

Merry Christmas and Fall/Winter Projects

 

 

 

 With a cooler than normal November, we blew out the irrigation system a week earlier than planed.  This involves renting an air compressor and blowing out each sprinkler head and quick coupler.  It took Jose and I about 7 hours this year.
 

 

I also made my last fungicide application couple of weeks earlier than normal.

 

We continue to remove infected green ash trees.  We got about 15 trees donated this year to help replace the removed trees.  See me if you would like to donate.

 

The range house was removed this fall.

 

Santa made is annual appearance at LCC this weekend.  Thanks to Guy Liptack for making this possible.

 

 

In the shop, Butch went over 42 carts.  He checks battery strength and determines if we need any new ones.  Generally, we get about 8 years on a set of Trojan batteries.  We've tried lower cost batteries that last about 4 years.  Carts are expensive.  Each has 6 batteries with a set costing about $700.