No November rain, we are still cranking!

 

We have had some great sunrises this week as a few different weather systems have moved through. None of which have brought any kind of significant rain, leaving November with just .27" of rain so far. The irrigation guys are loving the weather, as are we for as far as projects go. The bluegrass on the Sabot is yearning for a little precipitation but that is just the way it goes.

The dry weather has meant that the dormant vamont on the front of the Sabot is still looking great. This is no contest against any kind of overseed at the moment. We will keep monitoring over here as the winter rolls on, as inevitably we are going to some rain.

The mainline piping has now reached the bridge on 8. Since we are keeping our old system on for a few more weeks, the new pipe will stop at the bridge and then start again on the other side. We are able to reuse the pipe attached the bridge since it was already an HDPE pipe. The size of the irrigation crew will continue to grow in size after the holiday and especially into January. 

Our team continues to knock out the fast and dirty projects. On Monday we took the excavator out to the ornamental grass bed by 15 Sabot tees. These grasses were really just out of place on a tree lined golf course. The maintenance demand with the pruning, weeding and mulching was just unnecessary.

We used up some of our spare sod from the bunker project on 9 and covered these beds up. 

The dry weather has also allowed us to finally make it over to the left side of 12 fairway for some tree work. A variety of dead and mal shaped trees, along with some larger ones that keep the left side of the fairway in the shade all day have been removed. There is still some work left to do here but we have been just trying to work on the back nine on the Mondays and then get back out of the way of golf, at least until the end of the year.

One project that is coming to a head is the new black tee on 5 Sabot. The old left hand side black tee has been transported back 40 yards. This new tee will make the hole play at 450 yards. Good luck!

The beginning of the fiscal year means another equipment lease turnover. Two of our sprayers have been swapped out for new units. These new pieces are both GPS driven, with individual nozzle control as well as auto steering. The technology here does not get any newer and the benefits are large on all fronts. A tighter application with the GPS tech saves on product costs, makes applications faster and the product is placed within just a few inches of where we want it. 

We drew a cold but sunny day today to get the capillary concrete down in the last two bunkers on 9. On these large, flat bunkers we can get away with just placing the permeable concrete on the face of the bunker as opposed to the whole floor. We hope to fill these bunkers up with sand on Friday and call this project finished! We will have plenty of sand ready and waiting to move over the Manakin in the coming weeks and months.

The squad has certainly earned their turkey here, we wish everyone a pleasant Thanksgiving!