another week gone by

The weather is sporadic with some nice and many not so nice. I caught a not so nice on Tuesday for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of Cape Cod's annual scholarship and research tournament. We played The Golf Club at Cape Cod in Falmouth. It is a new private club right next to Ballyemede. If you get the chance it would be well worth the boat trip. One of the best courses I have played in years. I wish I could tell you I played the best in years but that is another post...
We managed to get a little tree work done this week. Will spent some time earlier this year cutting a few dead trees and hauling them into our pit on six and then most of Wednesday dropping a few trees. The tree company came in on Thursday, sorry ladies, and chipped what he cut and also a few more he dropped Thursday. We lose about a dozen pines every year on the property and this year a couple were in the large variety.

Will cutting dead tree on Range



Brush in the pit on 6

We continue to have a few irrigation problems. 4 zones are not working with the main control system that we use. They are however working with the old stand alone satellite which only adds to the confusion. After several attempts at repair by switching out electric cards and the like today's revelation was the fact that a sprinkler came up with out a second wire even attached to the clock. For anyone that knows anything about electricity current needs a circuit to work. It travels down one wire and back another. if you remove one of the wires or say it breaks than you break the circuit and usually stuff does not work. With impending t-storms I decided to call it a day with that nightmare! About a half hour later mike came in and told me there was water running on the 3rd green cart path. Upon investigation the back left sprinkler was gushing water and dirt. Will dug as much as he could before leaving but it was all mud and still not fully exposed. I waited an hour and continued. One of the new elbows had cracked. It started sprinkling again so I called it a day on that one too! Starting to hate Fridays as much as Mondays.
Saw this Monday morning whilst hosing fairways:

Is it still called vandalism when it is your staff???

I wrapped up my sprayer investigations today with a trip to Farm Neck. More about that procedure in another post.
I try to keep this blog about stuff related to the Mink but I would be remiss if I did not mention the fact that Boston Bruins won Lord Stanley's Cup Wednesday night. I have been a big fan for my entire life and the bride and I watched almost every game this year. What a treat. Well worth all the lack of sleep and fuzzy mornings. Next week will be the first week with all staff on board. Taylor Smith is back from college out in Oregon and Mike wraps up school here on Tuesday. That means we can start to tackle little projects like mulching the beds, cleaning the woods areas of 3,8 and the left hill on 9 as well as finishing the power washing and staining of the decks. Assuming I can get ahead of the irrigation system I would like to start spraying some of the clover and crabgrass which is just starting to appear.