Reverse months

If you go by the old saying April showers bring May flowers it appears we have reversed things a bit this year. We had ourselves a bit of a drought and now we seem to be in a wet pattern. Another 1.10 inches fell since yesterday and it is still sprinkling as I type this. Sorry for the delay as I spaced out my weekly post last weekend. Friday was a busy day playing catch up on mowing due to aerifying and rain, seems to be a theme, and I decided to escape to sandwich Friday night and return Saturday morning with Frank Cecilio for our weekend game. How he travels on the boat everyday is astounding to me. I can manage the odd day like yesterday where I mowed greens, headed off for a Rhode Island Superintendents meeting in Providence and caught the last boat back, but every day? Meetings are always fun and informative whether talking to other Superintendents or old friends or playing a golf course and getting to compare how you stack up. Speaking of old friends the Professional, Norm, at the course I played yesterday is from my home town and was a senior when I was a freshman playing on the varsity hockey team. I played baseball growing up and graduated with his brother Kevin. Norm Alberigo has developed a line of putters since I last saw him, so it was cool to chat him up on that enterprise. Check it out here. I hope it revolutionizes the game of golf and he becomes the next Ping and I can say "I remember him when".
Back to what has been going on here at Mink since the last post: We aerified greens last Monday. We had done the tees and approaches in the previous week but not topdressed them then so we took on the large task of topdressing everything in one day to beat the impending rain. It was a long day but we managed to get them all done and cleaned up thanks in part to some new help Ryan Welty, a new addition, and Scott Cleary, Kevin's nephew recruited for the day. Barry and Mike put in a full day as well as the rest of the full time staff.

Boys picking up aerifier plugs



9 green after the rain wed



We received 2.95" last week which helped wash in the sand. The greens have started to recover and should be back to 100% any day now, especially with the 1.5" of rain this week. As promised I did remember to take a picture of the moss on one although I did not slice my ball over there again and with all the rain it has bounced back nicely and the woods we seeded is germinating and turning green there as well.



moss rt side of one after some rain



woods beyond Mat. Storage area greening up

I do not know what is up with the demographics of Mink Meadows but there is at least 6-7 properties for sale in here right now. I don't think it is any reflection of the work we do on the roads or course but it is a bit odd to have so many at once. a sign of the times perhaps?

Oh yeah another event last week was the return to MV of Otis who came back from double knee replacement and is recuperating at home. Hopefully he recovers fast and joins us on the crew again to keep the grass in an orderly state.