Salamanders and Snails

A couple weeks back when mowing greens one morning I ran into some interesting wildlife on a couple of different greens. Seems I remember seeing salamanders in the 4-5 area in the past. As the site of these guys flooded me with memories it occurred to me that it is always at this time of year. No idea why as I have never done any research into salamanders so whether they are migrating or heading to over wintering spots or just on the move I cannot tell you? They were clearly different from each other in color what ever that means. The snail had travelled a long way. It was a heavy dew that day and so the tracks being left were a dead give away. As I have said here before when mowing you are always on the look out for anything that could damage the mower or green. Not uncommon to see earth worms or ground beetles and an occasional ground spider web in the dew. Anything else gets your attention.

why did the snail cross the green?

5 green salamander

4 green salamander
This week we had a couple of irrigation breaks. This occurrence and the continuing weather pattern has me seriously thinking about blowing this thing out and calling it a season. We certainly have put the system through it's paces this year. One of the leaks was a repair coupling on the 2.5
" sub-main and the other a stainless band clamp on the 6' main line. Major difference? sub-main 2 feet deep, main line 6 feet. Never any fun digging a hole to 6 feet in depth. Both were relatively quick and easy fixes and we are back up and running waiting for the next one to spring up! You can see the reason they ran a sub main to feed as many heads as possible on the "new" system back in the early 90's. They did not want to dig that deep either.

good repair coupling gone bad on sub main

main line mostly buried running north and south. white pipe is feed to 9 g
some interesting fungi at the base of an oak tree
I will be away next week and so probably no post for a bit. If I remember at the end of next week and find a minute I may send a quick pic from my adventures in Oregon as I play the 5 courses at Bandon Dunes.

2 comments:

  1. matt, i just left mink meadows and kevin and ellen have all under control in the face of SANDY arriving in the following days.......pick up sticks soon..enjoy oregon.......regards ross cowan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Ross. I hope it is only sticks. Bandon has been spectacular and will do a post on it when I can get picture and videos off of phone. very troubling to be stuck away from home with all flights cancelled. Luckily there is a turf group from the northwest that has a seminar here so mixing some education into the trip will help distract from the frustration of not being home in a crisis

    ReplyDelete