And so it begins

First mowing # 5 Green

Decided to start you off with a picture right out of the gate. I mowed greens Tuesday morning. We had a frost the next morning which is not what I anticipated but we did not see anything change and they continued to green up more every day since. I usually try to schedule the first mow when it will rain overnight to help diminish the shock. Will spread a lime application which seems to be an annual thing now as we continue to try and balance our soils. The addition of salt water reeks havoc with the chemistry in the soil and requires careful attention and extra inputs such as high calcium lime and gypsum to help bring them back to balance.

Will spreading lime on # 2

Speaking of saltwater intrusion in our well and havoc. We tried to fire up the pump station and do our normal preventative maintenance and flow meter calibration (state requirement) on Wednesday only to find a catastrophic failure. Instead of the 400 gpm (gallons per minute) or a reasonable facsimile we could only muster about 30 gpm. This was not shocking but certainly not expected or welcome. The discussions have begun and we are researching what are options are to proceed. The preliminary ones include bringing our old 6" well, drilled in the 60's and abandoned in 97 when we drilled the current one, back into service. We may have to chemically clean our existing well and try to use sparingly to augment the 6" (assuming the pump itself still works). We do have a 4" well that we use to maintain line pressure and small volume watering so that may play a bigger role also. All conjecture at this point and very early in the process. We always have the option of buying all of our water and using the town booster pump. Not my first choice for many reasons. This would be why you turn your system on as early as possible so you have time to deal with any problems. I will keep you posted as things progress. My hope is that you will not even notice any changes as my efforts to water deep and infrequently, begun in earnest last season on fairways at least, will begin again with a renewed vigilance. The process has been in place for a few seasons on greens and worked extremely well. We ran into a few localized dry areas on fairways last season and so for this year we have stepped up our use of wetting agents to overcome this in the future. With Spring rains a normal occurrence it is not as immediate an issue as it would be if in the middle of our summer dry period but the solutions are not overnight ones so we need to get right on this to avoid hassles come Summer. In the meantime we still have many tasks to wrap up getting the course back into shape and also fill the entire irrigation system to see if it survived the Winter without issue.

Pump house - not a pretty site in color or velocity

porch deck after staining

Hopefully we get a few nice days to finish the clubhouse deck staining next week. There is rain predicted early in the week but if you have read this far you know I will not complain about that with our current pump/well issues. We continue to play catch up cleaning the course after the blizzard last week and all the debris it left behind. The Osprey's are back, as well as the pinkletink frogs and I even saw the willows in bloom. All a sure sign that brighter days lie ahead.

willow

our mascot since the 70's when the pole was put up. one of the first on the island