Let's not worry about the rain for a second....

Indeed, the finest bell staff EVER!

In the past week we've received somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.6" of rainfall and lets just say it's hampered our operations outside somewhat.  That being said, let's focus on the good stuff!

  We received and put into service a newer fairway mower for the golf course

I don't advocate your dog should mow fairways but if you need your dog to pose for pictures and look better than perhaps the owner, well, you get the idea.  This particular unit came to us a couple weeks ago and Bryan Stephen, our equipment technician extraordinaire and John Pascente, Grounds Manager, helped put this machine into great operating condition.  This unit will receive a twin in the coming days to dramatically improve our capacity to mow the 46 acres of fairway at Blackhawk Trace Golf Club.  Upgrades on both machines include light kits, grass catchers and turf groomers.  I plan to utilize these two machines in a couple of different ways on the golf course. I won't let  Hunter operate and I suppose I shouldn't either....

Our cheerful Director of Golf, Tom Denklau, reading a manual on how to stop the rain

 Barrett and Dale sodding Dale's plow damage from the winter

 Who actually is to blame for the plow damage is up for debate

There's a very real possibility it was me, just saying

It is also probably John Pascente's fault if not Carlos, Jr., Dale, myself or even people who don't work here anymore.  I don't want to play the blame game.  The important thing to remember is that Cesar, Chily, Nick, Barrett and Cornelio helped fix it and for that we thank them.

Bryan managed to put the aerifier tines on, if it would dry out long enough to use it!

If the weather does improve we will aerify the greens and tees on Blackhawk Trace.  If the weather improves and we do aerify I will post a video here so you can be sufficiently impressed with how HUGE an enterprise it actually is.  IF it dries out.

  Feliciano and Manuel Munoz planted our Easter Lilies that are opening nicely

We are hoping for good weather over the weekend and a busy Easter Sunday!  I will post pics later of the harpist in the conference center.  I heard she's terrific!

We're installing a trash pump today to prevent....

... this....

 ..and this

OK, we get it, it's wet outside!  I hope everyone has a great weekend and that we see you real soon at Indian Lakes!

 No blog post can be complete without The Tom

Snow.....It SNOWED again!

Well, it snowed again.  That's right, we got 'trace' amounts of snow yesterday and I thought I would share a few pictures for you.

This car had become covered outside the Dunkin Donuts on Lake Street

This is the first tee on Highland at approximately 6 a.m.

  That is one sad looking flower 

We were able to make a little headway on things last week before the snow/rain on Saturday and what turned out to be a reasonably nice day on Sunday.  The shed that houses the Driving Range equipment and ball dispenser was in need of some attention.  

 The access door had eroded away a great deal

 The pavers aren't needed for the window anymore as the ball dispenser is now used

 The ball dispenser grass needed some help

 The golf staff needed a path to get back to the ball dispenser access panel

 We re-sodded the front area.  We will add pavers when a wear pattern presents itself

 We removed the pavers, raised the irrigation and power trenches and built a path

 A better view of the path to the access panel

 As the golfer traffic begins to show a pattern we will add pavers or some other method to handle the traffic instead of constantly re-sodding the area.  Cesar, Cornelio and Chily did a great job helping with this work.

How NOT to build bunkers: Part I

Remember this?  This turned out to be part I in a series of how NOT to do stuff.

This picture shows another poor option for bunker construction

It is a good rule of thumb to not build bunkers on top of  old irrigation

In this situation a bunker was built on top of old irrigation.  At the very least the old pipe should have been removed and capped outside the bunker.  It is my guess that this pipe had been heaving out for the last seven or so years and it had finally had enough and erupted through the bunker.  We will excavate this pipe outside the hazard and cap it so it won't be a problem going forward.  A little sand touch up and we'll be done.

We will continue (and hopefully finish) patching our sidewalks in the coming week or so if we can get the weather to do so.  

 Feliciano and Javier have been busy patching our sidewalks from winter damage

 As the patches dry they match nicely.  Good work, gentlemen

 That about does it for now.  We will look forward to better weather as it can't get much worse (cross your fingers) than it is today.  On the calendar is vertical mowing, aerification and sand topdressing next week.  For those of you at home now is the time to apply preventive grassy weed (crabgrass, goosegrass, etc) control.  If you have questions on products or application methods please let me know.   Thanks and have a great week!