Firewood pile is growing

The guys have been hard at work this week cutting up the logs from the winter's tree removal, most of it being Ash.

We deliver the wood to members throughout the year, the pile was almost depleted.  We now have enough wood to make it through another season.

We see deer on the course frequently, this morning we had 12 of them on 3 fairway.

There was one buck in the group, he still had one antler attached, the other must have been shed not too long ago.

 

 

Fighting fires

This week we have been "fighting fires" not on the course, but with our equipment.  We have had one thing after another break during this past week.  It seems we would get close to repairing one item then another problem would arise on a different machine.

It started last Thursday with our reel grinder, a condenser went out in the electrical box.  This set us back a few days.

On Friday the throttle body on our dump truck broke, parts where hard to come by because of the age of the truck.  We found a local "Good Samaritan" that had some spare parts that helped us out.

Also on Friday the brake line blew on the dump truck, it was rusted through.

On Saturday our snow blower didn't run correctly and we found some loose connections - this only required some special bolts.

Then yesterday we found the log splitter would not run at all, after a few hours of going through all the possible problems, we finally found that the timing belt came off.  This wasn't a big deal in the end, just time consuming when we are trying to fix all the other items.

 

In the end, everything will get fixed, that's why we have a full-time Equipment Manager.  With over $1,100,000 in equipment, these types of weeks are bound to happen.

 

We are not alone

Below is a post from the Oakland Hills Country Club grounds blog, they are located in the suburbs of Detroit and are a top 20 Club in the nation.  Just one example that we are not alone in our fight to keep turf alive in very tough conditions:

Oakland Hills Country Club - Turfgrass Maintenance

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Winter Update and Status Posted: 27 Feb 2014 12:13 PM PST We have been monitoring the condition of the greens on both courses. The unprecedented weather has caused concern throughout SE Michigan. The extreme cold and ice formation is dangerous to turf in all areas but especially on greens. We have been removing snow and ice where appropriate, covering the more at risk greens with permeable covers and generally worrying about the surviveability of the turf in these conditions. Dr. Kevin Frank from MSU was here today to look at several greens. It is too early to know if there is any turf loss or the extent of loss if it occurs. We will keep you informed as conditions permit. Dr. Kevin Frank on #1 green North 

Today's projects

It looks like more snow in the forecast for this weekend.  I think the next few days will be the last time we will be able to get anything accomplished outside before spring hits because it's hard for us to get around the course when there is significant snow on the ground.  There were a few more trees that I wanted to take down this week before the snow hits, we will also be grinding all the stumps and cleaning up the the shavings tomorrow.  This will put us in a good position when spring decides to come.

Removing the Spruce tree on the front, left corner of 17 green.  We also removed the 1/2 of a Spruce tree near 16 fairway - it was damaged in a storm last year.

 

 

Jim Otley (Equipment Manager) has been busy the last few days replacing the reels on our fairway mowers.  This is the last major repair to be done before spring.

Todd Achten (Facilities Manager) came over to our shop to repair our broken heater.

 

 

Winter damage

I guess it's not really news anymore, everyone is used to seeing and hearing about it, in case you haven't heard - the course had moderate flooding this past weekend.  I don't want to make a huge deal out of this every time we flood, but in the culture of full disclosure and communication - this is the 4th flood we have had in 10 months, all of them being in the top 50 floods for Findlay:

April - 17th

July - 34th

December - 8th

February - 44th

 

18 Fairway

Behind 18 green

We will be back to work with the clean-up efforts as soon as the ice melts away.

 

 

This winter has been tough on our greens.  This is a patch on 7 green, patches of turf did not make it through the winter.  Most of the greens look great as of now.  Greens 1, 7 and 12 look a little rough.  7 green lost turf just from the stresses of winter, 1 green lost turf due to snow mold and 12 is browned in areas due to the extreme cold temps we saw.

12 greens looks bad, but as of now I don't see dead turf.  You can see that portions of the green are brown.  This is exactly the areas that we had to add snow to the green a few weeks back.  The green areas are spots that had enough snow cover to insulate the greens from the cold temps, the brown areas are spots that had little snow cover and the tips of the grass blades died.  The turf is still green under the brown tips.  This is a good sign that the plant will make it through winter and grow out of the damage in spring.  A few other greens have similar symptoms, not near as extensive as 12 though.  Overall we are looking fairly good as of now - no major turf loses - just areas that will have to be "babied" as we go into spring.  We have about 30 more days of this cold/stressful weather, let's hope we can get through the remainder of it with no further damage.

 

 

 

 

Pictures

Here are some more pictures of the snow removal process.  We will continue to remove snow on Saturday morning.

Clearing off 6

This is 13 just cleared off, it has 1/2 inch of ice built up on it.

This is 12 green, we cleared the snow yesterday, it had a full day to melt off.

Snow removal from greens

I took a tour of the course today to evaluate the conditions underneath the snow.  The few areas that I uncovered on the fairways are looking good so far.  When you have extended periods of snow cover, the risk for "snow mold" is high.  We sprayed a preventive application for this in November and so far we have not had a break through in the small areas I sampled.

The fairways looked good when uncovered.

The greens on the other hand have a significant layer of ice built up underneath the snow.  poa annua can live around 60 days under ice cover, we are currently at 40 days of ice cover

Therefore we made the decision today to uncover all the greens (or as many as we can).  In doing this, we hope the temperatures are warm enough to melt the ice layer that has built up.  We are also allowing the melted snow a place to escape and run off.  If we did not uncover the greens the snow would continue to melt, the water would move down to the current ice layer and freeze - creating an even thicker layer of ice that would last most likely for the next 3 weeks.

This method is not "guaranteed"  I have seen clubs remove snow and end up worse off than if they hadn't.  There is no scientific trigger that says if you have "this" and it's "this" temp, than you should do "this"  Rather is becomes a feel thing for the Superintendent and doing what they think is best at any point in time.  At certain times snow cover is a good thing, it acts as an insulator and protects the crown of the plant.  My feeling now is that we have too much ice and can't afford more to build up, therefore we are taking the risk of removing the snow.  I am confident this our best option in a challenging winter.

 

 

Gas bill savings

Believe it or not, we have been saving a significant amount on our gas heat bill this winter compared to last winter (at the maintenance shop).  How is that possible, with near record lows for the last 2 months?  If you remember last winter, the Grounds staff installed an adequate ceiling in our shop and added insulation.

Compared to past years, we are saving around $500 a month on our heat bill during the winter months.  When we did the project last winter, I stated in my posts that these types of projects would be worth the cost because of future energy savings.  One comment I heard was "That's good and all, but how long is the payback period and is it worth the time and expense?"  The payback period was 1 year.  I can't wait to see the low heating bills on a "normal" winter.

See my "Rainy day project" post from November 2012 under the Maintenance Building label.

Clubhouse boiler project

The clubhouse hot water tanks along with all the pipes surrounding them have recently been starting to leak (Chad's office has been wet a few times) .  Yesterday, Todd Achten, our clubhouse maintenance supervisor; along with Adam Bateson and Eric Lowery from the Grounds staff started replacing our hot water tanks and the copper plumbing around the boilers.  The guys started at 2:00pm after the Club shut down on Sunday and worked until midnight.  The have also been hard at work all day today completing this project.

Eric cutting copper pipe to size.

Todd and Adam installing the tanks and pipe.

Project almost complete - it looks great.

This project had to be done while the Club was closed because in doing this, we had to shut off the hot water.  This is why the guys worked late into the night on Sunday and all day Monday.  We were able to save the club $6,000 in capital funds vs. using a contractor to perform the work.

David Brim was caught giving the bag room a makeover.

 

Winter greens maintenance

After the strong winds last night, certain spots on our greens had all the snow cover blown off, leaving the turf exposed to the elements.  With the extreme cold temps the next few days, it makes me a little nervous exposing the turf to those -30 degree wind chills.  Therefore, we did not take any chances, today we went around the course and covered all the bare areas on the greens with a few inches of snow.  This will help moderate the temps.  If the temp outside is -15 degrees, with a few inches of snow, the ground temp would probably be closer to 0 degrees at the surface.

Adding snow to 12 green.

Turf is made up of moisture and if that plant (especially the crown) freezes, it means plant death.  Now, I know what you are thinking - the plant freezes at 32 degrees, well, not exactly.  Time for a science lesson: Turf, through a "cold hardening process" accumulates proteins, amino acids and carbohydrates in the plant tissue.  This creates a concentrated solution inside the plant cell that won't freeze until anywhere from -5 degrees down to -40 degrees.  Basically the plant is making a "antifreeze solution" to protect itself.  If the plant has adequate time to harden off, it usually does OK.  Our northern neighbors will sometime cover greens with straw and blankets to protect greens from the thawing and hard freezing cycles that come around each winter if they typically don't get enough snow.  Three weeks ago when we had the extreme cold temps, we had plenty of snow cover.  Today we had a few bare spots and to give the turf a fighting chance, we gave it natures own blanket.  We won't know if any damage was done until spring.  I don't forsee large patches of dead turf, but I would not be surprised if small sections didn't make it through the hard winter.

This type of winter "threat" is caused by extreme temps and high winds.  There is another type of winter threat that is caused by freezing and thawing cycles - turf under ice cover only lasts for so long.  We have small sections that are under ice currently (mainly in the fairways).  Again - I would not be surprised if small sections of turf did not make it through winter.

While out on the course, we saw an interesting weather phenomenon:  Snow Rolls - we figure it must have been caused by last night's weather - melting temps with high winds.

These snow rolls were all over.

We thought maybe the deer were trying to make snowmen.

 

 

Shop work

I have to be honest - we are not getting a lot of work done out on the golf course.  Frigid temps have been holding us back and allowing us to get some detail work done in the shop.

Our triplex mower is getting its steering components rebuilt.

The sprayer is getting a new glow plug and injectors.

The fountain received a fresh coat of paint.

Today the benches are getting a makeover.

 

 

Flood Clean-up

Today we were finally able to get outside and do some flood clean up.  The recent weather and snow has deterred us from getting the debris cleaned up in a timely matter.  The good news is that nobody is around to see the debris anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

It looks like up to an inch of snow tonight, this will impede our progress again seeing that we can't rake up debris that is covered in snow and can't see.

 

As the ground continues to freeze, we will transition into more tree removals and if the weather turns sour again, we have plenty of work to do indoors to prepare for next year.

 

 

January Projects

This post is more of a Club-wide post.  As you know, the Club is closed in January which gives us some time to thoroughly clean the Club and get a few projects done.

Teresa has been busy putting together the annual budget

Jeff is adding some color to the Club

 

Shawn making sure the kitchen is as clean as we can make it

Jesse and Josh taking grills apart to do a thorough cleaning

Jim at the maintenance shop grinding reels for next spring's fairways

 

We are looking forward to opening the Club on Jan. 31 with a fresh look and feel.  We hope to see you at the Opening Party.

 

Current Flood Status

This our third flood in 9 months - April, July and December.  This one will just beat out April's flood as the higher of the three.  We are currently at 13.5 ft and I expect the water to go up another foot and a half yet.  The course received 3.2" of rain over the last 48 hours.

 

1,8,9,17,18 are under water.

We pulled the motors yesterday, I'm glad we did.

One more foot of water and the motors would have been ruined.

 

Flooding preperations

There is not much that we can do to prevent flooding, but there are a few things that we can do to prevent damage or loss.  Yesterday we pulled out all our green stakes and fish line from the river perimeter.  These stakes were there to deter geese from entering the property.  With the threat of flood, I would rather not let the stakes all float away.  Also today we have pulled the irrigation motors up from the river.  The National Weather Service has continued to increase it's prediction on the cresting height of the Blanchard in Findlay.  Yesterday it was 13.6ft, this morning it was 14.5ft and now the prediction is 15.5ft.  At 14.5ft, the water would rise enough to cause damage to the irrigation motors.  That is why we have raised them off of the river already.  Once this passes and dries out, we will begin clean up efforts.