Zodiac

I haven't discovered who the killer is, but we are now using a seed called Zodiac.  Zodiac is a chewings fescue that I have had blended with ryegrass (60% rye grass and 40% Zodiac chewings fescue) to use as an overseed material.  I learned about this during a webinar that Sierra Pacific Turf Supply put on for its golf course customers.  The one fact that really caught my ear was that chewings fescue requires 30% less water than rye grass.  Continuing that thought, if we can get some of this Zodiac fescue established in our dry spots, over the years our dry spots won't look as dry.  The ultimate goal is firmer and faster with much less turf desiccation than we currently experience.

Final Tee Update

We kind of finished the last of the golf course tee leveling project this week.  I say kind of because we ran short on sod, but more will be here next week Wednesday when we re-sod the teaching tee.  The picture to the left is of 2 Lake Cinnabar tee which turned out really nice.  The hardest of all of the tees we re-leveled was 7 canyon.  We had to raise the back of the tee close to 8 inches.  It is still a little soft, but with water and rolling, it shall be fine.

During the process, I found two guys on our crew that have an amazing eye for making a tee level.  Both Odilio Landa and Addel Montero did a great job with  9 lake, 2 lake, and 2 canyon Cinnabar tees.  When I went to check 9 lake with the transit, it was sloping front to back and left to right by less than 1.25 inches.  You couldn't do better with the best equipment you could buy.  I joked around with Odilio that he is so good because he is so close to the ground (maybe 5'4").

Projects will now be on a hiatus until we complete the fairway aeration which starts next Tuesday the 27th and concludes on Tuesday the 11th of October.  Unless of course I decide to bite off more than I can chew as usual.

Tee Update

Starting Monday, we will begin removing the sod from 2 & 9 lake tees and also 2, 3, & 7 canyon tees.  The correct sod will be here on Thursday the 22nd.  We delayed the project because I forgot that we did not have a close nine this past week.  This week will still be tough being that we have three 200+ player tournaments.

The new tees that we did two weeks ago are doing great.  They have been mowed a dozen times or so by now and a lot of the imperfections are working themselves out.  You may have also noticed that we topdressed them very heavily to help with the imperfections.  Things seem to be on schedule to open them in the next 3 weeks.

The Release

Last night we released the one owl that did not go in the boxes and we opened the doors to the other boxes to allow the owls to leave.  The video of the one release can be seen here.  The one owl did not go in the boxes with the other four because she was not familiar with the other four.  There is the possibility that they would attack and kill one another if put in the same box.  Fortunately, it made for an eventful release because when we opened the doors to the other boxes nothing happened. The group of Mr. & Mrs. Pauser, Ms. Baldwin, my daughter Samantha and myself had a great time nonetheless.  We even got to see a tarantula which was a special treat for my daughter.

Hacking

I don't think I will be getting any grief from our newest members at Cinnabar Hills.  I am talking about the 5 new barn owls that we will be introducing to the
wild this coming weekend.  With help from our bird expert Lee Pauser, our site was selected to release 5 rescued barn owls.  The barn owls come to us from Ms. Valerie Baldwin who is a part of the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley.  The young barn owls were discovered in bails of hay and were trained to capture live prey in a flight cage at Ms. Baldwin's home.  Now that they are ready for the wild, 4 of the owls were placed in the barn owl boxes that we have. This process of introduction is called hacking.  The owls will stay inside the boxes for a couple of days being fed mice and gophers.  When deemed ready, we will open the doors and they will be free to come and go.  The owls have been banded by Mr. Steve Simmons (you can see the video here) so it is possible to track their whereabouts.

Got Laid

I am talking about the sod of course.  What did you think I was talking about?  We received the correct sod early Friday  morning and had it laid by 11 am.  The tees look great and more importantly, they are level.  I hope to have the tees open in 4 - 6 weeks depending on how well the sod takes hold.  While they are growing in, we will be preparing the tees on 2 lake, 9 lake, 2 canyon and 3 canyon for sod on the 15th of September.

Making Mistakes

I was hoping to write today about how we received 9,000 square feet of sod and how we completed the tees, but unfortunately that is not going to happen.  The truck that showed up had 9,000 square feet of bermuda grass on it, but I had ordered blue/ rye.  To top that off, I had an irrigation pipe break last night that was supposedly fixed yesterday.  It is only 0730 so I believe this qualifies as a bad start to the day.  Thinking positively, it can only get better from here; I hope!

As far as the sod goes, I am not going to lament over the mistake.  All I want to do is figure out how we are going to solve the problem.  I have been working with this company for ten years and I know they will make it right.  I wouldn't hesitate from buying from them again.  They are a great company with a good team.

While the irrigation problem wasn't good, I can bet that it will never happen again.  The picture shows the broken slip fix that was freshly glued yesterday.  As great as slip fixes are, they can be troublesome in high pressure situations.  What we have talked about to prevent this in the future is to put the sliding part of the slip fix on the low pressure side of things and more importantly, put a thrust block behind the T where all the pressure is.  A thrust block can be a bag of concrete or a piece of wood jammed in to hold it in place.  The guys should be done getting it fixed by now and they have now learned a valuable lesson.

While mistakes can be costly upfront, there are a lot of positives that can come from them.   After all, success isn't possible without making a few mistakes along the way.