Bones

Driving around the course yesterday, I came across the bones pictured.  They were displayed prominently on the 4th tee of the Canyon course.  Probably a raccoon, but I am not an animal expert by any means.  What's really neat is that you can bend the spine and see how the vertebrae move. Maybe a bobcat or coyote got it, but it's really hard to say.  I can say that it is NOT a mountain lion.  We have a mountain lion if we have half of a deer which I am glad to say hasn't happened in a few years now.

Tee Rocks

Every year we go about the process of repainting our tee rocks and this year is no different.  How it got decided I don't remember, but our spray technicians (Poli, Joel & Vitaliano) are the guys that paint them and they have again come up with a way to enhance the procedure.  What they found was that if they heat the rocks with a heat lamp before the paint and apply the stickers, the outcome is much better.  Below are pictures of the process.    

Paint stripper applied and paint scratched off

Rocks getting taped and warmed up

Poli applying the primer

Sun bathing for painted rocks

Sticker being applied

Final product

Gutter Cleaning

We may be a couple of months into the rain season, but we are now finally expecting our first decent rain.  With the frost that we have had the last couple of days, we got the opportunity to clear out all the gutters.  Gutter cleaning isn't that titillating, but it surprises me every year how dirty the gutters get.  Not just with leaves, but actual mud.  Alvaro (pictured) and Odilio braved the elements and cleaned them out for us today.

A Native Trim

With the lack of rain, we have been busy hacking away all of our native areas.  The reason we like to do this is so we can give the grasses a competitive advantage over the weeds.  While this doesn't eliminate all the weeds, the grasses have certainly been gaining over the last few years.  We use line trimmers to do most of this which seems cruel and unusual, but we have to considering the terrain and the amount of rocks/ boulders in our native areas.  If you look at a recently trimmed area, you'll see green plants ready to spring as soon as we get some rain.

The B.M.I.

While all the politicians have been announcing initiatives and agendas in Iowa this past week, I am announcing our own initiative of sorts.  I am calling it the Ball Mark Intitiative or BMI which sounds a bit more catchy.  This plan unifies all parties while working across the lines to do what is best for the course.  The BMI takes a 4 pronged approach to solving ball marks.  We have introduced friendly reminders on the flag sticks, posted signs in the golf shop, we are providing free repair tools and we are also informing customers in the shop and through the GPS system.  The next step begins with you.  If you can get one person to follow you in fixing your ball mark and doing it correctly, than you can go to sleep knowing you helped make Cinnabar a better place.  

All kidding aside, un-repaired ball marks this time of year may take up to 4 or 6 weeks to heal assuming they haven't been filled with Poa annua.  

The Black Stripes

I wish The Black Stripes were a band that my sister and I had started, but the White Stripes stole that idea.  Unfortunately the black stripes that can be seen on the second fairway of the Canyon course are due to sprayer malfunction (person and machine).  I had a crew member put together a small mix last week to see if that was what I wanted on fairways this week and a hose broke while spraying the fairway.  The black lines will eventually grow out, but with these cold temperatures, it may be a while.