With fall in the air it is time for us to start doing some tree work.  These are great jobs for us to complete while waiting for frost to melt off in the mornings or on cold days.  

Pictured above is our main man Mario aka Butch.  He is a chain-saw wizard and looks forward to this time every season.

The Colors are starting to really get vibrant in the trees.  They should peak out within the week.  

September is such as wonderful month in the U.P.

One of the lost drains found last week, this one on #9.  This is great rain-day work!

Last week was a complete wash-out.  The grounds crew was able to get a lot of misc. duties completed and play a little catch up in the shop.  I was in London so I did not miss a thing on the course.

This week (with some drier weather in the forecast) we will be aerifying the Heritage Tees and continue on with aerification of the Heritage rough.  Once we repair the GA60 we will finish aerification on the Heritage Fairways.

Topdressing the Greywalls Greens went very well last week.
We must mow with our sand reels 3-5 days longer this time of year because the lower air temperature slows down the vertical turf growth.  We reduce the amount of sand applied to the surface for that reason but the duration of sand pick up with our reels is still extended.

Today we are doing another deep vertical mowing of the Heritage Greens to control the surface organic matter.  We hope to get it done before the rain arrives, which looks to be an off/on event all week.

'The Doc' is back and the bunkers are loving it!  We missed you Thill - glad to have you back with us!

The Power to our Heritage Pump-station mysteriously went out on Monday.

After doing some detective work Andy came across the culprit......

A fried Black Squirrel resting peacefully  at the base of the power pole.  

A quick call to the BLP and our power was restored.

                   2.5 inches of Rain fell on the golf courses last night, wow what a rain event.
We are lucky that the GLIAC Championship is being held on Greywalls this weekend and it is a walking event because the course is to wet and dangerous for cart traffic.

 The Drain we installed this year behind the 17 green of Greywalls is working perfectly!  2.5 inches of rain and the once saturated zone is now dry.

Beautiful sky this morning after the rain clouds moved out.

The Fairy ring fungus growing under some of our greens is starting to push mushroom growth right up into the turf canopy.  It is now time to deal with this pest.  

After topdressing on Monday I will apply a fungicide-wetting agent combo to eliminate the pathogen.

We had some tree vandals on the Greywalls course in the last of weeks.  For some reason somebody painted Red-White-Blue circles on the Hemlocks along the left side of the 8 hole.  

I painted over the circles with brown paint this morning to eliminate the eye-sores.  

If anyone knows who did it I would like to know why, please contact me.

Some nice rain last night had me worried about a rain out at work this morning.  Friday is one of our big mow days on Greywalls and we were in tournament preparation mode again for the GLIAC match play event this Saturday and Sunday.   We were in luck, the rain came to a halt about an hour before 'the crew' arrived.  Pictured above is the rain clouds working around the property allowing us to complete our prep work.
The course is cut and trim for what looks like a cool but sunny weekend of fun.

We had a tree fall on the power line by the Greywalls shop after the wind storm a few days ago.  One quick call to the BLP and they were on it.

Mats Only on the Driving Range

We are closing down the turf tees on the Driving Range.  After a long busy summer of taking a complete pounding, it is time to make an attempt at growing some fresh grass on them before winter.

While using the mats keep in mind that the new mats are thicker and deeper allowing them to hold a tee in place.  So if you do not like using the wide rubber tees you can use your own tee on these mats.

Some crazy looking clouds rolled over the course on Monday morning while we prepared for the final day of the 2012 Club Championship.

Someone lifted a putting Green cup this weekend on the Heritage Clubhouse putting Green.  

That is one of the first greens we mow in our route and our operator did not see it in the dark.  Hitting the cup caused the entire front edge of the bedknife to peel off around the reel.   

We had to switch over to using our sand reel for a few days and our quality of cut suffered over a holiday weekend.  The reel was repaired while the bedknife was replaced and reground on Labor day.  We are now back to using our primary reels on the greens.  

Please do not lift cups out of the ground where they are placed.

                                          Buck on the hill in the early morning light

                                           Buck eating some saplings

                                          The local Turkey family

Wildlife out in full force this weekend for the Club Championship

Forgetting to set the parking brake on Greywalls results in hazardous situations.  

Here Jim's cart for the day rolled back into a rock.  He needed help to get out.