August (last minute) Update

Leave it to me to wait until the last few days of the month to squeeze in a monthly report.  I was much too frustrated the last four days to be optimistic about anything, that is why I waited for the sun to break through before I passed on this information.  This Tropical system that decided to park itself directly over SW Florida for the past four days dropped closed to 12 inches of rain on Stonebridge.  This brings our total for August to over 20 inches and if you add that to June and July we have endured over 70 inches of rain during that span.  That three month accumulation is 15 inches more than our ANNUAL average. 

"The Sun will come out Tomorrow" "The Sun will come out Tomorrow" "The Sun will come out Tomorrow"  I keep telling my team that we will catch a break and the weather will reward our hard work if we just BELIEVE! 

 Enough with the depressing weather, let's move on to the nuts and bolts of what we've been up to and where we are headed. Below you will find a picture of a little green house that I am sure most of you did not know existed.  This houses our Common Grounds Pump Station.  Or in layman's terms "the machinery that draws water out of the lake to supply the irrigation for all the homeowners and Common Areas".  We had to clear the hedges in front of the building because we are well over due for a replacement on this very important asset.  During our September closure we will be removing the failing equipment and installing a more efficient upgraded pump station.  This new station comes equipped with a built in filtering system and we are incorporating a biological cleaning program that will aid in reducing clogged sprinkler heads and faulty valves.  I will be certain to take a lot of photos during the installation. There is a crane involved, it should be pretty cool.

We also finished up our Cart Path Removal/Enhancement Project.  I never knew what to call it but I think it will make quite the impact this season.  The last few steps were to switch out the soft path material  on #1, #6, #15 an #17 and to add the concrete extensions to the exits and entrances around the tees and greens.  This should help to reduce some concentrated wear areas.  After a little "wheeling and dealing" I talked our contractor into coming back to take care of a nagging issue.  The cart path leading from #13 to #14 had quite a dangerous drop off and a sharp right turn just past my Maintenance entrance.  We formulated a plan to raise the catch basin and concrete the surrounding area to make it safer for our members and guests.  

We are a week away from our last Summer closure.  Typically, we tend to ease into Season, this year will be completely different.  The saturated conditions on the golf course are far reaching, if we are not aggressive in our approach during the last months of the growing season, our turf will not be acclimated to survive the season.  

It has been a trying Summer, but I am not about to throw in any semblance of a towel.  "WE" will make it happen.

Common Grounds Pump Station

New Concrete en route to #14