A January thaw has us dreaming of spring.  Hopefully the greens will thaw out before the next cold wave arrives.  Playing on thawing greens is not permitted as shots into the putting surface can not be repaired properly.  Even worse root shear can occur from walking and twisting on the green.  Since the green is not growing play is prohibited until they completely thaw out or refreeze again.  Playing on frozen greens is permitted but if they are frozen it usually is too cold to play.  Temporary greens will remain as an alternative.

Yes it has been very cold.  This is from the 12th fairway in full sun on January 9th.  I had to pound a screwdriver into the ground to insert the thermometer. Twenty-one degrees!

We wrapped our bee hives with towels during the cold spell to better insulate them.

Once the weather broke the towels were removed and later that day bees began checking out the warmth.

Plenty of bee activity when the temperatures were in the 60's.

The crew continues to cut back last years growth around all our water features.

We try to recycle this material when possible in some of our native areas.  A tractor will grind this up while the ground is frozen. 

I attended the Mid-Atlantic Nurseryman's Tradeshow in Baltimore recently. If you like plants and need a shot of spring for a day it's very worthwhile.

Audubon certification is nearly complete.  Here is a display we created to illustrate what we are doing and part of the certification process.

It's one o'clock and my screwdriver only goes in one inch. We will try again tomorrow-until then its temporary greens!

What a contrast to our last blog! Near record temperatures have put a halt on all outdoor work excluding snow removal.  Temperatures are expected to moderate some next week.  Despite the frigid cold we were able to get some necessary tree work done while the course was frozen.  Props go to our contractor who did some marvelous work in some really trying conditions.

The crew has accomplished plenty since Christmas.  Here they are cutting back annual growth around pond #4.

That is Edgar behind the mask sporting his wand of death.  After undesirable saplings are cut he applies a nice dose of concentrated Roundup to eliminate them permanently.

Large Virginia scrub pine removed near the 18th green.

Eight dead or in decline trees were removed in all with a nice mountain of chips left for us to spread.

The pile of branches by the 12th green from a year of storm debris and pruning was chipped up as well.

Back inside once cold weather arrived the guys started working on course amenities.

Tee marker refurbishment in progress.

Rony working on cart directional posts.

It gets pretty tight in the shop and Oscar will a happy camper to have these guys back on the course!

Have you noticed we are pretreating our parking lot?  One of our distributors sells a brine solution in 275 gallon totes.  Josh made this "West Virginia" sprayer that works like a champ.  He's still waiting for his royalties.

This frigid weather has us concerned about our bees.  We added this bit of insulation to help them survive.

Ice Station Springfield!

We had a festive Christmas party at the Austin Grill on December20th. Cheers and Happy New Year!