Making Omelets

You know the saying, "You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs".  Well, we are definitely breaking some eggs right now as all our winter projects have gotten started, but the wet weather won't allow us to finish anything. Our average rainfall in January is upwards of 6 inches and we are already there with still a week left to go.   The rain and snow has made it challenging, but things are finally starting to come together. We're almost done making messes and the team is excited to get things cleaned up and restored.  I guess you could say we're ready to pour the omelet into the pan.  Here's an update our winter projects.

 We always have a project planned for when it snows.  Weather like this is limiting, but with good planning we can always keep the crew working at peak efficiency.  Last year when it snowed we expanded the parking lot at the practice hole.  It was then that the Committee and the Board discussed the next snow event and put in motion the project you see here which is to replace the huge cedar trees in the guest parking lot.  They had simply gotten too big for their space.

This is what it looks like today.  The stumps have been pulled out and we'll be getting some new plant material for these planting strips as soon as possible.  Typically, it isn't till March or April when we can get a nursery to dig up and deliver new plants.  In the meantime it looks pretty good, and it's certainly a lot safer now that you can clearly see down the road when trying to pull out of the parking lot.  The project on the 8th green is also starting to look a lot better.  The new evergreen buffer is going in quickly.  Check out this series of pictures.

Here's another series of pictures from a different angle.

You can see that we're about half way done with the planting phase.  It looks fantastic and there is so much more light, air, and space to play golf over there near the greenside bunker.  I knew this project was going to turn out great, but it's already exceeded my expectations.  Things aren't going so well on holes 11 and 7 where we're working on an "oak release" project. Work started on New Years Day but since then little has been done given the wet weather.

Getting the trees off the property requires the use of big machines and to avoid injury to the fairways we need to wait a little longer for the right opportunity.  Lastly I want to show you where we're at with the project on #9 green near the driving range tee.

Yes it's kind of a mess right now but once we get a couple of dry days this should come together quickly. The new plants have been dug out and they should easily be transplanted to this location when the opportunity arises. Thank you for your patience as we try and get these omelets cooked up to perfection.