AALC Thank You

I would just like to share with you the very nice thank you letter that I got Wendy Nagle's class at the Ann Arbor Learning Community. They donated a couple of bat house to the golf course and then came out to visit one of them. You can read more about this HERE.

Also, here is a nice picture of a blue flag iris from the native plant garden near #12.

And the peonies at the clubhouse.

Ann Arbor Learning Community's Bat House

On February 2nd, 2011, I went to Wendy Nagle's 2nd and 3rd grade classroom at the Ann Arbor Learning Community to give them a short power point presentation on the environmental initiatives that we have implemented here at Leslie Park and receive a bat house that the children had made.

On April 11th, we were finally able to hang the bat house near #3 fairway.

When I let Wendy know that we had hung the house, she told me that they had another one available and that the class would like to come out to the golf course and give it to me. On May 26th, the weather co-operated enough for 18 kids as well as 10 chaperones to come out and present us with our second bat house.

We then took a little stroll out to #3 to look at the original bat house.

Catching Up.

Things have been busy the last week or so. Golf season is finally upon us (as evidenced by the 80 degree weather we had last Sunday, hope you got a chance to get out and play.)

Here are some of the things we have been working on.
1) New irrigation installed on the left side of #3, between #1 and #3 and the left side of #16. Below is a picture of the lines on #3.

2) We put up a bat house that we got as a gift from Wendy Nagle's 2nd and 3rd grade class at the Ann Arbor Learning Community.

3) We deep-tine aerified all of the greens and hollow tined the collars. The deep tine aerification is a solid 14 inch long tine. This breaks through any layers that develop in our greens over time. #3 green is a prime example of this layering. After many years of topdressing on the greens, we now have 3-4 inches of sand on all of our greens. Unfortunately, water doesn't move readily through the change from one layer to the next. On #3, this means that all of the water from the spring tends to sit in the top 3 inches, making it waterlogged. This is why we had #3 green closed down this spring. The channel that the deep tine punches allows water to move past the layer and drain out of the soil profile.

After aerifing, we topdressed sand onto the greens to fill in the holes and smooth the putting surface.

4)We also turned on the irrigation system. We waited until after we had the new irrigation lines installed because it makes it a lot easier to do when the lines are not filled with water.

5) I saw this green heron (Butorides virescens) near the pumphouse. I love this little bird. It is not as famous as it's larger cousin, the great blue heron, but I think it is more interesting. That might be because I don't see them as much.