What a week!! Last Friday, the weather was sky blue sunny, with the temp gettin into the low 80's. The ground was dryin out and it wasn't near as muddy as it was the beginning of the week. I was mowin in shirtsleeves. I even got sunburned. Picked up some sunblock on the way home.
Then over the weekend we get 2.5" of rain and everything is soft again. Mud tracks and ruts were common along with very tall grass. This is the 'low spot' on the driving range. Always takes a couple days to drain off.
Monday's high was in the low 50's maybe . . . with a cold, damp wind (15-25 mph) blowin all day. I was wearin all my cold weather mowin stuff. Everyone else has several jobs during the day and they are movin around all the time. I have one job . . . drive the rough mower around looking for tall grass to cut to size. So basically I'm sitting out in the weather on a moving chair. I was wearin everything but my long underwear. I spent a lot of time that day wishin I was wearing that long underwear. Took a long, hot shower to warm up when I got home. Went to bed early that night.
Tuesday's weather was a carbon copy of Monday. Did I mention there was plenty of drizzle both days. I wore my long underwear and was glad I did.
Wednesday, the temp got into the upper 50's by quittin time. Lots of drizzle and haze during the day, but there was very little wind. The ground is feelin softer each day, but I didn't stuck all week. I mowed by 'feel.' When I felt the ground get soft to a certain point. I stop and very gently back up. A couple times I thought I was gonna be stuck, but I lucked out. The project engineer for the sewer line that's goin in just about always stops in at lunch time and uses our restroom. I asked him for his cell phone number so I could call him to bring their bulldozer over to pull me out of the mud if/when I get stuck. Without hesitation he reached into his wallet and gave me his business card. We heavy equipment operators stick together . . . My mower cuts an 11' swath. It is big. When I'm on my game, I overlap less than a foot . . . I can cut a lot of grass in a period time.
Thursday was warmer, but damp, drizzly, very hazy again, with little wind. Seemed like there is more water everywhere. Probably cause we been gettin a couple tenths each day. There was a huge green and yellow cloud on radar. About 10:30 it got here. I was pretty far from the shop when it started pouring . . . no preliminaries . . . it just started pouring. I had my rain gear on, but I got pretty wet anyway. I started wearin my rain gear to work on Wednesday. We gave up and went home before lunch.
Today was a near carbon copy of last Friday . . . a white puffy cloud, blue sky day with little wind to help dry things off and the temps reached the mid 70's before quittin time. I saw water layin where I've never seen water lay. Didn't get stuck, but I had a couple close calls. There are over 80 people signed up for a scramble tomorrow . . . and I was unhappy about all the mud tracks I was puttin down today . . . The mess I was makin is gonna be nothing compared to what is gonna be done to the course tomorrow. More rain is predicted almost every day next week with Memorial Day weekend comin up. Don't think the course is gonna be at its best . . .
While goin in for lunch I noticed all the dead Ash trees along and tween the second and third fairways. As the living trees are filling out the dead ones are becoming very noticeable. I'm eventually goin to have a lot fewer trees to mow around, but the course is really gonna be lookin bare. . .
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