Monday, November 29th, 2010

Conditions

Just like that, there goes another month. This season seems to be flying by. Last week brought our first snow of the season and hopefully isn’t a precursor of the winter to come. As expected the greens froze but unfortunately the snow stayed, keeping the course closed for a couple days. The gradual thawing went nicely without a lot of rain to puddle and close the greens again. All is good now and we were able to mow the greens giving them a fresh surface for the weekend.

This week is our pesticide re certification seminar week. Mike Turley, Steve Pearce and I will be attending the annual OGCSA Pesticide Seminar at the Portland Convention Center all day Thursday and Friday. We are required by law to obtain 40 hours of training classes every five years to maintain our pesticide applicators permit. The hours obtained by attending this seminar fulfills enough credits each year to maintain the license in the five year period.

The Oregon Landscape Contractors Association Conference runs concurrently at the convention center and this year they have invited me to speak on “Understanding Today’s Environmental Issues and Their Impact on Our Future”. I will be discussing the Stone Creek environmental story as well as highlighting the OGCSA Environmental Stewardship Guidelines. It was an honor to be invited to speak. The landscape industry is where I got my start after college working for 5 years at Northwest Landscape Industries.

'Tis the Season

This is not just the holiday season but if you are a true football fan in Oregon you have to be excited about what is going on in our state. As you know, I am a Beaver Alumni but I cannot help but be excited about what the Ducks have been doing, Kelly has done a masterful job and the Ducks have been absolutely non stoppable.  I have been pulling for the Ducks all season and hoping they would go 11-0 up until they meet the Beavers in the Civil War and that is exactly where we are at today. But, this is where I am going to draw the line. Sure it would be nice to have a team from Oregon compete in the national title game but someone should have told the Ducks that when we had our sights on the Rose Bowl last year. It is our turn to return the favor. I absolutely love the hype this week brings and look forward to all the  camaraderie. My only disappointment is my favorite Duck (Harold Plough) has flown south for the winter. Please visit Harold's Fan Page on Facebook and give him your best regards. Tell him that we need him home soon, the rivalry won't be the same without him. In honor of the game this Saturday let's all wear our favorite teams colors and look forward to a fun and exciting game.

Gordon, as for your Trojans....well lets just say their rule has come to an end. Time to jump on the State of Oregon football band wagon :)