Monday, April 12th, 2010

Out with the old and in with the new! We just received our new fleet of golf cars from EZ-Go last week. It is always a big job and many kudos to all who helped Rusty (left) and Cart Barn Dave get the old carts ready to go back and the new ones off the truck and ready for use. It will be nice to have a strong fleet once again. With the new charging systems we should stand to use quite a bit less electricity.

Speaking of saving energy, our lighting upgrade proposal to the Energy Trust of Oregon was approved last week and we have begun the process to initiate the project. We will be replacing the lighting fixtures in the club house, cart barn and in the maintenance shop with energy efficient fixtures and ballasts. After we computed the savings and the incentives offered by Energy Trust along with the tax rebates, the upgrade should pay off in six months. It was a win-win for everyone.

Oregon Public Broadcasting, Think Out Loud - Turf Wars

Monday, April 5th, I was invited to be a studio guest for a radio program on Oregon Public Broadcasting called "Think Out Loud". The subject of the show was called "Turf Wars". An Oregon based author is advocating replacing your front or back lawn with a garden. Many people are opting to remove their lawn all together for fear of fertilizers and pesticides. The show will host a variety of opinions and obviously I will be on the side of a lawn. OPB's website is available to take comments on the subject as well as downloading the podcast at: http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/turf-wars/. I had a great time doing the show only wishing that there was more time to say more. I found it interesting how closed people are about lawns and all they want to do is come up with lame replacements for what has been working extremely well for years. In my opinion know one really came up with a good reason why you should not have a lawn. As far as I am concerned lawns have a place in our landscape as do ornamental shrubs and vegetable gardens. Check out the podcast and decide for yourself.

Farm Links

Last week I attended FarmLinks, a research and demonstration golf facility in Alabama. I went on behalf of Western Equipment, our Toro distributor. Toro is a cornerstone partner in the Farm Links experience thus much of the first day was learning of new Toro irrigation products including new sprinklers, soil moisture sensors, and a new operating software called Lynx.