Never a Dull Moment

I haven't posted anything for quite awhile, meaning I was on the busy side the last two months with irrigation, course, infrastructure renovations.  In the beginning of June into July we had a decent amount of precipitation allowing us not to irrigate as much, but as soon as I got back from my summer vacation. Mother nature turned on the furnace and dehumidifier at the same time. These dry conditions started to take a toll on our irrigation system and exposed all of our faults.

After diving into my pump station early this spring I nearly tripped over all the stuff inside because the past person taking care of the place had no regard for anything in the the shed. After cleaning I came across a giant crack in my jockey pump case. Again after fall blowout no one drained the pumps. $500 later I then had ONE working pump that flows approximately 200 gallons per minute. While I was waiting for parts for the jockey pump I had to use my other pump that is supposed to flow close to 500 gal/min at 100 psi. As I turned it on for the first time it only pushed 100 gal/min at 100 psi creating a interesting time trying to irrigate anything. Luckily enough we had perfect timing of rainfall and mild temperatures to help out with stress on the course.  

Above I had taken apart my pump after I had fixed my smaller jockey pump to figure out why my 40hp electric pump was flowing such a low amount of gal/min. Below is what I immediately found. 

It's almost frustrating to find stuff like this but a relief also, in the past no one has checked the screens on any of the pumps, and a large hole had developed on the bottom of the screen letting large particles (Rocks) enter into the pump clogging and damaging the vanes of the pump impeller. So after a quick call and $1100 later my primary pump is back to full capacity flowing close to 550 gal/min. Giving me a total of 750 gal/min though I'll never want to pump that crazy at least I can rest at night that all is good when I irrigate overnight.   

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After priming my irrigation system early in the year we came across a section that didn't get blown out properly, because someone shut off a valve in a low collection point. Causing the PVC to spiderweb and break. The total length of the break was around 100 feet. I have used a lot of machinery but never a backhoe. I am so thankful that one of our members is the store manager of Bobcat of Devils Lake. They let us use one for a couple of our projects and this saved me about 10 hours of pain staking digging in thick humic clay. I hate to admit it, but I had so much fun using that piece of equipment. I didn't want to give it back.

 

In early May I had blogged that we had a severe washout that took out the crossing from hole four to five tee. We had to haul around twenty yards of new, dry fill to put over the new 18 in drainage provided by Advanced Drainage Systems. I took a little redneck engineering on my part to fit the dam box on the new drainage. I used a a good section of the old culvert, and it fit perfectly over the poly culvert. Then connected it with the rubber seal we already had, so it with be water tight to prevent a washout again.    

culvert installation 

fill added in levels and repacked each time

almost done 

Finished product before cart path material was added. We also added bigger rock to help with stabilization.

The installers that put all the irrigation in back in the early 90's had put valve boxes around all the valves but not the quick couplers. If you don't know what a quick coupler is its just a quick access point to the irrigation to usually around a green to aid in hand watering greens. So I had my guys reset the couplers and put in valve boxes over them to protect my mowers from damaging the reels. The couplers in some spots were protruding out the surface about an inch. It may not seem like a lot but we mow our collars and fairways at a 0.500 of an inch and this was causing the reel of our mower to hit the top of the couplers. The installers in the past had even made the job more difficult by setting them in concrete. They even got so lazy they left the forms in the ground.    

After all my problems were solved with the irrigation I decided to tackle my bunker renovation that the past superintendents deemed unattainable. They left this bunker as ground under repair for the past five years.
So I'm beginning to see a trend now and I'm sure you are too. Lazy + Inexperience = Catastrophic Failure.
in the above picture I had hauled out around 50 cubic yards full of junk sand and clay mix. And thanks to the new construction of Decorated Wearables and Mike Yoder. I hauled in around 200 more yards of fresh dry fill to raise the bottom of the bunker and create a perfect slope for the water to drain with. Before the water was pooling at the bottom of the bunker/overgrown ugly hazard. Now after an inch of rain it dry and free of any water.

The previous area where the newly renovated bunker is, was always full of water around the green complex. For the past month or so I could not figure out why. With some troubleshooting I found that when I would turn on any heads in same satellite box, four or five heads would repeatedly turn on an off like a whack-a-mole machine. So I went straight to the source and looked at the circuit boards that control the heads and the above is what I found. Three of the six boards that control the irrigation heads were shorting out causing random heads to pop up. I also found out from an employee that the old mechanic was trying to recondition these same boards by re-soldering them and trying to make them work. I replaced these the same day any everything was back to normal. Each one of these boards costs around $250.  

The past week I had a good experience with water management because the one and only well company in town has been so busy, he couldn't make his way out here to help hook up the pond fill line. The past two weeks I could't irrigate my fairways because we had no water to pump. We do have a natural spring that flows water from the adjacent lake but without a pump it only flows around 50 gal/min. On a heavy irrigation program we flow right around 320,000 gallons in one night. One might think why cant you just turn it on well it needs to be plugged down six feet to stay below the frost line. So every year it needs to be raised six feet to take off the plug and hooked up to the fill line. Oh ya I forgot to mention that the whole thing weighs approximately 1300 lbs because it goes down 160 feet in the ground attached with three inch steel pipe. But at full capacity it pushes 350 gal/min and filled our pond in five days.    

While I was driving around the course this morning checking to see if we had any irrigation issues the night before. I noticed a really dry patch that maybe looked like an insect problem. I stuck a shovel in the ground and hit something solid turned out to be this beautiful boulder. It took about an hour to dig around enough to get some chains on, and yank her out of the ground. This is why I love my job! Every day out here holds something new and exciting that it decides to shove in my face!