If you were in Highlands last night at 6:20PM, you more than likely heard the loud burst of thunder. Lightning struck two large white pines that sit on the hillside of #10, next to Dillard Road. We are hopeful these trees won't die. In my experience, once a tree takes a hit of lightning, it has a 50/50 chance of survival. These do offer some screening between the Hudson House and the road, so they have some importance. Seeing these trees is a reminder of how powerful Mother Nature is and why it's so important to take shelter when the lightning alarm sounds. In addition to the trees, a power surge burnt one of the electronic boards on our irrigation system. We can still manually turn sprinklers on and water with hoses, but we temporarily lost our ability to control the irrigation system with our phones. The part is being overnight shipped, so we'll be up and running tomorrow.
In Club Lake, we have a little more Bladderwort, an aquatic weed, than I would like. We have to be very careful with lake treatments because whatever goes in the lake, ultimately will be applied to our turf in the form of irrigation. In drought situations, when we are using more irrigation water, we have to hold off on lake treatments. With the warm summer we've had so far, aquatic weeds are thriving in the warmer water. In the mountains, aquatic weeds can be a real challenge because our water is so clear and our ponds are so shallow, allowing sunlight to penetrate right to the bottom of the lake. Our aquatic specialist is scheduled to be on site tomorrow, to treat the lake.