It's safe to safe that this winter, which started off warm and mild, has turned into one of the coldest I can recall in my 25 years at HCC. For the past week and the next couple, our low temperatures have potential to reach single digits or in the low teens. This means the ground is frozen solid! Our drainage contractor pulled off of the job yesterday and will be working in Atlanta for the next few weeks. The plan is to reassess the situation by March 1st at the latest, and get them back up here to finish our drainage improvements before the season begins. They only need about 2-3 weeks to finish.
As I reported, we received about 1/8" of ice last weekend. We definitely dodged a bullet with that storm! However, even with that little bit of ice, we have our fair share of limbs to clean up. Obviously as expected, it was our White Pines that were impacted the most. We'll spend the next few days cleaning up from that storm. I can't help thinking what the golf course would look like if we did get that 1" of ice!! That cleanup would have been far worse than Hurricane Helene!
With the ground frozen, much of our time will be spent under-brushing and trimming around the golf course in addition to all of our indoor projects like refinishing all the wooden benches, refinishing tables from the croquet complex, making new tee markers, making new entry/exit stakes etc. There is never a time when we have nothing to do and that's how we prefer it! All those little things that get done while your away for the winter, are the focus of this team. One project that we are working on is creating a walking trail from employee housing to the farm, to keep staff from walking on Dillard Road. Part of that project included building a small footbridge, which you can see Hap knocked out on Tuesday. Not only are Border Collies smart, put they can also use power tools.