Wire Tracking and Covering the Field Again

With the threat of rain, we decided to cover the drainage area on Field E again.  Our hopes are that we can remove it on Friday afternoon so as to have it ready for Monday morning.  The process to finish should take about a week.  Now, this time of year we are struggling to fight against Mother Nature.  We did have the tarps off for about two full days.  The addition of them seems to work and keep us ahead of the game.  I would use them on any exposed winter work.

.  The dogs, Heidi and Brutus, have been enjoying the run of the grounds.  The mild winter has allowed them to be outside with us daily.

 Heidi is a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog.  She is about five years old.

Brutus is a Chocolate Lab.  He is about 2 years old.

Mike, our Sports Turf Technician has been busy the last few days troubleshooting the irrigation system.  He worked with the Irrigation Tech. from Atlantic Irrigation on finding our ground faults in the wire.  We discovered that we lost 5 decoders, the communication system with in the irrigation controls, to a possible lightning storm this past Fall.  We also discovered that some of the wires were not correctly installed during the original construction.  He is now spending the day tracking the power wire around the campus.  This gives us the ability to update our "As Builts" as well as know where this wire and the main irrigation line run thoughout campus.  From the photos above, the yellow box connects to the wire in the ground and then the "wand" is used to follow that current that is running through the wire via the box.

Joe and John are continuing the tree trimming.  Joe had to remove one of the trees due to the improper planting techniques.  The bottom 3/4 of the trunk was rotted and wet.  This is a direct response by the tree from being planted too deep.