Obviously there has been no posts for months. Other aspects have cut into the commitment it takes to update information about the "goings on" at KGC. I'll quickly blow through what happened over the past few weeks.
The last post about the pine beetle was really the only big news or out of the ordinary news during the latter part of the season. We found a couple more trees but their removal won't have a very big impact. We sort of experimented with transplanting some small trees (tamaracks) this year and those appeared to have survived. Bolstered a little bit by that very small victory we prepared some more small trees this fall for transplant next spring.
The river worked out. We had to do our usual grunt work making weirs and dams but really only around 70 man hours and one day with a backhoe and a vacuum truck kept at least one pump working (and the horrible wet weather in September helped out - irrigation wise, that is). A big percentage of that 70 hours was spent cleaning out the sand from inside the wet well. I believe the wear caused by the sand is our bigger problem in the long run and we need to find ways to mitigate it.
This was one of those years where my 9 old could have grown grass for you to play on. We had a hard time keeping up with all the grass. What makes that interesting is when you compare conditions to last year. In 2012 the wet June carried us for a long time until about early August which was when the cracks started to show and the turf began burning out and things started looking haggard. This year the weather helped conditions stay great all year. Unfortunately, I know I will have an opportunity to lament about our 1980 irrigation system in the future but suffice to say that when there is no burned out areas between sprinklers improperly spaced at 110 feet (versus the specified maximum spacing of 90 feet) you know the weather is having an immensely positive impact on growing grass.
With respect to the beetle infected trees we fell them once play was done and a work bee was organized to help clean up the branches. Luckily we had the regular group of 25 or so members (who appear to make up the backbone of these events!) show up an clean all the debris left from falling the trees. I am depending more on these types of work bees since they really help out and save money. Keep next spring open!
There is more but I have all winter to cover other topics assuming there isn't a ton of powder days.
