A huge collaborative success

On Sunday, September 19, BLBC volunteers showed up for our second semiannual greens maintenance workday.  The aeration (tining), seeding, and sanding is critical for maintaining our healthy and gorgeous green, widely acknowledged as the crown jewel of PIMD’s natural bowling surfaces. 

The weather was ideal: clear skies, modest temperature, low humidity, and a gentle cooling breeze.   Twenty members (including our 4-person greenkeeping crew) and Jose (our professional) worked together in perfect harmony.

The work consisted of three phases. Phase 1 started just after 8 AM, as four workers followed Jose’s tining vehicle to sweep up the extracted turf plugs and scoop them into wheelbarrows.  Two other workers replaced the full wheelbarrows with empty ones before wheeling the plugs off the green.  The coordination was extraordinary as the sweepers never had to wait for an available wheelbarrow.  After 90 minutes or so, a huge, motorized gas-powered blower was used to remove the stray plugs and excessive dirt, after which Jose spread calcium sulfate (aka gypsum) over the green to break up the compaction of dense clay soil.  

After a very brief break, phase 2 began.  One group of workers stood in the sandbox and shoveled sand into buckets. A second group transported full buckets to the green so that a third group could dump the sand into Jose’s mechanical spreader as it travelled slowly across the green.  A fourth group carried the empty buckets back to the sandbox to be refilled and the process repeated itself until the entire green was covered in sand.  Once again, the coordination was perfect as the sand spreader remained in constant motion.

In the final phase, Jose dragged a metal mesh with his tractor to distribute the sand evenly on the green while a few volunteers swept sand into the corners.  

The entire workday effort was completed in just under five hours, allegedly the fastest in BLBC recorded history.  

A hearty shout out to our volunteers (listed in random order):

Douglas Frey, Mike O’Leary, Annie Brillhart, Ben Carson, Stephanie Upp, Chris Davis, Phil Watson, Rolly Coe, Thomas Birt, Phillip Andrews, Gary Samonsky, Cindy Moss, Leslie Engler, Cathy Dinnean, and Mo Shooer.