This Corner we're turning is a long one!!

Hi, sorry I haven't 'blogged' for a while, its been like a mad house in here with my wife cramming in lots of work for the degree shes working towards. Tie that in with our new puppy chewing up anything and everything she can get her teeth into (including MY laptop charger, which apparently was my fault for leaving on the table!! Maybe I should leave the next one on the floor then hey??)  Plus two kids that seemingly cant get on for five minutes and you could imagine what its been like in here. Its been pretty much the same at work too with lots of stuff for the staff and I to get our teeth into.
The course is beginning to take shape nicely, with some really nice definition between fairways/rough and greens/approaches which is exactly what I want. I hope you will agree that the presentation of the course is looking great and would like to thank the team for all their hard work and ideas that they're putting in. Long may it continue!
The most contentious issue I have is the greens. Please bare with us, we are trying our best with them through this very difficult spring. I took some soil temperatures yesterday and they didn't make for good reading, with just under 5 degrees C being the average. This isn't ideal, these temperatures are usually seen around mid March time so you can see how far behind the growth is, with the finer grasses almost enjoying the lower soil temperatures but the annual meadow grass (Poa, of which we have a lot of in our greens) is not growing at all so its sitting at around 1 or 2mm, however other grasses (Bent, predominantly) are sitting at our height of cut, which at the moment is at 4.5mm. You only have to run your hand over the surface to feel how un-smooth this is making them at at the moment. The day time air temperatures have been great with it reaching 20degrees at one point yesterday afternoon. The night time temperatures however are a different story,  believe it or not, for the past few days we have had an early morning frost, with the temperature hovering around the 0 degree mark. That's a 20degree swing within 24 hours! Something I certainly have never seen before.
The fertiliser that we put on exactly 2 weeks ago has not kicked in yet. It is sitting just under the surface waiting for ideal conditions which will then release its nutrients. However a liquid feed should be going on next week to take advantage of these day time temperatures. I have my hands tied really since our Cushman is still away for repair and this is what I use for spraying. It really feels as if I've had my right arm chopped off! If I had it at my disposal that feed would have gone down this week.
Other news - The practice facilities have been improved a little this week with a couple of new approaches added to the chipping green by the first tee. We've also cut a new green in up at the main practice area after edging, and tidying the 2 bunkers up there. We're also trying something a little bit different on the shorter practice area. There is a red dot on the ground denoting where yardages are taken from, we have then cut out 3 'greens' at a distance of 25 yards - 50 yards - and 75 yards. We are allowing the grass to grow around these greens to a height of an inch and a quarter so these greens should stand out quite nicely, with the idea of creating a bit of a 'target golf' feel. I hope this works as well as it looks in my head. If it doesn't, however, we can always cut it back down to how it was.
Next weeks work - Its a short week next week with it being bank holiday Monday, so after we have caught up on the cutting we will be looking at altering a few fairway shapes and perhaps cutting some of the longer rough out that seems to be just sitting around doing nothing other than to annoy, and punish poor golf. Ideally I would like to take out the patch in front of the 2nd tee, take out the patch in front of the 10th tee, and also to remove the patch in front of the 18th. These will look a little messy for a while but is an ideal time of year to do it.
That's enough from me, the puppy is biting my feet, I'd better put her to bed before she turns to this laptop cable!!
Leigh