Allison - Flight Zone Toptracer Driving Range

Building the New Ceremony Site

Last year, our ponds were dry. As it turns out, you need rain to fill creek beds that keep ponds filled with water. Go figure. Rather than sit around and fill the ponds with our tears, we decided to take advantage of the dried out ponds. Last summer, we began work on building a new ceremony site for weddings that take place on the golf course. Currently, they get married under a tree by number nine green. It’s a pretty ceremony site, but it isn’t really ideal for the golf course. We have to block too many tee times and it can, at times, be annoying to golfers if they have to skip number nine because a ceremony is taking place. It wouldn’t be a good thing to get hit by a golf ball on your wedding day. Typically, everyone is very cool about it, but we thought there might be a better solution to keep both our wedding couples and our golfers happy. That’s when we talked to a family friend who owns a dozing company. Dave’s Dozing out of Bondurant. He dredges ponds and has several muck trucks to clean out ponds and back hoes to dig basements or in our case, ponds. Here is a picture of him from last summer. Dave spent a majority of the summer building us a peninsula in our pond. It isn’t the easiest thing to do as the muck (mud) that makes up the silt from the bottom of the pond is pretty gross stuff. He got stuck in the mud on more than one occasion. In the late fall of 2012, he had finally finished the project. We were left with a dirt peninsula that wasn’t very attractive. Before we could get started with our landscaping, we had to wait for the muck to dry out. This spring has been fairly wet, so it was only recently that it had dried out enough that we could take our skid loader out on the peninsula without fear of falling in. Guess who was running the skid loader? My dad. If you recall, he had another project that he used the skid loader for earlier this summer. If there is a reason to use the skid loader, dad is happy to oblige. It’s his favorite machine. He got to work smoothing out the dirt and filling in some areas to create the perfect ceremony site. He is a thrill seeker, so he got pretty close to the edge a few times. Luckily, he has learned since his youth when to push the envelope and he got the project complete without incident. While he was busy moving dirt, Austin was busy planting native grasses in the banks. We had discussed many options to put in along the side of the banks and settled on these native grasses. They were the ones that we had burned earlier in the season and have been planted in front of the clubhouse landscaping. We were never really fond of them in front of our boulder retaining wall because they grew too tall and blocked the view of the boulders. Austin dug up all the tufts of grass. Hum. I think that is the first time in my life that I have ever typed tufts. Then he took them over to the ceremony site to be transplanted. He covered both sides of the peninsula with the grasses. Austin spaced them out because they will grow and cover in the banks. Individual tufts of grass were placed along the side of the bank. It was Austin’s first day of work at Toad Valley. We like to break in the new help with the fun jobs. Shoveling. Digging holes. Getting dirty. You know, the fun stuff. He was a very efficient worker and got both sides of the banks done and cleared out all of the grasses along the clubhouse. As they grow, they will help to hold up the bank and they’ll look nice, so it’s a win/win! By the end of the day, the peninsula was looking good and prepped to be able to lay some sod and plant some grass seed. Before we do anything, we will need to put in some trench lines for electricity and speaker wire. We are also throwing around the idea of putting another sprinkler head out there to keep the grass watered. One of the sprinkler heads from the practice green reaches out quite a distance, so we’re still on the fence as far as what we’ll do in the irrigation department. We are very excited for our new ceremony site. If you squeeze your eyes together and hold your mouth just right, you can almost see landscaping, green grass and an arbor. Can you see it? No? Maybe you need to turn your head to the left a little. Oh. It also helps to use your imagination.

Smell-a-Site. If Only Computers Had Five Senses.

Golf Course

If you haven’t ever played golf in the spring, you need to make it a point to stop out sometime in the next week or so. The smells and beautiful trees only last a short while, but boy, do they ever smell amazing. As soon as you walk up from the parking lot, you are greeted by this beauty. It is a crab apple tree that is simply loaded in blossoms. In the spring, the best hole on the whole golf course is number four. Its sweet scent can be smelled from several holes away. All along the east side of number four’s fairway are a variety of flowering trees. They were planted in the farm field on the other side of the fence row, so you have to look beyond the deciduous trees that have yet to fully leaf out to see the blooming trees. It is such a wonderful aroma of plum, cherry, Siberian, and crab apple trees. It is one of my favorite times of the year to spend time on the golf course because the spring colors are so vivid. Our miniature golf course has its share of flowering trees, too. The whole course is loaded with red buds, crab apples, and lilacs. Here are the red buds in their full glory! The flowers and colors only last a short while. Their beauty certainly makes the joy of the seasons worth the days that aren’t as great as others. Yes. I’m talking about YOU May snow storm! Golfers who sit on our veranda that’s on the outside of our building and overlooks the minigolf are treated to some smellerific scents, too. Check out these Lollipop Crab Apple trees that have just started to bloom today. Finally, we have some rhododendrons on the golf course, too. This one is covered in blooms this spring and is located near number nine green. The joys of spring. Snow. Record heat. Spring flowers. Green grass. Iowa definitely gives us a nice variety! How about you? Have any flowering trees in your lawn? They make for some pretty spring color!

Tarpin’. Seedin’. Celebratin’.

Our Green Thumb

If you recall, about a month ago, we reseeded number nine tee box. It was a hot mess from the drought we had last year. Number nine is a bent grass tee and in a low spot, so it doesn’t really like droughts. Who does, right? Par threes are always difficult to keep looking good because so many golfers take divots (then don’t replace them or fill them with the provided sand/seed mix, boo). To get the seed to come in, we covered up the tee box with a tarp. This helps to raise the ground temperatures to increase the germination rate. Yesterday, Ron and Jason got busy uncovering number nine’s tee box. Oh. It was an exciting day. Kind of like Christmas morning. What will they find under that tarp? They found thick grass. Lots of it. The tee box had completely filled in. I think I spotted them doing the Elaine dance from Seinfeld. It was that exciting. The grass was so long that it needed to be cut with a hand mower before it can be introduced to tee box length. We don’t have many of those huge tarps, so once it was removed from number nine’s tee box, Ron and Jason transferred it over to some other tee boxes that needed some help. These tees have already been seeded this spring, but the cool ground temperatures have been hindering their germination rate. Oh yeah. I’m sure that snow didn’t help much, either. Enter. Number three tee box. Once again. It is a hot mess from the drought last year. At the end of the season last year, we had to stop watering all of our golf course except for the greens which we hand-watered. It was the first time that has happened in our 40 years of business. I know. I sound like a broken record because I’ve mentioned it in so many other posts this spring. The upper portion of this tee gets pretty beat up by golfers. Par threes are always tough to keep grass on. I’m speaking in my mom voice when I say, “Replace your divots or use the provided sand/seed mix and fix your divot!” There. I’m glad we had this talk. Here’s our before shot. Yuck. Jason and Ron gave it a good once over with some fertilizer, sand, and additional grass seed. Once they had it all prepped, they covered up the tee box with a tarp to increase the speed of seed germination. They also seeded a spot on the front side of the green on number three that would not germinate. Hills can be challenging when you are trying to get seed to grow. The water runs off and causes the seed to not stay in place. A tarp will help to grow in this problem area. The final place where they tarped to get grass to grow was on number five tee box. The back of the tee box gets a lot of shade from the nearby trees, so it doesn’t get the kind of light that it needs to get seed to germinate. As I have mentioned several times, most of this damage is caused from the drought that we had last year. In September 2012, our course was basically brown with green greens. I’m sure a non-golfer is thinking that is a typo. Nope. The greens were the only place where it was green. Literally. It was heart breaking. Then, in October, we got some rain. It seemed like the course greened up overnight. Jason came in after that October rain last year and said, “Now I know. You need water to have a beautiful golf course.” He’s always been profound. Don’t you think? Maybe I should say sarcastic. Are profound and sarcastic synonyms? Yeah. I didn’t think so. How about you? Did the drought have any effect on your lawn? Have you been seedin’ and celebratin’? I hear it’s all the rage this spring.

Range Balls the Credit Card Way

Project List

When I was a teenager, I worked behind the snack bar at the golf course. We used to have the range balls in garbage cans and we’d scoop up the buckets to fill them. It was everyone’s least favorite job and I always tried to look busy doing something else to avoid it. Teenagers. It’s what they are best at doing, right? Golfers would get the filled buckets of range balls inside of the clubhouse and then walk out to the range carrying their bucket and chasing after excited balls that bounced along the driveway and parking lot eagerly wanting to be hit on the driving range. Golf balls would fall all over the place. Golfers had to navigate their buckets and their bag of clubs. It just wasn’t a very good method of dispensing balls, but it was all we could afford at the time. Eight years ago, we built the miniature golf course and with it, a new building. The miniature golf is located right next to our driving range, so we finally had electricity and a building nearby to house a dispenser. That is when we decided to install a range machine. This was a pretty big deal. Our clubhouse staff loved it. Our golfers loved it. Our range picker operator loved it. It honestly ranked right up there with the installation of indoor plumbing. A golfer would come in, buy a bucket of balls, then we’d hand over a token and the golfer would dispense their own range balls. Technology was pretty grand. After eight years, that just wasn’t quite enough for us, anymore. Some weekends, we’d have a big line of people waiting to get checked in to play golf. Someone who only wanted to hit range balls would be waiting in the line. It was time to find an even better way to dispense range balls. This year, we introduced a new digital door for our range machine. My brother, Jason, got to work installing it one afternoon last week. He had to open the machine up and remove the old door that had the token dispenser. Once he had the door removed, he just had to hook up a few wires into place. The whole install was pretty uneventful. He didn’t even shock himself or bleed. I guess he didn’t feel like entertaining his sister. The new high tech door fit perfectly into our old machine. He also had to install a new antennae for the new range machine’s signal to reach the signal from the clubhouse. There are two boosters. One is located out at the minigolf building and one is located in the clubhouse. This enables the range machine to talk to our computer system inside. Now, golfers no longer need to get a token from the clubhouse. They are handed a pin number that they is entered into the machine. We can program the machine to do many things like dispense balls for a certain time period for lessons or a golf outing as well as provide season pass holders with a range card that has a certain number of allowed dispensed buckets on it. Golfers can now just walk up to the machine and purchase a bucket of balls right directly from the machine and by pass the inside of the clubhouse if desired. Of course, then they’d miss our smiling faces. We’re getting high tech now. How about you? Are you a fan of the driving range? I find that I can usually hit the ball really well on the driving range, then it doesn’t transfer to the golf course. Go figure.

A Tribute to Fred, My Mom

Family Matters

My mom, Freddi the Kitchen Guru, is one of the most hardworking people I know. Most weekends she cooks food that ultimately serves several hundred people. She keeps this golf course running with her energy and wit. There are many days that she spends countless hours washing dishes. I have never heard her complain. She just gets right in there and gets it done. My mom is from Wall Lake, Iowa. When she was a teenager, her parents owned a sock hop called Lakewood. Mom was a waitress there and helped her own parents with all of the food preparation. I’m not sure if she likes cooking at the golf course or not. I have never thought to ask because she just stepped in to the position when she was needed. I do know that she can cook some seriously good food. We celebrate together when the food displayed looks “professional.” Our family is always learning as we go and trying to improve from one event to the next. Constantly trying to better our business. When we first started doing banquets six years ago, mom had to do all of the dishes by hand. Then, in the winter, we remodeled her kitchen while she was in Texas and surprised her with a commercial dishwasher and a rack to hold all of our plates. She was very excited! My parents met at Grand View University. Mom’s maiden name is Friedrichsen, so that is why she goes by Fred. She has been Freddi since the 4th grade. Her parents only had two daughters, so it is her own way of carrying on her father’s name. My Dad never asked her real name until they had been dating for three months. Several years ago, my dad gave me a book that he had filled out with answers to questions about his life. He thought my mom was dreamy when he spotted her from across the room in that classroom long ago. They are an adorable couple and love each other very much. I feel so blessed to have such loving, hardworking parents. In a couple of weeks, they will celebrate their 48th Wedding Anniversary. Mom has been working at the golf course since the beginning. Yep. That’d be 40 years ago. She has had many jobs. Like mowing rough. She can even work the skid loader. I got my “can do” attitude from my mother. There was never an ounce of fear in her, she just always figured that she could do anything she set her mind to do. The Toro Groundmaster was her favorite mower when she worked outside on the golf course. She could be seen at all hours of the day mowing grass. Only one golfer ever hit her in the leg with his golf ball. Her mower got hit a few times, though. I guess the rough isn’t a safe place to mow. When I was in college, my mom and I worked outside together on the golf course. I mowed tees and fairways in the morning and then in the afternoon, mom and I would work together on landscaping projects. Dad always said that the two of us were like ants. We could carry far more than our weight. When we would work on projects together, she would always tell me, “Now, when I’m dead and gone, you’re going to remember…” Then, she would go on to tell me the goofy thing about the day that I would remember. She was right, too. The days when I was sitting on top of a big pile of branches or hanging out the side of a golf cart that was covered in tools are the ones that are most distinct in my memories of working with my mom outside on the golf course. She is always there for me and my family. Every time I need help, she comes to my aid. If I’m running late or need help with my kids, she is always there to rescue me. She has taught me how to be a champion party thrower. Long before we hosted events at the golf course, mom had been putting on events in her own home. Always throwing in a pinata for the kids or other fun games. Or, in the case of this photo, a pinata for my 30 year old cousin. Our family has been having a pie eating contest at our Fourth of July celebration since I was a little kid. All brought to you by Fred. Her pursuit to always do better, set high goals in life, keep your mind on God, and to take advantage of every minute in the day has never wavered. Her example shines beyond her family, but also to her many friends and church. Her home is always filled with guests and pseudo family members who are always welcomed with open arms. I grew up in a wonderful environment. I often wonder why I was chosen to be in my family. Not everyone has the blessing of such a loving God fearing family. My grandma is 97 years old and still comes to my children’s concerts. Neither one of my parents or grandma ever miss any of their grandchildren’s performances. Moms are a treasure. My own mom had lost her mom by the time she was my age. I can’t fathom raising my children without having a mom there by my side. In a family owned business, you put in many hours. I’m truly thankful that I put in those hours right along side of my mom. I’d just like to say THANKS! Thanks to my mom for all the many things she has taught me. Thanks for being such a great example to so many people. Thanks for showing me that you should always keep your priorities in check and to keep God first. Thanks for all that you do! Happy Mother’s Day.

Sunny Days. Sweeping the Clouds Away.

Golf Shop

My maiden name is Brady. Our family of Bradys have owned the farmland that makes up the golf course since the fifties. Originally, my grandpa’s sister, Dessie Sorensen and her husband, John, lived in the farmhouse at the top of the hill. When she and her husband built a house nearby, Grandpa leased the land to the Dickey family. It was a dairy farm and then later became the testing ground for Grandpa’s farm implement business, Brady Manufacturing. In keeping with honoring all things Brady to celebrate our 40 years in business, Theresa decided we needed to have a street sign in the hallway of our clubhouse. When I was growing up, the Brady Bunch was a pretty popular TV show. I never minded likening our family to the Brady Bunch, however, when we got compared to the Brady family on Days of our Lives, then we had some issues. Theresa spent most of the day perfecting her street post. We enjoyed all the golfers comments as they walked into the clubhouse. They are always entertaining. She laughed at me because I couldn’t stop whistling the Sesame Street theme song every time I walked by the sign. This hallway contains much of our golf course’s history, including pictures of my Grandpa, Dale, with the banker who helped finance the original golf course back in 1973. You can also find a picture of my Grandpa with this three sons and an article from the 70’s about how the Brady women have played a roll in running the family business. Project complete. How about you? Does your family have a soap opera name? Do you watch Days of our Lives? I did in college. Those were the good ole’ days in the sorority house watching soaps and skipping class. It’s a wonder I ever graduated.

Weeds. What Are They Good For? Absolutely Nothing.

Golf Course

Spring. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love to watch the golf course come alive from the depths of winter. Green grass, trees budding with leaves, water running in the creek bed from the winter melt, my brother’s eyes that swell shut from his allergy to Oak trees. It’s all the best part of spring. I have often thought that scientists should somehow make a hybrid in a grass seed mix that provides grass the tenacity that weeds possess in their ability to grow. It always seems like you can look out into your flower beds on Thursday and they look clean and fresh. On Friday, the same beds have weeds the size of a small child. Seriously. How does that happen? In between rains, we have to take advantage of every possible ounce of daylight to stay on top of all the outside jobs at the golf course. Not the least of which is pulling weeds. Luckily, I have a great crew and with a little effort, we had the minigolf and grounds around the clubhouse looking good in a short amount of time. Jake set to work pulling the big ones. The ones that grow faster than an old man’s nose hairs. They grow with a vengeance. I have known Jake since he was a little kid. He’s hilarious. That’s a requirement if you want to work at the golf course. You need to make us laugh. Life is too short to be grumpy. Golf is fun. Yep. Even some of the weeds have pretty flowers on them. After Jake had gone through and pulled all the big weeds, Doug came through with Round Up to finish the rest off. Round Up takes a few days to see results, so in the spring we try to do a combined effort of pulling and spraying to stay on top. You know how your grandma tells you that you’ve been growing like a weed. Yeah. There’s a reason why that is a saying. How about you? What’s your desired weed pulling method? At home, I like to use it as punishment for my kids. If they fight, they have to go pull weeds in the flower beds or hug each other. Works like a charm.

MaMas Are Gonna Likey

Golf Shop

Yep. It’s the day we get to celebrate all things mom. It’s coming up in a few days. In preparation, we have done a little redo of our women’s area in the golf course’s Golf Shop. It all started with a old chest of drawer’s from my husband’s grandma. Theresa did a number and transformed the piece into a beautiful display. In case you didn’t know, we also do our part for mom and offer all moms free greens fees or free minigolf on Sunday, May 12. Bring her out to play a little golf. In preparation, we met up with Trisha Trixie. She loves all things retro, so she custom makes aprons, shoes, jewelry, and hair pieces. Theresa, Fred (my mom and kitchen guru) and I looked through options to figure out what we wanted to feature in the golf course’s Golf Shop. She had many aprons with various fabrics and styles as well as jewelry. We decided to have some examples of her shoes on hand, so golfers and guests of the golf course can create custom orders to their liking. Fred really liked these earrings. She’s so hip for a mom. Theresa showcased some of the fun hair pieces that Trisha has made. She even custom made them for golfers, so they have golf balls or logoed Toad Valley pins on them. Each hair piece has a clip as well as a pin. We thought they’d be cute pinned to a Titleiest hat or golf bag. We had given Trisha Trixie some of our own logoed apparel and told her to have some fun with it. What girl doesn’t want some bling sporting her favorite golf course? Trisha is so much fun and had many great ideas. All three of us enjoyed looking through her suitcase of goodies. If you stop out to the golf course, you’ll find lots of adorable aprons for sale. Each one has a care tag on it and Trisha includes a goofy saying on each care tag. The flip flops looked like lots of fun to us because we could easily see one of our brides order a set for all the ladies in the wedding party. These would be far more comfortable at a reception than high heels! You pick the color of the flip flop and ribbons. How about you? What are you getting your mom for Mother’s Day? Do you use an apron or do you just wipe your hands on your pants?

Pump It Up

Project List

Our miniature golf course features six ponds, two fountains and a 15 foot boulder waterfall. The Iowa weather dictates for us to store the pumps inside in the winter to keep them safe from freezing. In the spring, the ponds are cleaned and prepped for the installation of the pumps. It is always amazing to see just how dirty the water can get over the course of the winter. Lots of winter debris fly into the ponds and creates a pretty ugly mess. We have three different pumps that need to get installed in each of the lower ponds on the miniature golf course. At the bottom of each pond is a pit where the pump rests. Then it is covered with a grate to protect the pump from errant golf balls. Golf balls can destroy a pump. Pumps are pretty pricey. Let’s just say I could feed my teenage son for several months on the amount of money it costs to replace a pump. Once the pump has been put into the pit, it needs to get attached to the flexible tubing that runs underneath the miniature golf course. They also have to be wired up to the electrical outlets. This tubing connects the pump to the main line that runs underneath the minigolf and connects the two ponds. The pumps are installed in the lower ponds and the water is pumped up through the tubing and out into the upper pond and creates a large fountain of water that streams out. While the water pours out of the tubing, it overflows the upper pond causing the water to trickle down through the rivers to the lower ponds that run along the bottom of the miniature golf course. Isn’t that cool how that all works? It’s like an episode of How’s It’s Made. There is a shutoff valve on each pond which helps to increase or decrease the water flow. If we have a water problem, we can also shut off the water. That’s probably why it is called a shutoff valve, huh? These pumps weigh more than my dad and brother combined, so it takes several strong men to lower them into the pit. Once they are lowered into the pit, it is pretty easy to get it hooked up. The electricity is wired up and with the flip of a switch, we have water flowing on the miniature golf course. It isn’t always that easy, of course. Some years, there are many other steps depending on how well the pumps want to cooperate. When you play miniature golf, you’ll see that we usually have blue water. We dye the water blue to help hide all of the tubing that is at the bottom of the ponds, plus it helps to prevent algae from forming. Who knew getting the minigolf up and running for the summer required so much work? Anybody want to help with lowering the pumps into the pit? We can always use an extra back!

Jason Gets Dirty

Our Green Thumb

It’s kind of hard to believe when you look outside today at the beautiful green grass and bright blue sky, but we were covered in snow on Saturday. When I was getting ready for the minigolf outing that we had that day, I noticed water pouring out of the side of our driving range hill. We had recently brought up our irrigation which included priming all of our pipes on the golf course with water, so the greens, tees and fairways can be irrigated. Honestly, we were expecting quite a few leaks since it hadn’t been used much last year, but so far we were in the clear. No one spoke about it, of course, talking about the fact that you don’t have any irrigation leaks is a sure way to cause one to pop up. It’s usually a doozie, too. I learned that this massive stream pouring from the driving range hillside was not melting snow, but rather a big ole’ irrigation leak. Like us, the pipes were protesting the May snow storm. On Monday, Jason and Ron got to work repairing it. First up, digging a hole. Jason removed the sod and dug up the severely saturated mud until he found the leaky culprit. Although we had turned our irrigation system off, all of the water from the system that was on this side of the shut off valve was draining through this break in the pipe. Our driving range is in the valley, so gravity doesn’t do us any favors in the mud department. The pipes were leaking. When Jason was a little boy, he helped our grandpa Dale on the golf course. Grandpa’s favorite piece of equipment was a drag line. He was constantly dredging out the ponds. Because Jason was Grandpa’s helper, he got a toy drag line to play with at home. When Jason was two, he would scoop out muddy water from his kiddie pool with his drag line and dump it in a pile. It’s a good thing he has so much experience with muddy water. He and our superintendent, Ron, discussed how they might go about fixing the leak. The culprit was a joint that had gone bad in the pipe. They decided they would use a knock on joint because there was no way they would be able to use any glue because of the flow of water that was coming through the break. In order to install the knock on, they had to cut the pipe. All of the pipe on the golf course has electrical wire running right along side of it. Most of it is 220 volt, so you don’t want to make any mistakes. At the very least, you want to make sure you’re grounded because a little electrical jolt is always good to wake up tired workers. Sometimes my humor doesn’t write well. Just know that is a joke. The getting a jolt to wake up is fun part. Also the grounded part. No. Wait. I’m trying to say that there is electricity. Be careful. If you want to remove hairs and restart your heart, then a little jolt is helpful. Oh. I give up. Luckily, Jason didn’t cut any wires. Once the pipe was cut, the water came flowing out freely. Ron and I were kind of hoping that it would be a big massive blast of water. Not that we wanted Jason to get super dirty or anything, but mostly for its entertainment value. Who am I kidding? We thought it’d be really funny to see Jason get blasted with water. Before committing to the knock on joint, they thought they might try to drain the hole from water using a gas powered sump pump. They worked to try to get the hole to have less water in it, but the stars simply weren’t aligning. The sump pump didn’t want to pump and water kept pouring into the hole. They grabbed a knock on joint and went to work getting it all fixed up. These are great joints because they don’t require any glue, however, they don’t hold quite as well, so they should only be used in a situation like this were draining all of the water from the hole isn’t a possibility. They let the dirt dry out for a few days before filling the hole back in. The dirt still needs to settle some more before they place the sod back on top of the ground under repair. How about you? Ever play in the mud when you were a child? Some people just never grow up.

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