Hurley Maintenance

Hey friends! Does anyone here in Hivelandia play hurling? Because I just got myself my first hurley and I'm excited to learn to play. :)

So I read up on how to take care of my hurley, and the recommendation was to coat it with raw (preferred over boiled, per this one website) linseed oil a few times in the first week, and then once a month for a while, and then every few months should be fine after that. But I live in high desert (Denver), where it's very dry and I'm guessing those recommendations come from Ireland. Do you think I might need to treat it more often?

Here we see Yuan has possession of the sliotar and CuChulainn has the hurley

The site also said that I should just practice with it for a little while at first, 20 minutes per day or so and not much longer, to kind of work it in so it doesn't crack. That's fine because I'm just learning anyway. So I was going to go down to the park (when it's NOT 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside) and hit it around a bit, I think maybe there's a wall by the tennis courts I can practice off of too.

So if anyone has any tips that would be appreciated! :D Practice tips too, lol. Playing other sports in the "hit the ball with some variety of stick" category I can hit decently sometimes but I fear that I'm probably just going to whiff it a lot, ha ha ha. But I'll have fun anyway. :)