Crazy schemes

Something my wife never planned on putting up with me, was my crazy schemes.  Never a 'get rich quick' scheme, more of a pointless exercise that consumes my thinking for an undetermined amount of time.  Hey, my brother tried to warn her at the wedding, but by then it was too late.

  The beer making would qualify for sure, as would the slot car track, the smoker, the garden, the list goes on.  Sure, some of these have turned into great hobbies and great results.  The smoker my wife actually does more often than I do now, and she definitely gets more consistent results.  The beer I've been very happy with, and she's encouraged my quite a bit. Here's the latest 2 things I've gotten myself obsessed with.

Yogurt

I love yogurt.  Those little cups don't hold enough, I could eat a big tub each day.  So since I tried my hand at fermented food already (beer) I figured I could take a stab at homemade yogurt.  I figured it'd be a great way to eat healthy, plus save money.  So after reading up on the internet, I finally bought some extra milk and went at it.  It only took about 1 hour to make, then about 6 hours to incubate.  Put it in the fridge and it's ready to eat.  Very easy to make (compared to beer) and it turned out VERY good.  For the 1st batch I just did plain, as it keeps the variables down if something goes wrong.  Next time I plan to make a vanilla and possible a fruit flavour as well.

Bentgrass

OK 3 years ago I bought myself a new mower for Father's day.  I went with a reel-type mower, no gas, no electricity, powered by Matt.  It's awesome, I love it.  Cutting the lawn is much more enjoyable with that machine, let me tell you.  PLUS it's much better for the lawn, and as such I've become more obsessed with keeping the lawn nice-looking than ever.  Most of that is limited by the effort I'm willing to put forth, but something happened this year that may change everything.
     What happened was bentgrass.  Considered a weed in most lawns, bentgrass is the stuff golf courses use for fairways and greens.  Why is it avoided in residential lawns?  Because it is high-maintenance requiring special equipment.  Equipment like a reel mower.  Maintenance, like it needs to be cut twice a week  Funny, I have a reel mower and I cut my lawn twice a week.
    So early this spring I noticed a patch of grass on my lawn the seemed to cut so much better with my mower than rest of the lawn.  As the patch grew and got bigger, and I researched what kind of grass it was, learned about bentgrass and all it's drawbacks.  I decided to use this patch as a test bed, hoping it would thrive and I could go ahead and re-seed my front lawn.   By the fall the grass still looked great, and I found a dealer who would sell me bentgrass seed.  After the salesman gave me all the warnings, I had my seed.  All I needed to do was tear up my lawn,prepare the area and seed.  I spent about 10 hours getting about a 15' by 10' area ready (i decided to only do a section of the yard, just in case) and seeded.  That was 3 weeks ago, and now I have fuzzy green blotches sprouting up on the dirt.  I probably won't get to mow it until spring, but I'l keep you all posted on how this goes.