You pretty well know mine: I figure skate, I dig ponds, I keep a reef, I look up ancestors, I look up other things, I follow physics and archaeology and dabble in languages, I draw, I photograph, I travel, I like code, crossword, and jigsaw puzzles, particularly the electronic sort.
Among things on hold, I love camping, riding, swimming, but haven’t done it in years; I used to love fishing, but I’ve nursed too many aquarium fish by now. I’m only happy if I don’t get a bite. I like model building—we’ve got some lovely wooden ship models that have been languishing for 3 years, awaiting spare time.
Things I’d rather go to the dentist than do: go shopping, hike on bare, flat ground, go to a nightclub, a tanning salon, a spa, a manicure, or a beauty parlor.
Hobbies?? I have HORSES, no time (or money) for hobbies! LOL I have 11 horses, some of whom I have raised, others I rescued from sad situations.
But when I (rarely) have spare time, I love to cook. I do not hunt, but my husband does, and I have four amazing recipes for elk jerky that are better than any jerky available on the market, IMO. I never write recipes down, and all recipes that I read are just a starting point. 🙂 I like to tackle challenging recipes, and will cook anything just for the fun of it.
I love bird watching, and feeding wild birds. I live with a cactus wren who often hangs out in the house with me, and will sit on my knee and eat bread or chips from my hand.
I also volunteer and work with local children to teach them proper pet care, dog training, fish (aquarium) maintenance, and bird handling.
But again, most of my free time is spent with the horses. Not just riding, but hanging out, brushing, petting, talking, grooming. Not to mention feeding and picking up poop! LOL I do teach riding lessons to beginners, but this is not really a hobby, I guess, as I have to charge for it to cover the insurance costs.
Anyway, gotta go check water buckets and put the horses to bed. 🙂
Having dealt with horses, I remain amazed at their ability to multiply what they eat into 3 times the poop. 😉 You put one bale of hay in; you carry out 3 wheelbarrow loads.
Apart from reading (I’m just guessing that that would be the biggest consensus hobby here:) ), I play D&D (AD&D, actually) and Mutants & Masterminds, and I play in the SCA, which is a whole bunch of hobbies and potential hobbies right there. I play music, have been known to compose music (but I’m no lyricist), tinker with liqueur recipes (drinking them is another matter; I like the experimentation, and generally have no trouble finding willing guinea pigs), I spend a possibly unhealthy amount of time in various Scienceblogs, and if I could get my left thumb to co-operate, I’d like to go back to painting things on little boxes, and embroidering. And I don’t know if it counts as a hobby or not, but I can do stinky bad puns and haiku.
I write, I roleplay (D&D, Shadowrun, DSA), I do textile stuff – spinning, weaving, sewing, embroidery, quilting – you name it, I can show you how. Even categorized by techniques from Palaeolithic weaving to creating modern burn-away velvet. Give me a sheep or a patch of land and a year, and you get your wool skirt or linen dress just as you wanted 😉
As CJ, I would rather go to the dentist than enter a warehouse for shopping, and I prefer quiet bars to loud events with lots of people.
Currently we house two cats and a lot of insects that think that our house is much more cozy than the beginning-autumn cold outside. Filking – I do that too, but my harp is sadly in need of tuning (and new gut strings). Recorders just are easier to lug around, so I have more practice with them.
–Thea
Herzogenaurach, Germany
Alas, my loom sits in the basement along with the ship models, waiting for me to have time. I have a 4-harness loom and can weave a respectable twill or plaid—plaids are the most fun for me, requiring you to remember what you’re doing.
I’m going journeyman classes in weaving just now (exams next august, and then master class), and my home loom is a 8-harness table model. It has only got 80cm weaving width, so I have to piece my plaids together. But I’m more into “yardage” – 5 meters of a quality, and afterwards turning it into clothing.
–Thea
Herzogenaurach, Germany
I am very bad at keeping something I love as a hobby … so horses – worked as a groom for 4 years every winter in my 20’s … partly because that was a hobby I certainly could NOT afford! that was in between running the knit design business, which has allowed me to do other things as part-time unpaid work rather than hobby – like painting – culminating in the pots, which do pay, a bit. (now both are full time work) I tried to learn to play the violin for 7 years, but handed it over to daughter when she got big enough for a full size.
but I have just bought on ebay a 12 foot sailing dinghy – the price covered the trailer and lifejackets that came with it, the boat practically free – a pram dinghy, made of ply in the 60’s, a Mirror with red sails – designed to be a people’s boat, could be made from plans published by the Daily Mirror! so learning to sail will be my new hobby – when the tide is right, in our muddy estuary, and when its not too windy, I am not keep on capsizing. So I was very amused to read something new, something I won’t spoil here, recently!
otherwise – reading is an addiction, blogging is partly work, walking the dogs is a necessity for all our healths, taking photos is partly work – oh, okay, you could count the little camera a hobby …
Learning HOW to safely capsize is a valuable safety skill, though. Years ago I happened to visit my brother near Boston a few weeks after my parents had also visited him. During their visit a sail in Boston Harbor had become altogether too exciting when a squall came up, though the rough patch was eventually navigated safely. I hoped to go sailing too, but Crispin had become understandably cautious about taking out his family members! The weather report on the Harbor was just a little bit more than he wanted to risk, so we went to Mystic Pond. I spent most of the time floating around in the water while he practiced deliberately capsizing the boat and righting it again. It was years before I actually got a sail in the Harbor.
Oh, congrats on the boat! It sounds wonderful!
Reading, photography, a little very amateur writing; reading, wargaming (nowadays on computer); did I mention reading?
Things I avoid like the plague: Basically anything outdoors unless forced into it. I guess my ‘Need for Shelter’ goes higher up the heirarchy… ouch!
Read, cook – mostly through necessity, but I do enjoy it and seldom bother with recipes which I treat only as guidelines whne the need arises. My main hobby is caving, but I only get to do that once a month or so, so inbetween I’ll climb or cycle.
I’d love to get into falconry, even though I’m not much of a pet person, and wish I could refind the time to play my clarinet properly.
Most of my free time is spent on reading, either books or blogs. Or watch DVDs.
When I get the chance I take day trips to wildlife sanctuaries or scenic areas for a spot of (very amateur) photography.
Once in a long while I shoot targets and or go fishing. My favourite species right now is the luderick or blackfish, for which specialist gear is needed: very long, soft rods with very light line and small hooks. (I’m not a purist, so I use an eggbeater reel instead of a sidecaster.) The bait is a clump of seaweed wound or plaited onto the hook.
I guess I’m unusual in that my interests don’t stay the same. I tend to be very interested in something for a few years, and then I move on to something else. Older interests always remain in the background and continue to provide pleasure, but new things always come up.
Science fiction has been fairly constant – I was reading SF at the age of 6, and not children’s SF either. Fortunately adults never monitored my reading or told me that anything was inappropriate for my age.
Phases I’ve been through: Wargaming with miniatures, miliary history, ancient Roman history, Latin poetry, chess, bridge, D&D (bought the 1st edition in 1974), Gilbert & Sullivan, Chinese language, Dr Samuel Johnson & Boswell, the Age of Sail, Scottish folk songs and history, Tudor history. … CJ’s books 🙂
Reading so much SF inspired me to major in Physics and make some progress toward a Masters degree, but I lost interest in it after a while. I enjoy working with computers and it’s always been my bread and butter.
Spiritual interests and meditation I don’t regard as a hobby. I would like to travel, and learn Sanskrit, and write a book. I love cats and hate dogs (sorry dog-lovers). I love the sea and boats.
Besides reading and writing, I like to garden, to knit and sew – mostly curtains and such, though I am partial to soft sculpture. I enjoy cooking and love eating the wonderful things my sons cook. I like to explore different belief systems, and especially admire some of the Native American ideas of who we are and what we are doing here, mostly conveyed through stories of our animal cousins.
I began to walk for exercise about a year ago, at my son’s urging, and have become addicted. I dream of wilderness hiking, would love to learn several languages, and fanaticize waking up some morning being able to sing.
Welcome in!
I can only carry a tune in a bucket when I’m actively playing, ie, I can sing WITH my guitar, but not a capella, and not reliably to somebody else’s playing. As many people can attest. 😉
If you have the money, consider taking a walking vacation. There are several tour companies that run them (I’ve done some with Country Walkers). They are a bit pricey, but you get really good food, charming lodging, and great local guides. I can strongly recommend the Olympic Penisula tour, and several of the people on my last trip recommended the Yellowstone tour… you get to go to spots that aren’t really “touristy”, except for the obligatory stop at Old Faithful. And you really do get a better feel for an area by walking through it.
I read.
Genealogy. Mine, my sis-in-law’s, her son-in-law’s (total: grand-nephew’s tree), a couple of friends.
Cross-stitch. I have a computer program that can take a photo and produce a usable chart, with the amount of floss needed for each color-symbol. (I need to finish the one of the gas-pillar in the Eagle Nebula; it’s *almost* done.)
Knitting. Currently I’m on a lace kick and a sock kick; socks are more portable.
Cookbooks. *Reading* recipes is zero calories; eating the food is not – and I do like cooking, but cooking for one isn’t worth it.
Watching birds. The hummers that like the landscaping around the local train station, including the fan-palm fruits (when they dry out, they shed sugar-syrup mist). The various hawks and corvids. The winter-visitor white pelicans (think seaplanes and you have some idea of what they’re like).
I love pelicans. They’re so improbable a bird—just watching a skein of brown pelicans pass me at close range was amazing. You wondered how they stayed airborne, they were going so slow.
Low stall speed 😉
Looking back I forgot downhill skiing, scuba diving and long distance bicycle touring although my touring bike is hanging upside down in the garage at the moment. We’ve done Freewheel, the ride across Oklahoma, at least 10-15 times as well as a number of Louisiana long distance rides. This is where you eat anything and everything. The classic quote from a friend was “the food in B…ville was so bad I only had 3 helpings.” These days the heat kills me so I had to give it up.
Lol! I never did that. Ever have the buffalo burgers down at that funny little restaurant at the edge of the Wichita Wildlife Reserve? They’re quite good, and the place is worth the price of admission. It’d be a great ride—well, except the elk and the buffalo can get cranky in certain seasons. I used to spend a lot of time hiking those hills. Came down Mt Scott the hard way, once, rapid descent, hopping boulder to boulder and gathered too much speed—I didn’t get hurt, but it scared the daylights out of me, especially when, in the twilight, I mistook the top of a scrub cottonwood for soft grass: in one blessed nanosecond I doubted green grass would be there, and chose the boulder beside it for a landing spot, or you might not be reading this. 😆
No, haven’t had buffalo down there. I’ve had them up at Woolaroc and on Monarch Pass when we were skiing up there. The owner of the lodge had a herd and provided the restaurant with the meat. I think I saw buffalo steak at Reasor’s the other day, right next to the Angus filet.
Riding in Louisiana was Jambalayah time in November with the Louisiana bicycle clubs. Cool weather, piney forests, crawdads and Zydeco music – it didn’t get much better.
My list seems to be a bit eccentric, at least one hobby doesn’t indicate interest in another . Along with the usual suspects of Sf reading and sometime half finished author, country/vintage rock music. photography, and computers in general, I’ve done web programming, db programing, 3d modeling/animation and digital art, writing country songs, guitar playing, fishing in salt/fresh water, Amiga and Atari computer collecting, military history, electronics/computer repair, cattle ranching (although that wasn’t really a hobby, more like if you didn’t do the work you didn’t eat, no money) old family photo restoration, cooking and grilling, computer gaming, dvd movie collecting(over 300 movies/tv series now), four wheeling in a two wheeler, telecaster guitar assembly, and making plum jelly, driving upto 24hrs straight to save on hotel expenses when driving from my navy base to home(I don’t do that anymore, I’m out of the Navy and besides I’ve wised up :)).
I haven’t jumped out of a perfectly good airplane to see if my parachute would open yet or taken my ranger pickup out to the dirt track to see how fast I can drive it before I spin out. I haven’t made it to New York or taken up pyrography yet. I keep missing driving into the path of an F3/F4 twister by minutes. I want to scuba dive and hike Pike’s Peak. Those are on my list of things to make a hobby, well… maybe not the twister intersection. 🙂
I’ve always wished I wasn’t so brain-dead from work so I could get back to writing and art. For the sake of time, I still get a bit of creative writing done here and there, but it isn’t impressive, deep, or complete – very frustrating. I’ve given up on art altogether except of bit of beading which requires less set-up and creates a more immediate product. I used to PAINT!
But to think of it, I’d really like to travel more in the US. In the last 10 years I’ve managed Japan, Germany and Great Britain, but I’d like to see the mountains and commune more with nature than I’ve been able to. I have daydreams of just sitting by a stream, or walking through a forest or just napping in a hammock.
Currently: reading, sudoku, learning Japanese, photography, small electronics projects (just bought a sweet soldering station to replace my cheap pencil-iron), blogging
Sometimes: Scottish Country Dancing, English Country Dancing, Dance Dance Revolution, calligraphy (I’ve made large calligraphy banners proclaiming dance programmes for balls)
Past: Bicycling, writing (I still have two nice bicycles, but my husband doesn’t bicycle and I’ve fallen out of the habit)
Would like to: play piano, sail (I used to volunteer on a tall ship but never actually sailed on it)
I always think of you when I drive to the Adirondacks and go past Esperance Station Road and Esperance, as I wend my way along NY Rte 30 North. It’s a fun trip, as I get to go through Amsterdam, Perth, and wind up in Edinburg.
😆 one of my alltime favorite roadsigns is an exit sign between Washington DC and Baltimore. Big green freeway sign that says: Future.
Two of my favorite signs:
Entering a tunnel into the four-level interchange in downtown Los Angeles, “End Landscape.” So true!
As the I-405 freeway went* adjacent to Orange County Airport, “Danger: Low Flying Planes.” What are you supposed to do? Duck? (*Sign no longer there.)
I’ve thought the same thing about the low flying planes signs… Or the signs on the Oklahoma turnpike that say “Don’t drive into smoke”.
One of my favorites, I’m not sure the English could appreciate. But we’re driving near the Wall—and meet warning signs involving the image of a sheep; and then another sign warning, Severe Dip. We broke up. We had a simultaneous image of Alfred E Newman with a propeller beanie hitching a ride.
I’ve been a gardener all my life, and used to do embroidery, sewing and play the piano but those have fallen by the wayside. This summer I’ve tried to catch on up reading, and have taken a summer break on geneaology (we share English ancesters) and writing, but those will resume as the weather turns cooler. One story became two parts, and really two different books, so I need to knuckle down, pick one and really refine it. I have 3 weeks of vacation left and need to take a few days just to write. Mosaics–my left brain likes reassembling things and obscessing over grout. Hiking, camping, trout fishing, walking the dogs, bicycling with the most recent 4-legged acquisition. Enjoy most anything outdoors.
Want to do stained glass and more travel–our trip to Egypt was unbelievable! Next on the list is Galapagos and Peru, but it may be several years before we can afford that. Take classes–the local community college lets 55+ folks audit classes for free, and I’m not too far from that. And do more writing! I have an outline for the next one started but need to so some research to figure out how it ends.
Hobbies–I remember what those were! The only current one I have is counted cross stitch, mostly because I can do that while watching TV after the kids are in bed. I’ve taken a harp lessons off and on for the last 4 years (Lyon and Healy Troubadour V lever harp), but it is so hard to find time to practice; the 20 month old wants to grab the harp too if she sees me anywhere near it while she is awake. About once a week I find some time to practice, but it is not enough to build my calluses back. I would also love to get back into yoga and belly dance (any style, but I prefer Egyptian). Some day!
Favorite hobbies: computer games and board games, not your usual board games, though: Aquaretto, Reef Encounter, ….
I don’t do enough photography, hiking, going to Dizzyland, going to the San Diego Zoo, going to national and state parks and forests.
(But for the moment, California state park fees are silly high! One wanted $12 at sunset, when there’s a free beach a quarter mile away on the same road! Apparently Sacramento has never heard of demand elasticity–price goes up, demand and sales and revenue goes down.)
LOL! Loved your story, CJ, about coming down Mt Scott, I have been up and down that “mountain” many times, although not quite the way you have! And I have eaten those buffalo burgers, really good stuff! I have a friend in west Texas who owns a buffalo ranch and packs and ships meat all over the states, so if you get a hankerin’, let me know and I’ll pass his info along! LOL
READING! Not just CJC but mostly. You are the only source of hardback books in my house, CJ, 😀 but it’s a rare week that goes by where I haven’t read at least 3 books. An expensive hobby…
Computers & computer games.
Cooking–my wife’s and my Sunday routine is a pot of coffee, the newspaper, and the morning spent watching cooking shows on the Food Network: “Ooo! Go download that one!” Cooking for three is more fun than cooking for one, and allows more experimentation.
I enjoy writing, though I never seem to finish a story. My military stuff is pretty good but the political background is hopeless. My scifi is ‘way too cliche. I’m an engineer, but at work refer to myself as a “frustrated English major”–a coworker once professed amazement that I regularly use semicolons, but everyone wants me to proofread for them.
Handloading, shooting, hunting (rifle and archery), fishing; if I kill it I grill it.
Camping & hiking. Driving.
Refereeing high school and youth football (the only activity extant where you’re expected to be perfect at the start, and then improve).
Writing checks to U of Oregon for elder son–hi emilyrln!–for a final year, with one Offspring left to go (he’s a high school senior this year), a real benefit of having your kids 7 years apart. Wife and I are looking forward to being empty-nesters! 😉 Next Fall we’re off East for a Navy football game, some leaf-peeping, and an earnest attempt at getting sick of eating lobster.
On the to-do list: building a kit airplane. That’s waiting for more budget space (read: after #2 son is safely graduated).