What's your hobby?

I'm a bit of a history buff (reading biographies, visiting places of interest etc), and I have a thing about watching films of old boxing matches (which is weird, because I hate violence). I like to kid myself that I'm a cigar connosseur too, but actually, I think the occasional cigar is just because I miss smoking cigarettes.

I learn languages too, I taught myself French, and have got myself to basic level in German.

Stained glass, sewing moccassins, making tinctures and salves with wild medicinal plants ... and outdoorsy stuff like kayaking, hiking and camping. Spending time with my dogs.

Reefkeeping

I handcarve netsuke from scraps of hardwood.

Hmmm. I like minimalist camping, cooking over an open fire, and--though this rarely comes in handy--can sight-type over eighty species of North American wild violets, thanks to a stint in wildlife research.

When I cannot stand the world anymore, I watch Fellini and drink scotch. And hey ho, write whodunits.

Indianasmith said:

I love collecting Indian arrowheads and other artifacts, and have done so since I was a child. I have a relic room with over 100 frames of arrowheads and spearpoints on the walls, and go to artifact shows pretty frequently.

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Have you ever done any flintknapping yourself? I've always wanted to learn.

clee984 said:

too, I taught myself French, and have got myself to basic level in German.

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I've tried to learn languages on my own but have not made anything stick. Any good tips or references?

Bushrat said:

... making tinctures and salves with wild medicinal plants ...

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Also wanted to do this, and also would appreciate any good reference sources. Are you following a text, or winging it, or in apprenticeship?

ap123 said:

Reefkeeping

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Intrigued. There are so many ways to interpret that. Tongue in cheek, wildlife activism, conservation, etc.

Pyekett said:

Also wanted to do this, and also would appreciate any good reference sources. Are you following a text, or winging it, or in apprenticeship?

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Very easy to learn. The best two books for the northern plants are, IMO:
Discovering wild plants by Janice Schofield
The boreal herbal by Beverly Gray (this has a lot more recipies and more detailed instructions)

Great, thanks. I have a set of Foxfire but get sidetracked every time I try to use them for something specific. For selecting and preparing plants I'm actually going to expose my body to, I want specific. Real specific.


Added: Sigh. And I promised myself that anytime I mentioned Foxfire, I'd mention this:

Eliot Wigginton, the Georgia school teacher whose students produced "The Foxfire Book," an acclaimed series of journals about their surroundings and local culture, surrendered to the authorities today, one day after pleading guilty to child molestation.

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Even Fellini, my escape, had Satyricon. I would really like for people to leave children out of the realm of adult sexuality. [This sounds less angry than I feel. I cannot derail that far, though.]

And now returning you to your regularly scheduled thread.

Pyekett said:

Intrigued. There are so many ways to interpret that. Tongue in cheek, wildlife activism, conservation, etc.

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I keep a nano-sized coral reef tank. Started with a larger system, about 65gallons, downsized to 8.8 gallons now. Smaller is much more difficult to keep stable. Corals, fish, inverts, it's my own little slice of the ocean.

ap123 said:

I keep a nano-sized coral reef tank. Started with a larger system, about 65gallons, downsized to 8.8 gallons now. Smaller is much more difficult to keep stable. Corals, fish, inverts, it's my own little slice of the ocean.

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Wow, that's really cool! What kind of fish do you keep in there?

@ Pyekett - Oh, man ... I know the Foxfire Series. This makes me wish for medieval methods of punishment, as usual when I hear stuff like that.

I have too many hobbies, sigh. Aside from reading and writing, I play videogames and am involved in indie video game development. I draw (on paper and with a vector art program on the computer), paint (usually acrylic on canvasboard), do origami, and several other art forms (soapstone carving is often the one people find most interesting). I occasionally watch animation or read graphic novels when I can find something interesting. I garden (not very successfully - this past two weeks I've been cursing about mold on the seedlings I was trying to start indoors). I cook about once a week, and try to do a new recipe every month or two. I'm strictly forbidden from collecting pottery, plushies, glass bottles, horse models, or anything else that takes up space and gets dusty; otherwise I'd probably do that. >.> I do seem to be accumulating a collection of tarot and oracle decks, mainly because I'd like to create one; those aren't against my housemate's rules because they fit compactly on a shelf.

I'm something of a Native American nut. I am interested in all things Cheyenne or Kiowa. No blood ties but a piece of ground we own was a bone of contention between the tribes long before white folks came along. My great grandfather had a cigar box of arrowheads that he found as a boy.

He had some pretty nice fossils too. That hooked me. The arrowheads are gone now but I still like to fossil hunt. I'm not very good at identifying stuff. If something is really interesting I drive it up to the Sternberg Museum in Hays and have the professionals look it over.

If I'm not fossil hunting you can bump into me over at the gardeners of AW site--s6

Bushrat said:

Wow, that's really cool! What kind of fish do you keep in there?

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At the moment I've only got one fish, a pink streaked wrasse. Excellent for keeping the population of nuisance mini starfish down. Also sexy shrimp, a pom pom crab, and a variety of corals

Shakey I've been lurking on the gardener's thread. My daughter and I have been trying to venture into container gardening on our teeny terrace.

I had a goldfish. My g-daughter won him at the fair this summer. We named him "July" -- a family custom to name goldfish in the month they were acquired. I really got attached to his smiling face at the breakfast table every morning, but then he went to that giant goldfish pond in the sky last month. Now I am tempted to buy a few more and an aquarium--nothing too complicated. --s6

Fish are pretty awesome. They have personalities, many are pretty smart, and they (should) live a long time. Clownfish are like puppies, seriously. I've never been a freshwater gal, but I have reefing friends who also keep cichlid tanks, and others who keep freshwater planted.

Indiana, you're friend will love it, a crazily obsessive and rewarding hobby.



Collecting fossils is so cool, I've never known anyone who's done it.

Indianasmith said:

AP - they are everywhere, you just have to look!

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I live in Manhattan, no digging allowed in Central Park

I like painting canvases (words/inspirational quotes... not painting. I'm not talented that way).

I crochet. I've been doing a lot of blankets lately--I'm snuggling with one right now Sometimes I knit, but I find it a whole lot more tedious than crochet.

I also write. And read. And watch tons of HGTV.

I swear, I'm not 90.

Birdwatching --- although I'm not all that good at it!

Helix said:

Birdwatching --- although I'm not all that good at it!

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Have you done the thing where you install a birdbath, hang a hummingbird feeder, hang a suet cone and/or a sunflower seed bell, and plant some zinnias or thistles? Those are the main things people do to attract birds around here. I never had goldfinches until I planted zinnias. I've still never had hummingbirds but the two people I know who maintain feeders see them regularly. The birdbath attracted grackles (blackbirds) which are otherwise very shy. It also attracted a crow though, lol.

sunandshadow said:

Have you done the thing where you install a birdbath, hang a hummingbird feeder, hang a suet cone and/or a sunflower seed bell, and plant some zinnias or thistles? Those are the main things people do to attract birds around here. I never had goldfinches until I planted zinnias. I've still never had hummingbirds but the two people I know who maintain feeders see them regularly. The birdbath attracted grackles (blackbirds) which are otherwise very shy. It also attracted a crow though, lol.

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I have a few bowls of different depths for birdbaths, which attract a range of local species.

I'm living on a property of about a hectare, which has lots of native trees (planted), so I get nectar feeders and insect eaters, plus the usual generalists. Before this place, I was living on a similar-sized block in the middle of a rainforest. Now, that was pretty interesting!

(I'm in NE Australia.)

Weightlifting. I use to compete in powerlifting. There is no money involved just trophys, so I called it a hobby. Now I just workout to try and stay in shape. But I must say,by not competing any longer, motivation is hard to come by. LOL

Helix said:

I have a few bowls of different depths for birdbaths, which attract a range of local species.

I'm living on a property of about a hectare, which has lots of native trees (planted), so I get nectar feeders and insect eaters, plus the usual generalists. Before this place, I was living on a similar-sized block in the middle of a rainforest. Now, that was pretty interesting!

(I'm in NE Australia.)

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Oh Australia, I guess you'd have a totally different selection of birds there! Lol, silly me. But wow, living in a rainforest must indeed have been interesting! Trees that work for nectar-feeders are interesting too, I can't think of any local trees that make flowers of that type. My neighborhood is mostly grass, fields of weeds, pine trees, and deciduous trees like oak and maple. So by default we get a lot of lawn-pickers that eat worms, insects, and seeds, and a few that are specialized to eating nuts. Starlings, robins, mockingbirds, bluejays, grackles, sparrows, and an assortment of small finches including goldfinches. Also hawks, crows, mallard ducks, Canada geese, and the ubiquitous urban pigeon. The more rare sightings are lake/river birds like herons and gulls (though they are not rare at all if I actually go to lake Erie), a few types of woodpecker, hummingbirds as I mentioned, red-winged blackbirds, and I once saw an oriole.

One of the reasons I'm interested in birds is that my city, Pittsburgh, is the location of the US's national aviary, and I usually go there once a year to see all the cool birds.