I’m like you Ann, I’m trying to find a new hobby, I thought I might try growing a herbal garden as I have two flower pots available and it is sunny where I live for most of the year, I am now reading up on this and if anyone on this thread has been successful with this hobby I would appreciate your feedback…
Hobbies? Photography of rodeo action, wildlife and farm/ranch stuff. Boating (20' powerboat with a rather large V-8) and fishing at local State Park/Lake. And, when we can, travel, as in weekend or a week. Many times, in the evening, we can be seen watching "live" rodeo action on The Cowboy Channel we have. IOW, major/big-time rodeo fans!
When I was younger and lived in the country, I had good luck growing herbs. I gave up after moving to town as the results were pitiful. I think it is the city water as some herbs are sensitive to treated water. I tried cilantro again last year and had poor results. I had good success with all kinds of mints until the neighbor cats decided it was a good place to pee. I lost my taste for homegrown mint tea. I have thought about trying again on a small scale and hauling water from a friend's country well. It is a fun and rewarding hobby if you like cooking and want the freshest herbs available.
Thanks for the feedback, I do enjoy cooking and especially enjoy dill and oregano, I will probably start with these.
I am quoting Ken because earning new things has been the foundation of my enjoyable retirement activities. It gives me both something to look forward to, something to do and something to improve/get better at. Over the past decade or so, there have been a number of great learning experience. One has been photography, learning to use new/different cameras and techniques. Another has been learning to use CNC machinery, both hardware and software, as an adjunct to charity work. A third major area of learning has been software, both design for CNC and photo editing. A fourth, more general, area of learning has been through travel and exploring, often visiting local historical societies. My latest episode was teaching myself how to fly a drone and use it for photography and exploration. Learning and riding motorcycles is what keep me going. Unfortunately there aren't many, if any at all, who are interested in and/or enjoy the things I am; however, it works for me and seems to keep building those brain cells. All that said, I enjoy the following activities and engage in them to some greater or lesser extent at various times. Riding and exploring on motorcycles CNC design and production Charity work Train chasing Reading Woodworking Digital photography Drone/aerial photography Photo composition and editing Electronic art and drawing Database design (don't do much of that anymore)
@John West Learning drone photography and videoing have always appealed to me, but I have so many projects that are now sitting idle, that I decided I didn't need to get involved in it.
Well, if you every get tired of or bored with any of you plethora of interests, flying drones is always there for you.
I like watching the world go by. The beautiful fall weather is here finally. I enjoy putting up food. I have been planning to try to spin nettle. We eat it but I haven't gotten to make fiber with it. I started last year and now this year we don't have a very good crop of it. I wish I enjoyed the hobby of cleaning my house. I started last year but now the dust is so thick I will have to bale it.
I love to crochet and I make an occasional piece of jewelry, mostly stringing beads. I'm not really very crafty.
Crocheting is my Hobby Lobby.... Hobby. When i was in my young teens my grandfather crocheted rag rugs for my mom, (his daughter) he only knew the simple single crochet stitch and so i too made rag rugs,, .. then later in life. 30's ..i met a friend of mine that crocheted and she taught me most all the basic crochet stitches .. Ive been Crocheting ever since... !!i love it,,,!! So when when i became a grandmother for the first time, i went nuts making all kinds of baby things my new grand daughter and for the other 2 grands i crocheted for too, but now that im an official old lady and still crochet.. right now i crochet Baby blankets for pregnant moms.. i crochet boy blankets and girl blankets. and also i use a ring like thing that i use to knit baby hats .. i honestly love the look of Knitted things..!!! but for me ,,it just takes too long to knit, then it does to crochet.. i have dabbled in many , many other crafts too, even candle making, Cards, etc... ..but that was all long ago..
I don't know whether this is a hobby, craft or what, but it is a "love/hate" thing that I seem to end up doing each year and it's work. The work involves making, engraving and finishing hundreds of Christmas remembrance (of children who died from cancer and other related diseases) ornaments. I enjoy making them for whatever comfort they might provide while greatly saddened that the child is no longer with us. I create a new design each year using the VCarve desktop app for CNC machines. This year's ornament is made from 1/8 in. walnut with a batch shown above in the name engraving stage.
@Faye Fox If you’re not living in an apartment do you a drainpipe from the roof that you could tap into and connect to a water barrel? That would give you a supply of fresh untreated water. DH has done that and we have three 50 gallon water barrels that give us a good water supply.
I’m pretty handy with a needle and thread - I always seem to have jeans and stuff that one or other of the grandkids have ripped and handed over to nana to mend. My sewing machine is permanently on the crafts table. I love to embroider and weave small pictures. All my embroidery is what we call counted cross stitch. The cloth is like finely woven canvas but the pattern isn’t printed on the cloth, it’s on a separate sheet of paper and you have to count the number of spaces from the edge of the cloth to where you want to start sewing. Then for each part and color you count the number of stitches in each direction. I weave the pictures on a small hand loom that’s about 24 x 12 inches in size. The first two pics are embroidered and the second two are woven. The little chick is a wine bottle bib we use round Easter. Sadly this is getting more difficult as my eyesight deteriorates. Sorry the pics are sideways.
Oh Bibi, they are wonderful. So much work and love! Thank you for sharing. I used to like to embroider but I cheated and used transfer patterns mostly. The first effort I made was a very large peacock as a teen. My grandmother had taught me the stitches. Unfortunately, I put the pattern on a linen dining napkin, one of a set of 12, after my mother said I could see if there was any cloth in our storage. When I finally showed my masterpiece she appeared angry for breaking up the set of linens. But later she framed it for me.
Archery, target archery. I like it because I'm pretty good and its competitive. And a good wood bow is pure art, whether recurve or straight bow. Those other things might be better for hunting, I don't know, but they are ugly.