I like doing "Mr. Wizard" types of science projects, buildiing PCs from scrap heap components and making homemade wine. I am sitting here now with a goblet of my 1994 season cocorde grape/plum blend that aged on oak for thirty months before bottling. What are some of your hobbies and crafts projects?

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 26, 2002

Answers

Mornin' Jay... pass the blend around please, pull up a chair. I need a taste tester :) I like to try new recipes. I am a Food Network junkie! Seems I never make the same thing twice even when it turns out great. My new favorite condiment is Balsamic vinegar. My friends will be glad when I get off that kick. I get a bang out of setting a pretty table with just the right lighting and having friends in to eat. Right now I am planning an Alpine garden on a portion of my property, and a bog garden in another area. I am a life master duplicate bridge player, a game I really enjoy. Not much into crafts, but I do enjoy decorating my home, and reading non-fiction type books, particularly biographies. I used to water ski a lot, but now only ski on my birthday each year to prove I can still slalom (sp)? The pain from it takes longer and longer to go away! I love Home Depot. You men have all the fun... all those wonderful specialized tools that I can only wonder what they are intended to do. I am collecting my own a little at a time and creating projects to use them on. The fun in life is learning. I am having fun. Carole

-- Carole (carle@earthlink.net), January 27, 2002.

Also.(forgot to say) My biggest project was buying my land then building my house. I did all the clearing myself, designed it and finally got the job done. Here is a link to see a couple of pics. The pictures are of poor quality and I am not so hot with buiding a page or computers in general, but you will get the idea.

http://members.tripod.com/~CaroleHall/LakeHouse.html

-- Carole (carle@earthlink.net), January 27, 2002.

Wow Carole! I'm really impressed with your place. Did you actually build it all by yourself? It is good to know someone else enjoys stalking the isles of Home Depot. I love hardware stores in general. My secret or fantasy in life has always ben to own a hardware store. The real old-timey sort with the bins of nails, seeds and such. I love the smell of the older places. Strange eh?

What are my hobbies and crafts? I spin, my own fiber and some I buy. Knit, make wool felt, I don't weave but as soon as I get themoney together I want to buy a loom and learn. I like to ride my horses, hike in the woods, snowshoe, x-country ski, and I love to read. I'm a wonderful cook and weekends are usually spent making great pots of soup, stew, or some other creation, along with bread. I'm trying to get my place painted. I bought the paint a year ago and started with the kitchen. Have you ever checked out the Ooop's shelf at the hardware store? It is where they have quantities of paint at half price or less. They are mismixed colors and usually only a gallon or two but well worth it. There are tons of things I want to do here to my place but they take more than one adult person to do them. If I can get a friend to help I will usually repay them with a good meal or a pair of wool socks. Most of my friends think I'm nuts and have no interest in helping, makes one wonder what sort of friends they are sometimes. There are loads of interests I have,like beer making or wine making, but those things that always seem to be more fun with someone else to share it.

Enjoy your day! Susan

-- Susan northern MN (nanaboo@paulbunyan.net), January 27, 2002.

Susan.. We have one of those hardware stores nearby. Combo grocerty/hardware type. Hardware items are in a small back room in bins. Small as it is. it seems they always have what you need (except a 1" PVC 90degree coupling) and it has just exactly the smell you are talking about. I love to go in there too. No..I didn't build the house myself. Had a general contractor who did a quality job, but in the end we weren't speaking except thru an attorney. Yuk. My next project is to build a treehouse in a grouping of old oaks growing in my backyard. Never had one as a kid but always dreamed of it so I am in the design phase now so as not to stress the tree too much. Sure hope I can get that done by summer's end. Wonder where everyone is.. sure is quiet in here :) Carole

-- Carole (carle@earthlink.net), January 28, 2002.

Well, I used to do a little wine myself in a couple of 5 gal. glass water jugs, lost the recipe, jugs, etc. in a divorce (woops - sure hate that situation) some time ago. I am looking for a couple of glass 5 gal. water jugs so I can do it again, sure are scarce tho. Well I am a Ham operator for a hobby, I like rendezous's, photography (my equipment was taken in a fire), Heck, there is not enough room to list everything, so just use your imagination. Since the area I'm in now is so economically depressed (welfare capitol of S.E. Okla.), a friend and I are going to this week to Vegas to look around and if everything is as we suspect, we will move there this spring. Come on you lurkers and lurkees, lets have some input, we want to get to know you. Cuzzin Dick

-- Dick Tracy (kbrdrl@lakewebs.net), January 28, 2002.

DT,

My divorce, I hate to admit, was the brightest day of the last two years of my marriage. I was thinking of trying to make it a condition of the decree that I was not allowed to use the words "I" and "do" in the same sentence ever again :>)

On to the wine subject. A cheap way to get back in is to go to Wal Mart and buy a plastic water cooler jug with spring water for about $7 and use this water for the wine and order the other stuff from E.C. Kraus. If you order $15 worth of wine gear, they give you a free recipe book or go to www.jackkeller.com

Do you know what my ex wifes favorite wine was? ..."I want a DIVORCE!!" ...over...over...over again :>)

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 28, 2002.

Well I never made any wine! But have drank a bit of it in my time!!! Like Strawberryhill and Annie Greensprings comes to mind!!But i do love hard cider!! Its a sneaky drink kind creaps up on you before you know it!!

-- Grizz In Western Maryland (southerneagle@yahoo.com), January 29, 2002.

My hobby is restoring my old mercedes diesel and the crafts are making the diesek to burn in it. i also make a little wine and am going to make some enthol(sp) Bob se,ks. ps also like to ride my goldwing. just need a back seat driver for it

-- Bobco (bobco@kans.com), January 29, 2002.

Thanks Jay, I usually get the glass jugs free when I can find them. But I hadn't heard of using Plastic, are you using plastic, dosen't the process combined with plastic mess up the wine? If not then I will try that. However, it might be a while, since I am planning on moving to Vegas this spring.? Question - anyone here a Ham?

-- Dick Tracy (kbrdrl@lakewebs.net), January 29, 2002.

Hobbies, huh?? It didn't seem like much of a hobby years ago when the kids were small and I did a lot of gardening and canning--now I do it because I love it. Also like to raise day-old calves, go for long pick-up rides in the country, fish, camp, and garage sales--can't forget the garage sales!! :)

-- Lynn in Wash. (crabbyfiddler@earthlink.net), January 29, 2002.

DT,

I have only seen two big differences in using the blue plastic jugs. A) they're less expensive and B) easier to lift.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 29, 2002.

Don't have much time for too many extracurricular activites other than plain ol' maintenance of my cabin, pickup, four-wheelers and snowmobile. Besides my full-time job as a soil scientist, I am a volunteer firefighter. I do enjoy fishing, especially ice fishing. I hunt, of course, but hunting is mainly an excuse for a day or a walk in the woods. One of the things I really enjoy doing is impressing people with my skills at cooking and baking outdoors using cast iron cookwarre and dutch ovens. --Happy trails, Cabin Fever

-- Cabin Fever (Cabinfever_mn@yahoo.com), January 30, 2002.

Hello Jay,

I finished the exterior of my new a-frame just in time for winter. I work on the insides when I have the money and time. We built our homestead from scratch. Bought undeveloped land and cleared it with a chainsaw, pickup truck and lots of muscle power. We dug our cellar and slipped formed it using the stones off our property. Cleared and fenced in our garden areas and built our Chicken moat. Our outhouse is unique too, because it is also an a- frame.

I wood work and sell my creations on Ebay. Most of my creations are doll size furniture and children's furniture. My wife makes quilts, cans, makes jelly and jams, and make all the soaps for our needs. Sometimes she has extra and sells it on Ebay.

Sincerely,

Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), February 01, 2002.

Hi Jay and all, Aside from lurking in all the homestead/gardening forums, my favorite things to do are organic gardening, oil painting (if I can figure out how, I'll show you the tiger I just painted), singing, reading (mostly nonfiction, I love 'how to do it yourself'), cats, sewing (the latest is making puppets for church), digging on the internet for interesting information for myself and friends. At the moment I am trying to get my house ready to sell. Then I am moving back to the country and getting away from town. I moved to this small town 3 yrs ago to let my daughter go to school (we had been homeschooling). It is what she wanted to do so I went along with her. She turned 18 last summer and only has two more years to go. I found a place that isn't as far out as we were so we will compromise. The new place is also somewhat closer to the group home she is on the list for if it turns out that will work out best for her. She has Down syndrome. She is the joy of my life and it will be hard to let go, but I can't see letting her sit at home, twiddling her thumbs when she loves to be with people. I like having a few good friends around but hate crouds. Want to get chickens again as soon as I move and put in a large garden. I've started about 90 tomatoes and a couple dozen peppers as well as some melons. With luck we will be moving around the first of June. That will be a good time for planting here in the high desert! :o)

-- kim in CO (kimk61252@hotmail.com), March 17, 2002.

Sure enjoyed reading about all the different interesting hobbies,,I love painting,,I do mostly Acrylics,I do my painting in the winter months,,too busy to sit still once the weather gets warm. **I paint lots of different subjects,,mountains and snow scenes are my favorite,,cabins in a forest,,horses, wild and free..Oriental cats and happy farm scenes and more. It is really enjoyable to me. Also like to paint greeting cards.

I did a lot (I mean a LOT )of canning when raising my kids. Now I enjoy making and canning jelly and applebutter. I get a lot of my apples free each summer. Sometimes pears. So I always have something to share with my grown family and friends. I used to do a lot of crocheting,,making Afghans and baby blankets and pot holders. Maybe someday I will get back to it. ,:-) Patsy

-- Patsy, MT (cozyhollow-gal@care2.com), April 12, 2002.

New here...sorta perusing Countysite, (hadn't checked it out for awhile)and stumbled on this forum. :) Hi all!

Loved the pics! Carol very cool! I'm envious. Never made beer or wine, but I've been meaning to. Have a decent beer recipe somewhere. Another "to do", on the looong list. lol

Um, lets see. I used to be a chef long ago, love good food. I grow a decent veggie garden, hierloom tomatoes are currently an interest. Looking for the perfect old timey tomatoe to eat warmed from the sun with some salt and peeper. mmmmm. And herbs. But mostly, love flowers/cottage gardeny casual splendor..lotsa "rooms", yard art, etc. A fan of 'garden junque'(that's the la-de-da term for it;)

Hobby farm...lotsa critters. So that's a big interest.

I also love building things, not a house, but I think if I had the time and $ I probably could come up with something habitable!

My main interest/hobby is art. I'm and artist. Some projects of late: lots of faux finishes, some cool antique sign replicas(barn hexs, John Deer signs, etc., they are going on the barn when I get it painted..on the to do list), floor clothes, trompe laeul(sp!I'm not EVEN looking that up), murals, a few mixed media paintings.

This year hope to do some welding, just started learning last fall and picked up a welder at an auction....Oh, auctions! I'm addicted to those as well as thrift shops, garage sales, etc.

Yikes, wrote alot..I'll shut up now. :)

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow@aol.com), April 15, 2002.