What do you do for fun?

We have a thread going about what we do for work but I’d sure like to know what you do for fun!

I’ve got more hobbies than I have time for but I sure have a lot of fun doing them.  I love whitewater rafting and every summer I’ll go at least one trip driving a boat downstream for an outfitter friend of mine.  A week long odyssey of no phone and meeting new people.  We also do some day and overnight trips with friends and family.

In the spring I love fishing for salmon and steelhead and I’m silly enough to stand hip-deep in a snowbank, in a snowstorm, to do battle with one of these chrome misses.

I love bow hunting and the month of September is reserved for that.  I seldom harvest anymore but I sure find the thrill of bugling a big Yellowstone bull in close to,be a thrilling event. (And no, not in Yellowstone Park but the subspecies of elk).  I’ll sometimes do a later season mule deer hunt.

I love flinging flies at big Idaho/Montana/Utah/Wyoming trout so any weekend not filled with, or perhaps in conjunction with other activities might find me rowing my drift boat down a river with one or two of my fabulous children aboard.  Shoot, I seldom cast anymore, preferring to row them into fish.

I love camping with family, particularly grandkids.  If the weather looks nice it’s on!  We have a grand time taking hikes, shooting the BB guns (I have 7), learning about wild plants and their uses.  We discuss low impact camping and how to do it.  We all love it when a moose wanders through camp and grateful it happens often.  Grizz will wander through on occasion and that is not so awesome but we keep bear aware and lock up food.

I like restoring vintage axes and hatchets and let me tell you, some of that 9pm USA and Canadian steel need not hang it’s head for any of the now-popular Swedish options.  I love hafting a handle to a head than then shaping that handle to fit the users hands with my set of spoke shaves.I’ve got a Warren double bit axe in a vinegar bath right now that a client gave me last week. It dates to 1930-33 so not as old as some but still pretty old.  

Of course shaving holds my attention too and I’m grateful for then DFS community.

So gents, what do you do in your down hours?

I've pared my hobbies way down. I'm a competitive shooter. To support that I handload ammo. Right now I'm developing subsonic loads for a 300BLK handgun that I built. I enjoy the challenge of it, the experimentation. This past summer I also started casting projectiles to support the handloading.

I've pared my hobbies way down. I'm a competitive shooter. To support that I handload ammo. Right now I'm developing subsonic loads for a 300BLK handgun that I built. I enjoy the challenge of it, the experimentation. This past summer I also started casting projectiles to support the handloading.

Cool hobby.  Where are you finding primers?  Those things are nuts!

I stocked up the last time they were available. I stack everything high and deep. I've been through these shortages in the past and have learned. Powder, brass, primers, lead, I have enough for a very long time. During the klinton years I saw potential shortages coming and bought 1800# of wheelweights. Just lookin' ahead. With the latest shortages I had the lead, all I needed was to get set up for casting. That's the way I think. I had to wait for some molds but not all. But I also have lots of projectiles on the shelves just waiting to be loaded. This past autumn I cast >3k 9mm projectiles. I always intend to have far more on the shelf than immediate needs. Again, just the way I think.

edit: The UPS driver has commented on the deliveries in years past and I just told him that I shoot alot. Not a lie, I do and I intend to until the day I die. It's what I do.

If one shops around primers are still available on and off today though. Maybe not for a good price. I think the days of $30/k are over. When I needed shotshell primers during the shortage of last summer, I had to spend time with a search engine but I found what I needed. So I bought 5k, far more than I needed. I don't load many shotshells. Someone might need them sometime. I probably won't.

Fun with Swords.


I made that buckler, BTW.

Selecting a suitable place to rivet the handle, purposely a bit off-centre.

Sadly, COVID-19 has put quite a damper on the Rapier Combat activities. Also target archery, which me and the Missus just got started in.

Making kites!
 Brazillian-style fighter kite, scaled up by about 3:2 to make it less twitchy.
  "Urban Ninja" Low-wind/No-wind glider kite 
 "MiniMock Foil", (20 square feet) Only the interior dividing panels have colour, hence the soft diffused colour.

Ohashi design variation, with "Radical Ed"

An excellent light-wind flier.

My pride & joy:



"FF04" flowform, with 75-foot tails. Thirty pieces of ripstop in just the kite. I usually need 450# braided Dacron line to fly it.

Mowing interesting patterns into my lawn.
The first one was based on the labyrinth floor tile pattern in Chartres Cathedral.


This was the 2015 version:


And . . . You can never have enough guitars (and stuff)!

Missing from the family photo: a new Yamaha GL1 "Guitalele", which the Missus forced me to buy.

Most recently, doing sound for a community theatre group. Music playback, sound effects, etc.

... bought 1800# of wheelweights. ...

My local service station used to give me used ones by the bucketful for free. Otherwise they would've had to pay for special disposal.

I cast some of them into a counterweight for a desktop trebuchet.

 

Unfortunately wheel weights are largely extinct in Maine. But what I have will last a long time.

... bought 1800# of wheelweights. ...

My local service station used to give me used ones by the bucketful for free. Otherwise they would've had to pay for special disposal.

I cast some of them into a counterweight for a desktop trebuchet.

 

I love it! Desktop trebuchet?! I need one in the office.

How far would you say that can lob something?

Apart from my one "hobby" ....making shaving brushes I like to shoot and also reload my own ammo.
Then I love to ride. Yes, on a horse.
This one is Hallie, Kiger mustang. Her owner's daughter went to France to study at the famous Cadre Noir in Saumur for a year, and later go on to Uni for law there.
Hallie was not ridden for some two years due the rider being away. When covid hit, another horse I was leasing was taken to different barn with less restrictions, and I was out of a mount.
My trainer (in the one picture below) had the idea I might try Hallie - but the trainer was pretty sure it may not work out. How wrong she was, Hallie and I seem to be good match.
She is a beautiful horse, and I was able to buy her last August since the owner also moved to France. I really love this one, she is the sweetest horse (at least to me...), she does not like many others, especially females, except my wife and trainer. We did some shows late in 2020 and quite a few last year. Due to my age (old guy) there are not many classes we can go in, but we were able to win the Circuit Grand Champion ribbon for the Outreach Silver Stirrup class at Nona Garson's Ridge at Riverview here in beautiful New Jersey.

Wow. You guys are incredible! Is there anything you all can't do?

John Rose, I want to learn how to cut a labyrinth into my back lawn. How did you figure that out?

I'm afraid I don't have any other hobby besides sampling shaving gear. When I tell my friends what I do for fun, there's always this look of surprise followed by disbelief and then a polite turning away. It's really nice to have a place like DFS to talk about this strange fascination.