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Seasonal hobbies: What are your summer/winter hobbies?
What are some hobbies you do specifically when during this time of year (whether it's your summer or winter)? And what do you do in the opposite season?
When I'm home, summer is when I do some light woodworking projects. Currently I need to finish a shadowbox that will be illuminated with LED strip lights. I also have to finish a bat house that needs a little more work before I can do a final assembly and install it on a post.
I don't really have any specific hobbies for the winter, besides crushing my music backlog while reading, so I'm interested to see what other people do.
I was intending on posting this before the season actually started, but here we are. :)
I'm pretty far north. For planning purposes, we get six months where outside has the most consistent fun and six months where indoors activities are best.
Spring/summer/autumn are for hiking, gardening, farmers' marketing, you-pick harvesting, foraging, picnicking, beachcombing, arts and craft fairs, and (hopefully soon) outdoor entertaining. I'm starting to bike again, so maybe some long rides.
Summer/autumn are for preservation cooking - jams, jellies, sauces, drying/freezing, pickles and ferments, canning, etc. Maybe a little wine- or cider-making in future. The aim is to have enough to get through to the next harvest seasons and plenty to give as gifts. I'm also interested in seed-saving to maybe start breeding tomatoes and peppers.
Winter is for cross-country skiing (if we ever get adequate snow again...), elaborate cooking and baking, local wine tasting (after the tourists are gone), lapidary work and jewelry-making, home interior refurbishment, garden/landscape planning, seed starting and indoor gardening. Maybe travel if we ever have money or enough time off.
In summer, I stay indoors because outside is hell. Global warming is real, for sure.
Really, though, I do not have any hobbies that I would consider seasonal. There are some things I do which are affected by the season, but generally they are doable anytime because I live in an area with moderate climate.
Yes, it's definitely a good time to be inside. It's unseasonally warm here and I just don't enjoy how hot it is right now, but when I have more time I'll be finishing my woodworking projects in the mornings and using the rest of my weekend to complain about the heat, haha.
What got me thinking about seasonal hobbies is that I know some Mennonite folks don't work over the winter, so they must have some interesting winter hobbies. Also makes me think they must all have a lot of September and October birthdays. ;)
I try to make biking a year-round thing. Summer leans more towards mountain biking and winter more towards gravel rides. But I'll do either anytime of year, mainly depends on precipitation and trail conditions.
Gardening/landscaping projects usual happen in spring and fall with summer just being maintenance and harvesting.
Probably the only hobby that I do mainly in the winter is sim racing. I refuse to be holed up in my basement on the PC when the days and long and weather is relatively nice.
Most of my hobbies are indoor. The main difference is if I'm sweating when I work in the garage or not. Many forms of building stuff - woodworking, 3D printing, getting more in to metalworking. Plenty of time in the house on the computer, either working on it (messing with the custom loop water cooling) or working with it (programming/gaming).
The one thing that does change is what I do with the dog. She's a grand woolly beast, and does not the heat. So the adventures tend to be grander during spring and fall, with both of us preferring air conditioning during the summer, and her spending a lot of time frolicking in the yard playing in the snow with me watching through the window from the warmth in the winter. Sadly, she's a bit of an elder beast, so less adventures in general and more just cuddles and pets.
May your grand woolly beast have wonderful adventures, cuddles, and pets for many years to come!
What kind of metal working are you doing? I've been thinking about picking up a MIG welder for a while for small metal projects and just learning the craft.
I want to pick up a basic MIG welder and I'm about to install the plug in the garage to run it. I did some MIG welding in the past but that was using my Dad's equipment, but he's moved a couple of times and doesn't have it any more. I'm also wanting to set up a basic benchtop mill and convert it to CNC, and I have some of the parts to build a basic benchtop lathe. Once I have the tools, I can do most of the conversion using parts I have laying around for the 3D printers - they're a lot of overlap, the 3D printers are just built structurally more for speed rather than rigidity.
In the shorter term, I'm getting set up for doing plaster casting of aluminum and precious metals. This also plays in to the 3D printer and the lathe plans. I 3D print a positive in PLA, make a plaster form using a vacuum casting form, then burn out the PLA. Aluminum in, hit the bottom with vacuum to fill the voids, then break out the plaster. One goal is to be able to make basic jewelry type stuff as gifts and such - things like custom challenge tokens. There's also a book series, "Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scratch" by David J Gingery. It involves using casting processes and then repeatedly updating the machines to refine them to something that's a rough but usable milling setup. More of a fun project than something that's readily usable for real machining but seems fun. If I wanted to do more serious work (like cutting steel instead of just aluminum) I'd probably look at getting a quality small combo machine like a Granite XT 1340.
I love being outdoors and outdoor sports. Snowshoeing, skiing, and ice climbing in the winter, rock climbing, mountaineering, biking, fishing, etc. the rest of the year.
Everything else is pretty steady throughout the year: games, reading, writing, etc.
Those are some badass winter hobbies!
I like that "snowshoeing" is it's own entire thing. It's not just "a winter walk in the woods," it's much more than that. I assume that most people who are into snowshoeing are doing some kind of backpack hunting or backpacking in general. But I imagine that snowshoeing is a different experience than most cross-country travel by foot and would like to try it sometime. The world feels like a different place when it's covered in snow.
I'm, currently, in Texas. So summer is hot and humid as hell. As a result my summer "hobby" is buying parts for my cars or blacksmithing tools/materials to use during the winter months.
Winter is using/installing all the things acquired during summer.
Summer is disc golf, running, and hiking season! I'm running one of 7 legs in a 160km mountain race next weekend! I'm not very good at disc golf even though I have been playing it for almost 5 years now. I don't do much dedicated practice and just go once or twice a week with friends as a way to spend a couple hours with them.
My winter seasonal hobbies are skiing, and a lot more video games!
Disc golf! I've always wanted to get into disc golf or ultimate (frisbee). I suppose disc golf is pretty easy to pick up and work on solo until I reach a comfort level where I can embarrass myself in front of friends and teammates.
I think the only hobby of mine that's seasonal is my motorcycle. I mostly ride during the spring and fall. It's pretty miserable in the summer with wearing gear in all the heat, and riding below about 40 degrees is just not fun.
Back when we were dating, my wife lived for a while with her motorcycle as her only vehicle... which means she must have been commuting with it during the winter in Norway. I was mostly nervous about safety so I didn't even think about how miserable that would be.
Yeah that sounds absolutely awful. Safety is definitely a concern, though. You don't get the same kind of potential for recovery if you hit ice on a bike compared to a car.
I have confirmed with her that she didn't commute on the bike, she apparently didn't have winter tires so it would've been illegal. The timeline when she got a shitty little car lined up well enough that she didn't have to.
ATGATT!! Good work! Yes, it's a struggle in the high heat and especially humidity. Wind sheer really encourages fast riding when it's hot, haha, but I hope everyone is riding safe.
I'm the same way in the winter. I don't enjoy being out even in a heavy jacket, scarf, and pants. Below 40 with or without wind sheer is just miserable and sport bikes offer inadequate protection against the elements. Even my dual sport friends aren't doing much better.
My main seasonal hobby is gardening on my balcony -- there'll still be some plant-watering during the colder seasons but it's an order of magnitude less, and that's without considering all the other tasks during planting and growing season. Currently growing some jalapeños and getting close to the first ripe peppers I think!
I find I have more motivation to crochet in cooler weather as well. But that's less because it's a seasonal hobby and more because most crocheted clothes are more suited for that season.
Summer is when all things motorized get fired up. My summer hobby is playing with anything on wheels. So the minibike gets used for the riding trails around our home. The ol' RV finally gets warmed up and we head out on the open road to wherever the wind takes us. I have a classic Vette and the car cover gets stored and it comes out for ice cream runs and Show and Shine days. The VW powered sand rail is currently in the shop for an engine rebuild. We have a boat with a 350 Chevy for taking the grandkids out to the lake for tubing. I usually run around getting maintenance items for everything in our little EV. And last but not least, the ride on mower gets warmed up for another season of mowing. Fortunately, for some strange reason, my wife does all the mowing because she likes it.
Suffice it to say I like things with motors.