The Bottle Tree and Other Impractical Hobbies to Take to South Africa

Posted on by travelingmarla

Kurt and I have a lot of hobbies. (Probably too many, since we start far more projects than we finish.)

Kurt’s hobbies are things like metalworking, woodworking and stained glass. Mine are genealogy, the Japanese language, and making jam.

While we expect to make sightseeing and exploration our primary hobby in South Africa, we both plan to take something along for weekday evenings. My decision is easy, as I’ve made an agreement with the wife of Kurt’s boss to trade my jam-making “lessons” for her teaching me how to quilt. (I put quotes around “lessons,” because my lessons come generally with a side of cursing, burnt fingers and insights such as “if it looks like this and the texture is this, it’s done.” (So helpful, you know?)

As you can guess, Kurt’s are much less portable than mine, so he is trying to decide what, if anything, he might take. Or maybe he might opt to learn something new while we’re there.

I argue that he should take his welding equipment or buy new equipment there, because when someone is gifted enough to make this bottle tree, he shouldn’t be kept away from that talent for two whole years:

welding art craft bottles tree hobby
Kurt made this beautiful blue bottle tree just for his parents. He spent months working on this, taking time with each limb, soldering and shaping carefully.

What are your hobbies? Are they more portable, like mine, or rooted, like Kurt’s?

Hope your weekend was beautiful. We’re expecting another snowstorm tonight. While I hope it’s our last for this year, I’m secretly looking forward to it for the sake of the beauty. It might well be the last snow we see for two years.

Love, Marla

P.S. Only 2 days left to win the autographed hardcover of bestselling memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, signed just for you by the author, Cheryl Strayed! Click here to enter.

3 thoughts on “The Bottle Tree and Other Impractical Hobbies to Take to South Africa”

  1. I love the bottle tree. Beautiful. I pretty much read as my hobby. I spent a number of years doing counted cross stitch. Beautiful when done and soothing in the counting and fairly easy to travel with. These days it really is just a book, or two and a highlighter and pen. And if I find time, I read.

  3. Oh my gosh. This bottle tree is gorgeous. My hobbies are very portable and I’m not sure that technically I can call them hobbies when I try and sell everything I make. Guess it’s just who I am…from the time I was 6, coloring rocks I collected at the end of our street and went around the neighborhood peddling them door-to-door. Haha! Your quilting will be wonderful to have along…ohh, and the fabric you’ll find there…

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