Favorite Activity While Smoking a Pipe

mfresa

Don't think I've seen this here before, so here goes:
I just found a new activity to enjoy while sitting on the back porch watching the birds at the feeders and smoking my pipe: Slinging seed pods at squirrels with a sling shot.  No, I haven't hit one yet, but it sure scares the bejeezus out of them.  Keeps them off the bird feeders (temporarily).  Problem is, 15 minutes later they are back and asking me to try again (who'd have thunk it?).  My aim is bad, but it is fun trying.
In between shots I puff at the churchwarden and enjoy the afternoon.

The pods come off a Black Gum tree, and if you've seen them, they are round, kinda hollow balls about the size of a nickel.  Perfect for target practice. So hopefully I won't actually hurt the little buggers if I hit one.

The begs the question: What is your favorite activity while smoking your pipe?

mfresa

picture of the seed pod

ghostsofpompeii

@mfresa Those pods look like something from a science-fiction movie. I'd be careful flinging them around your backyard like that. God knows what might come out of the pod once it splits open.

ghostsofpompeii

I'd have to say my favorite activity while smoking a pipe is listening to music ... and day dreaming. I'm not one for actual traveling - but give me a pipe, a bowl of my favorite tobacco, and a quiet afternoon or the solitude of evening and I'm bound to turn up anywhere on this planet or another, and at any timeframe ... past, present or future. 

Woodsman

Aaaaa! those are Trifid Pods.

1 Reading

2 Listening to  music

3 Driving on back roads/ Long road trips with the skylight open.

Note: 1 an 2 are often together, 2 and 3 are often used together, 1 and 3 is NOT advised.

Hiker007

I just like to sit, think, and relax.

Philip

Mr. Mfresa,

As an amateur Ornithologist myself you should consider signing up with Cornell University's Backyard Bird Count. Since you're watching birds anyway. Very fun especially when a rare visitor shows up.

For me, listening to the radio is probably the no. 2 activity. Not music but shortwave. Either CW (commonly known as morse) or on 20 meter, the Maritime Mobile Network at 14.300 for anyone interested. 

The no. 1 activity is nothing.

Charles

Reading; listening to music; watch a movie; or just sit, think, and relax.

motie2

I have a gigantic black gum tree in my back yard, and the damn balls fall all over the place. They eventually burrow into the ground, and they make walking around in the grass unpleasant. One has to pick them up each season after they fall. They don't rake well and need to be gathered by hand.... wearing gloves.

jim102864

I suppose my favorite activity is staring dumbly into space, thankful that I can afford the hobby and my own home and garage to smoke in, followed closely by watching YouTube vids from my favorite pipe smoker channels and listening to music.  

SERENTIL

@woodsman, you nailed it for me with #2.  I have a round-trip from/to work of about 75 miles... all backroads.  Nothing nicer than a pipe and a quiet drive.

But, my #1 is definitely sitting out on back patio with the mrs.  Talking and smoking.  QUALITY!   If we're out there in the daytime, the birds are VERY busy in our yard, especially the hummingbirds.  Yes, that is priceless time spent that I cherish. 

SERENTIL

Oop.... ^  #3... the driving one. 

thebadgerpiper

For me, nothing is more satisfying than reading a good fiction book while smoking my pipe with Celtic music playing on my iPhone. It just puts me in the right mood to relax and unwind while letting my imagination wander.

And I remember seeing those seed pods for the first time in college. I always assumed some sort of body snatching alien would hatch from them and cause a campus wide crisis.

xDutchx

Browsing pipes and vintage collectible tobacciania on ebay, as well as browsing various pipe and cigar related sites. Listening to the Pipes Magazine Radio Show is always a sure thing, at least once a week.

Also checking periodically for Silver Alerts to make sure that the make, model, and tag number are not my own.

idbowman

Year round it's mostly reading or watching black-and-whites on one of the "classic" cable channels.  In the warmer months I like sit out and watch the backyard birds and critters or - and this is my favorite - listen to a ballgame on the radio.

mfresa

@idbowman yeah, the radio is a good one.  I listen to the horse races at Gulfstream Park in Fort Lauderdale on Saturdays.  Good entertainment.

motie2

And I do love paging through the P&C catalog that came in today's mail. And what a beautiful whole page on my beloved Sutliff blends!! Smoking a bowl of Barbados Plantation or the rear verandah (deck - ha!) as I don't want to use up what little Mrs. Hudson's I have left.

dbh1950

mfresa, smoking while watching the birds at the feeders, one of my favorite activities. Living within walking distance of a rural park, I always take s pipe and tobacco with me, I suppose that would be called lunting, of which I am now a member of the International Lunting Society. Walking and pipe smoking, a perfect match.

mfresa

@dbh1950 - "Lunting", is that a word?  I'll have to look it up.  But if so then I too am a lunter.

motie2

@mfresa - https://www.lunting.org/

I'm a member.

Philip

Silver Alert?!!   At least you're not checking the FBI's site... Right?

L-517163 freshly minted.

Philip

By the way. One of my new favorite activities, which goes perfect with a pipe, is watching videos of Somali Pirates attacking armed ships, particularly USN warships. I mute the sound of the video and on another music application play Yakety Sax (song made famous by Mr. Benny Hill). 

I love the ones where they "sneak up" on a ship at night, but since they can't see in the dark they don't realize it's a Ticonderoga Class guided missile Cruiser. Oh Boy, I can't stop laughing!

motie2

It's like watching those "Allahu Akbar" videos on YouTube!!!

ghostsofpompeii

I used to enjoy watching a family of foxes frolic around in my neighbors backyard but it appears even the wildlife has moved to a safer neighborhood.

Woodsman

Enjoying the cooling down of the air from the front moving in on the patio in the dark with Brian Boru's March on my MP3 player.

PhilosoPiper

My favorite activity while smoking a pipe is either drinking coffee and reading, or absolutely nothing at all. Perhaps another favorite activity is sitting at my local tobacconist discussing theology, philosophy, and current affairs. 

motie2

<<Perhaps another favorite activity is sitting at my local tobacconist discussing theology, philosophy, and current affairs.>>

@PhilosoPiper -- Wait. Do I know you? That's my fantasy self! 

In my real life, I have no local tobacconist: my tobacconist is the internet. But I'm conversant vis-a-vis the three activities, holding degrees in the first two, and regional reknown as a world class bloviator in the third. [Bloviation: "..... the art of speaking for as long as the occasion warrants, and saying nothing." ~Warren G. Harding]

PhilosoPiper

@motie2, I am on staff at a non-denominational church in Houston, and am quite orthodox in my beliefs. My tobacconist is working on his PHD in religious studies from Rice University and a devout Catholic. Things can often get quite interesting.

ghostsofpompeii

Working in the Steel Mill for 35 years I found myself in the company of a wide variety of individuals covering just as wide a variety of religions, including Agnostics and non-believing Atheists. I tried to veer away from most religious based arguments ... firmly believing there are two things not worth arguing about with individuals who don't think the same way as you ... religion and politics. No one wins ... and minds are seldom changed. The best you can hope for is a draw ... the worse ... hard feeling and relationships in tatters. I was born and raised a Catholic and still consider myself one even though I can't actually participate in certain functions of the Church ... like receiving Communion. My wife and I got married at an early age ... I mean EARLY age ... I was 17 she was 15. Enough said. So the Church would not marry us. And probably for good reason ... because the Las Vegas odds of a young couple staying married were pretty much against us. And the Church frown on divorce. Which was where they assumed we'd end up. Of course this September 29th will be our 50the Anniversary ... so what do they know.

But on one occasion the guys at work were in a bitter debate with a young Atheist who was making snide reference as to the intelligence of anyone who believes in absurdity life after death and Heaven and Hell and someone decided to drag me into the conversation. As calmly as possible I could I stated I was a Christian and non-practicing Catholic who maintained his Christian beliefs. And to the young Atheist I said ... "You may be right that there is nothing after we die. Or I might be right that there is. If you're right, I'm rotting in the dirt feeding worms - and not much I can do about it. If I'm right you're spending an eternity burning in Hell - and you might have been able to prevent it."         

motie2

pipeman83

@motie2,I like that, but minus the beer belly.