If you’re anything like me, it can be hard to rest. Resting feels unproductive but rest is essential. So essential, in fact, that God called for it on the 7th day of Creation. For the homesteader, farmer, grower; resting is for the winter. When the fields (gardens) are fallow, the pantry is stocked, and the days are much shorter. Here are 9 cozy winter hobbies to explore that promote rest for the mind, body, soul.
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1. Read
Settle in and get comfy for my top favorite cozy winter hobby of all time– reading!
“Turn your waiting room into a classroom.“ I heard this once in a podcast and it has stuck with me.
If you’re in a season of waiting to acquire more land, more animals, more skills; use this time to learn while you wait so that when it’s your time, you’re ready!
During the spring and summer, my nightstand fills with a tower books I’ve purchased but am too tired to read. But in the winter, I can pour over these books with a hot mug of something warm and delicious.
Fluffy socks, a long cardigan, and the coziest blanket in the house. Never mind a television on for background noise, grab a book and a mug and settle in to enjoy a fictional story (I always like seasonally appropriately set stories) or learn a new skill from a non-fiction book.
In my To Be Read pile currently: The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs and Salad Bar Beef both by Joel Salatin and interestingly enough, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: Finding Intimacy With God in the Busyness of Life by Joanna Weaver.
Alternatively, now is a great time to read lots of seed catalogs and start marking the breeds you want to sow!
2. Plan your spring and summer garden
Fail to plan and you plan to fail.
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 2 Corinthians 9:6
Creating a plan for your garden is one of the most important lessons I have learned in the last 4 years of intentionally gardening to grow food for my family and to stock the pantry.
Keeping a garden journal helps me create and implement that plan. It also helps me to remember what I’ve done when.
- draw your garden in pencil and plan what will be planted where based on crop rotation
- keep up with your fertilizing schedule
- take notes on what grew well and what didn’t
- mark what pests gave you trouble and what was their snack of choice
The most helpful part of planning my garden each year is actually drawing out each of my garden beds and filling in what seeds I planted there and the date.
I am to go back to each year’s garden and see what I planted where. I know my own memory will fail me, this kind of journaling truly helps my garden be successful.
Garden journaling has proven to me over and over how beneficial it is to the success of my garden.
3. Bake
It’s okay to add a layer of “fluff” in the winter. You’ll be wearing thick and baggy clothes anyway! It’s cozy winter hobbies season, after all. You have permission to get in that kitchen and start crafting deliciousness.
How do the young kids put it nowadays– “getting big backed”?
In the winter, exercising is still a good idea but it’s also okay not to feel guilty about indulging in a warm kitchen filled with baked goods to enjoy.
Try new recipes for cookies. Decide to bake your own yeast bread for once! Make some pies. Create a Pinterest board now for all your baking ideas this winter!
*Pictured Cinnamon Rolls recipe for you.
4. Sew, Mend, or Knit and Crochet
While I have not had the interest to knit or crochet yet, this is the time of year I will mend clothes or stuffed animals that need repairing.
This the time of year I can take out the sewing machine and craft something new and fun.
5. Write (create a blog!)
Journaling is a healthy practice or if you’ve got something to share with the whole world, blogging is an option too.
Have you looked up a new recipe lately or a how-to explanation? Then you likely found it on someone’s blog. They appreciate you taking the time to read it too! Trust me, I know.
Pouring your heart (and mind) out on paper or screen is a creative cozy winter hobby that could get overlooked easily.
Take time to get your thoughts out or even just ideas for the coming spring: projects, new experiments, your vision or goal board for the coming year.
A goal is a dream you’ve written down.
6. Try new soup recipes
Grab your biggest soup pot! It’s soup season!
What cozy winter hobby could be more delicious than soup making?
I personally could eat soup all year long but there is something about a savory, nourishing bowl of warm soup that is so comforting and welcoming on a chilly day.
Check out some new recipes and let that pot simmer!
Ranch Potato Soup (my mom’s famous recipe I’ve been enjoying since the 6th grade!)
Sausage, Kale, and Potato Soup (inspired by zuppa tuscana, I accidentally added diced tomatoes once and loved it.)
7. Take up sourdough
Oh sourdough… a lovely thing and the internet is full of ideas and ways to do it.
It is an art but one you should not be afraid to try. Adding sourdough to your list of cozy winter hobbies is highly encouraged as you’ll have more time to experiment, make mistakes, and also make fantastic bread!
Every one thinks their way is the best way but I say just don your apron and get to playing around with sourdough. Find your way of doing it and enjoy the benefits of fresh bread things!
Sarah Dough, my sourdough starter and her recipes
Need sourdough starter? Request organic regular unbleached all-purpose sourdough or 100% whole wheat from freshly milled organic wheat berries stater HERE.
8. Make your own soap
Again, wintertime is a time for experimenting with new things!
If you’ve never tried your hand at making your own soap, now is a good time.
Homemade soap contains all natural ingredients and no harsh chemicals. A cleansing soap that doesn’t dry out your skin.
Here is a recipe I started with and love (and so do many friends and family!): HOMEMADE CASTILE BAR SOAP
9. Night Walks
I saved this one for last as I’m sure you reading this is thinking “how are night walks a ‘cozy’ hobby?!” But let me explain:
Last winter my husband and I took up night walks after dinner behind the house while the kids cleaned up the kitchen and prepared for bedtime.
The walks were chilly and the need for thick jackets and socks was great!
Walking after dinner promotes better digestion and a host of other benefits so we liked that idea but it also gave us:
- quality time together
- time to talk without interruption from littles
- space to dream about our homestead in the coming spring
- ideas chat for planning projects we’ve been meaning to get around to completing
- a chance to admire the silhouetted trees
A humid summer full of mosquitos has us ready for cold winter night walks again.
9 Cozy Winter Hobbies continued
These 9 cozy winter hobbies are just a few of my own. Many more could (and should) be added.
Winter is a time for fallow. This word comes with many meanings but the one I zeroed in on was REST.
Take this winter to rest your mind, your body, and your heart as best you can.
Remember that God calls for rest every week and He did create the seasons for reasons. Not a whole lot grows in the winter months…
To me, that’s symbolic of how we still do need to eat for sustenance but the majority of the garden and harvest work was done a few months before. Sowing, tending, harvesting, preserving… so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor in the winter.
Any fresh garden goodies in the winter are much less work than the spring and summer garden. This, to me, is meant to give us a break, a rest.
Enjoy it!
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