Old slow gas and steam engines where you can hear every click and pop. https://youtu.be/eChBqGajIyo

Gardening and cooking. Plant some veggies or herbs used in your favorite recipes. Start a sourdough starter. Then when they ripen, use them to cook with. Feed that back into planning the garden for next year. Low cost, small chunks of time spread out over months, high personal reward.

Yes, the cell tower can see the unique IMEI of your phone, so as long as the cell radio is on, the cell company can at least see what tower that IMEI is in range of. And if they can track the purchase of the phone to you, then they can identify your signal.