Bear here...

I am guessing the first few years of us being new home owners and having a yard for the first time was fun for the neighbors to watch. Though tiring, the yard was also fun for us to work on. I was not into grilling yet, but we were into nights around a campfire, so one of our first outdoor projects was to build a fire pit. Cool, huh?

In the picture above did you notice the stumps? That's where the neighbors come in. One had cut down a box elder tree. We saw the pile and went over to ask if it was okay to take some branches and stumps. (Theresa is shy, I am not, especially when it comes to getting free stuff.) The neighbor was a little confused and amused. Most people don't want to drag yard waste onto their property, but he said sure, take whatever you want. That "yard waste" lead to quite a few yard art projects. One was behind our white shed. This is just an ugly pile of branches, you say? 

A little imagination and effort and we turned it into a garden room with a view. We spent many nights here on that love seat watching the bats fly at dusk over the field behind our house. We called it bat TV.

The next yard art is in the front yard. It was also known as Stump Henge.

We weren't ready for a Stonehenge project, but at least the wood was a little bit lighter. I thought Theresa was crazy to line up dead stumps in the front yard, but she thought they were beautiful and said they would create great habitat for the wildlife. She also said something about how they started to suggest a circular area under the pine tree that balanced all the straight lines of the sidewalks in the front yard. I don't know what she means, but it seems to make sense to her. We surrounded the stumps with some very cool rocks we bought from a geologist who was having a garage sale.

Those stumps lasted at least 10 years before they broke down, there are still some ruins there that look kinda cool. Below is a better overall early shot of our front yard under the pine tree. See if you can spot how we used the picnic table we got from some other neighbors (shown in the fire pit photo above).

The table wasn't a very comfortable bench until we made adjustments, like the large stump on the right that makes a great footstool when I lay down on the bench. This was when we also decided- why cut the grass when the pine needles would do the same job? When Theresa was researching what would grow under a pine tree (where it is dry, shady, and has acidic soil) she read that the best thing to have under a pine is really just the needles. And she loves to walk barefoot in pine needles, which she did a lot when she was a child in a pine forest where her family went camping. She says they make a cool sound.

Some of our furniture fixer uppers weren't so cost effective as the bench around the pine tree, which was free. For example, this other bench (below) we got at a garage sale for $5. But then the paint and the 2x4s we bought to create leg supports cost so much that we could have just bought a new outdoor bench instead.

You will notice after we painted the bench, it fit in fine in our shade garden, where you'll see Theresa put more of our acquired stumps and rocks. Oh yes, the rocks. We also acquired a lot of rocks for our yard art. Below is a rock spiral that was the first decoration in where the future Catio 1 would be built.

We like stone spirals and we thought one would be cool for the entry to our big shed, so I dabbled in pebble art...

What I neglected was the cement to hold the pebbles in place. It looked good for the summer but was gone after the first winter. Live and learn. Seeing this again is making me want to try the pebble art again. Who knows what we can come up with?

Hope you liked the art tour. When I figure out what's next I'll let ya know.

Type at ya later,
​Bear

Bear here...

We bought our home in 2005. The yard has gone through many changes in 17 years. We went from lawn to yarden. We have revamped on purpose and by accident. Other times, Nature has decided what got revamped. What I want to blog about for you is each area of our yarden from start to present. I am calling it "Yarden Evolutions." On our property I have counted around 18 yarden areas. I plan on blogging about at least one area a month, possibly more. Hope you like it.

(Just to let you know, some of the pictures I'm going to use are from the dark ages, when you had to use actual film. The photos were printed on paper at a drug store or on a little laser printer my mom gave us. I scanned some of them into this computer from a real scrap book. Old and scary right? Not sure if kids these days would understand, but I digress...)

You want to see the coming yarden attractions, OK...

Do you remember when I said some things were by accident? My best example is when I ordered gravel for our drive way in 2006. I needed it to fill my driveway, which was mostly grass when we moved in. I wanted it to be about a foot deep at one end to level it off, big enough for our cars to fit side by side, and three to six feet longer than our mid-sized cars. The guy I bought the gravel from said I wouldn't have to pay a delivery fee if I bought 10 yards. Awesome, I hate delivery fees and 10 yards didn't seem like that much. What did I know? But then it was delivered. When Theresa got home from work, it was the first time ever I saw her mouth the words WTF. Below you can see her either playing queen of the mountain or waving me over so she could hit me with the big stick.

Filling the driveway really didn't make a dent in the pile, so we used the gravel for many projects. By the end of summer we still hadn't used all the gravel, but there was only a bit left. It fit in the back of the driveway and didn't get in the way of us parking the cars there over the winter. Below is a pic of how I moved the gravel most of that summer, with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. On the bright side, I was in decent shape by fall.

One of the big projects that we did on purpose was to get rid of the sidewalk next to our house. It slanted toward the house, so rain water went in our basement instead of away from it. Theresa wanted it gone because it was up against the house, and didn't fit into her gardening plans. Believe it or not, the fun part was breaking up the pavement with a jackhammer. I thought it would take more than all day, but it took less than an hour, and was gratifying. Below is the result of my aggression therapy session.

There was no way for us to just throw or haul that much concrete away, so we did something better. We decided to recycle into to edging and pavers for our paths. First we had to move it to the grass, turn it over, and scrape off the dirt clumped on the bottom of it. Theresa did most of the cleaning (probably all the cleaning, but I want some credit.)

This is how two things, one more planned than the other, led to the start of our unique yarden. Can you spot the cool project in the back of the final picture below?

If you liked the teaser and can't wait to see some before and after (around 2012) shots of some of our gardens we got a link for that. The link can also lead you to pages of Theresa's philosophies about why and how we Yarden.

17 years and an artistic wife who likes the outdoors can lead to a lot of blogs about a yarden. Projects like this can lead me to think that history can be cool sometimes. 

(Disclaimer notice, remember when I said some of these photos are from the dark ages or at least 17 years ago? Some of the pictures may also not have the right years on them, but we are doing the best we can, just sayen.)

Type at ya later,
​Bear

Bear here...

Time to talk about the new insect hobby. Small World Life (SWoL) updates and ideas.

I got out last week and saw some flying insects last week. My first cool flyer Is a Northern paper wasp, they are native to the Northern US and Canada. I thought all paper wasps were only black and yellow like the European paper wasp that "jumped the pond" in the 70's. I found out there were several different species with several different color schemes. I have seen some and I am hoping to get some decent pictures of different paper wasps this summer. The first two shots are the Northern, the third shot is a European from last year. Can you see the differences?

Next up is a twofer of wild honey bees. They were brought over in the 1600's

Last but not least are flower flies. I used to know them as sweat bees, now that I know they are flies I call them humpties because of the way they bend when they land on you. There are thousands of species. The next pick is one I saw last week, The photo after that is one I took last year. Same family, but different species.

 That's it for the flyers, for now. So...

NO MOW MAY.... The reason not to mow is "weeds feeds bees". Bees need to feed on flowers after a long hibernation, creeping Charlie, dandelions and other spring "weed's" flowers provide that food. You can always mow it down in June when the pollinators have more food. If you want to rake, wait until the temps have been above 55 degrees for at least two days, that gives them time to move about. (for more info on what you can do for pollinators, here is a link to our Save Our Bees page.) Also, here is a pic of me mowing after May, nice and quietlike... 

Type at ya later,
​Bear

Bear here...

In 2010 we decided to build a large cage on the back of our house with a pet door so our cats could go outside and be safe whenever they wanted. It was a patio for our cats so we decided to call it our Catio. It was a cute name and we thought it would catch on, but a while later I found other people using it too on the internet. So much for being inventors and getting patent money.

We used untreated 2 x 4s for our frame because we didn't want our cats resting on the chemicals they use on treated lumber. We weren't sure how long it would last, but was hoping it would be a while. Below is a picture of it brand new.  It is still standing over a decade of tough Wisconsin winters later and seems to be in good shape. We noticed in 2020 we needed to do a few repairs to the inside to keep it safe for the cats. We thought you might like to see the simple repairs that may help you if you have a catio. If you want to build one and want ideas on how, here is our catio page link. 

Part 1.  The horizontal boards on the frame seemed a little loose, so our simple fix was to put supports in under them. We cut a 2x4 down to 4-6 inches, and we had some leftover bits from other projects, so we screwed them into the frame with 2 1/2  inch screws and we were good (below pic). Any of our 1x6 boards where the cats walked that seemed lose I either replaced or put the screws to them too. In case I forget later, notice the tree branch under my arm pit in the second photo? It was getting unsafe. We put up a new branch or Princess would have never forgiven us because she is a ninja climber.

Part 2: the cat entrance to the catio. We like to have at least two ways to get down into the catio. The first entrance is a ramp, the second is steps. You can see below the old ramp was bent and needed replacing with a stronger (thicker) board...

We figured while we were at it we would reconfigure and make the step path better too. We made sure there is enough steps that it will still be easy access when our cats are older and less mobile.

Project 3: kitty sleep space. We built a shelf for the cats to sleep on in one corner of the catio. We like to use wood scraps from old projects and we had a piece of plywood that lasted a long time. We put a pad on it in the summer so the cats would be more comfortable. As you can see below it was time for that wood to be retired...

... So we upgraded the corner to have three different levels to nap on. The hole to jump between levels is now a clear space on the back of the top level:

Final project! The cats are comfortable, so now it's our turn. We replaced the stumps we sat on with an outdoor love seat. It's MUCH softer for our ageing buttoxes and the cats can lay by us too.

As you can see from the last photo we also upgraded the human area with shelves that can hold stuff like our drinks while they are not holding cats.

One repair weekend in ten years? Not bad. Hope this gives those of you who are thinking of building your catios some ideas. 

Type at ya later,
​Bear 

Bear here...

Like the title says we have been married for 20 years. (I may be a little late with this post, the 20 years was in September, of 2021) we thought you might like to see how we spent the weekend. See if you notice a theme...

The weather was nice enough we spent some time in Cat Henge hanging out with the cats..

Theresa and Rue decided to work on a slide show of our trip to Scotland in 2017. Kinda like a virtual scrapbook. It was almost halfway done and had around 400 slides already. Here they are taking a small break.

Well... If my woman is working then I gotta work. I decided to grill some food, in my wedding kilt, because Theresa said she missed seeing it on me. (No I did not get married wearing the squirrel shirt.) A man's gotta grill cause a family's gotta eat...

We decided to get some treats from a Scottish import store. Theresa's favorite was her new bag with cats in kilts. I got a cats in kilts oven mitt that I haven't figured out how to use yet.

Last but not least we decided to go down memory lane with old scrapbooks and a time capsule from the year we were married.

Us on our wedding day...

I love ya babe. Here is to getting at least another 20 years.

Type at ya later
​Bear

Bear here...

Ever get the feeling you are being watched? Rue (the cat) doesn't. I have the distinct feeling the robin  above him outside the window thinks it can take him, maybe get on one of those funniest videos that everyone seems to like...
​

The picture above is possible because we yarden for us and for wildlife. We let wild grapes grow on our house. Why? you ask.  

 We were lucky and smart. After a few years of being here, we noticed wild grapevines were growing on our property. (Theresa inserts that it didn't take her a few years.) Why do extra weeding? So we let them live and grow, a lot. Theresa tried several times to grow commercial grapes, but we just didn't have the right growing conditions, and they always died. The wild grape vines, though, grow well even in the shade. They eventually covered our catio and provided their own shade for our cats...

A few years later, Theresa decided to transplant some where they could grow up our house, because she couldn't get anything else to grow there. We decided they wouldn't do damage to our siding and they would help shade the house in the summer. They would also provide habitat where birds could nest.

For some reason, the grapevines over the catio never produced grapes. Theresa was hoping for grapes on the house, but I was skeptical. If there weren't grapes, we could instead learn how to eat the grape leaves wrapped around rice and meat like they do in India. Let me tell you we were wrong about the vines not producing. And I became the great grape hunter, who got tired easy...
​

Yep, I picked a lot of grapes (here is our page on how to make wild grape jelly) but also left many behind because harvesting is a hard job. When all the leaves dropped in the Fall, we could see many more grapes through the windows from inside our house. For a while, we felt guilty that we hadn't harvested them, but this Spring we noticed robins really like to eat old grapes. They provided a food source when the ground was snow covered and the robins couldn't yet dig for worms. 

We have seen many robins, along with smaller birds and cardinals, peeking in our bedroom window, the one below is a female cardinal...
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Its a win win. The birds get early Spring food and we get to birdwatch without having to sit where we can see our bird feeders. Now we have bird feeders designed by Nature.

Below is a better robin picture Theresa was able to take...

Before the live grapes covered our windows, we put tree limbs and dead grape vines across the windows so birds wouldn't get hurt flying into the glass. We had to tie them to anchors on the house, and replace them every year after they fell apart. The live grape vine is easier to maintain.

There you go, another step to making our house friendly to Nature and creating more Nature shows for us.

Type at ya later,
​Bear

Bear Here...  

Wisconsin Spring... Oooo Spring... It is currently April of 2022. It is snowing kinda hard and there is already over an inch of snow on the ground. Time to cheer myself up.

I am organising our site and noticed some blogs I started but haven't finished yet. This one was from July of 2017, when it was warm. No sense in wasting old ideas, sooo...

Bear here...

How do we enjoy a long weekend at Our Tiny Homestead?  We harvest stuff out of our yard and make good food. Here is some of what we did this weekend. 

​For fruits we have red currants, wild raspberries/black caps  and wild strawberries:

On to fungus, we harvested over 2 pounds of shitake mushrooms:

... And finally, plants. For us, salad fixings, wild salsify, mint and basil:

Catnip for the cats. Frost kinda enjoyed it, Doolin kinda slept through it.

We ate the strawberries as they were, Theresa is making the red currants and the black caps into jelly.

I'm back in April 2022 now... Ah the good ol days!  I do miss those mushroom logs, they lasted about 8 years. I'm feeling better, hope you liked it too...

Type at ya later
​Bear

Bear here...

First thing is we want to thank all of you who still follow us here and on Facebook. It's nice to be liked and welcome to all the newer followers too.  Thank you for being interested in us. Believe it or not I was inspired by a YouTube reactor to start blogging again. (His channel is TooBlunt. He does music, opinions and more...) I figured our page is helpful and it's time to get back out there and see what others think about what we do. Now is the time.

Since Spring is about new beginnings, I am beginning to blog some more about what we do. I am also going to talk about my new take on Theresa's old hobby: gardening for wildlife as well as for ourselves. What is out there in our yarden that we don't see or don't pay attention to? I'm calling it "Small World Life" and it is amazing. Yep, I am now interested in insects and spiders. In scientific terms it's Entomology (for Insects) and Arachnology (for Spiders)...  

I call this spider Battlebutt. To me she looks like a little punk rocker. She is about 1/2 the size of a dime and has five pairs of spines!

There are five insect orders that I am interested in so far (bees, wasps, dragonflies, damselflies, and flies)...

My insect interest started with Bumble bees. I wanted to know what I was seeing so I joined a citizen based monitoring group for bumble bees in Wisconsin (the Bumble Bee Brigade). (We take photos and send in surveys, they confirm our sightings and track how the  bees are doing for the season). In one day I took pictures of four different species of bumble bees. The one above I call Happybutt (because her marking looks like a smile). She is a Brown belted bumble bee.

While taking pictures of bees I noticed some unusual wasps in our yarden and decided they were the next group to study. The one below chatting with the ant is a solitary wasp. Cool, ain't she?

The next two insects I am interested in are the two suborders to the order of Odonata. I thought they were the same but was wrong. I found a local monitoring project for them too (Wisconsin Odonata Survey). The larger stronger flyers below are Dragonflies...

The smaller weaker fliers (below) but still good hunters are damselflies.

The last insect is flies. I know, flies are boring, right? Not so. There are more than just the usual houseflies (note three of the different types below) and once I saw what a variety there is I was hooked.

Like I said before, we are happy you are still interested in us and what we do. I'm thinkin this will be a good and informative year.

Type at ya later,
​Bear

Bear here...
CHECK IT OUT!
It's been a long time since we added a new page to our website and this one is about the bees and what you can plant to attract them...
​
Theresa here...
Even in the tiniest yards like ours (which is 60'x140') we can help wildlife! Removing our lawn and replacing it with native and edible plants has brought an abundance of life to our yard, including the endangered rusty patched bumble bee queen shown above on one of our comfrey plants. Bear photographed it as part of his efforts for the Wisconsin Bumble Bee Brigade.

If you're wondering why our bees are endangered, why it matters, or what you can do to help, see our new Save Our Bees.

Type at ya later...