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...
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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...

Bear here...  With the 1st blog of 2021...

​You never know what is going to happen when you bring something new into your Yarden. We are not afraid to experiment, If what we bring in doesn't work we are ok with that. We know some things work and others don't. One of our ongoing experiments has been growing MUSHROOMS. 

... buying $80 worth of shitaki mushroom logs. (In 2015 a commercial mushroom grower was havinga  going out of business sale and Theresa convinced me that $10 bucks a log was cheap, so I went along with it.) All we knew was to keep them off the ground, keep them in the shade, and most importantly, don't let them dry out.

Theresa knew we should get at least two harvests a year. One in early summer and another in late summer. Our first harvest yielded us a whole whopping 2 mushrooms. I was not happy. I thought that those were some damn expensive firewood logs. Good thing I was lazy that year and Theresa convinced me to wait until next spring before I cut them up. The next harvest was much better and we were able to collect several times during the harvest season. Even better, they tasted really good...

We wanted the logs in our back yard where it was easier for the hose to reach, and once we built Catio 2 we had a spot for them. The catio is under two walnut trees that provide the logs shade in the summer and the walls of the catio shade them in the Winter.  The new location meant more good harvests and great meals...

Did I mention the great meals of shroom pasta and pizzas? ...
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We did take some chances that didn't work so well. We tried to grow a bed of wine caps mushrooms on the ground under the shitake logs that produced 5 shrooms and that was it. We also bought some inoculated logs from a supposedly good source that didn't produce anything but inedible fungus. Sometimes you win and some times you lose. Don't be afraid of trying...

This is what the logs look like this year. They are beat up and almost done. The bark is mostly gone and woodpeckers have reduced some of them to wood chips. But the logs produced for 5 years and with the high price of store bought shitaki mushrooms, we probably saved at least $300- $500 over the years. We also had a huge "shroom pantry" to experiment with in the kitchen. It was definitely worth risking the investment and time. Now we need to learn how to inoculate our own mushroom logs, because we're going to miss those shitake harvests!

​Type at ya later...

Bear here...

Theresa and I have noticed a lot of people visit our page on how we cook on our wood burning stove. We've been preparing to write a book about it for several years, and have lots of recipes and photos saved up, but now Theresa is finally having fun starting to design the book pages. We have 10 years of experience we want to share with others.

We couldn't decide which book to continue with, so I convinced Theresa that it made sense to combine them. So our book will be about how to stay warm while cooking on your wood stove with food from your well-stocked pantry.

​I wanted to say that we hope to have the book out in less than a year, but Theresa keeps reality checking me. She's the one putting the book together in the graphic design program, and she says she has no idea how long it will take. We'll do our best.

Thank you for sticking with us and our website.

​Type at ya later...

Bear here...

Hi everybody. As you might have noticed, we like to yarden & have our yard look more like a natural setting than a typical mowed lawn. It's more interesting and it's more biodiverse, so it is better for the planet. Theresa read somewhere that more natural settings also create "Outdoorphins." They make you feel good like endorphins do, but are from Nature instead of from workouts. (She could explain better but I'm typing the blog and I sooo don't speak science tech.)

A lot of people drive a long way to see parks and the wild, to get back to Nature, but wouldn't it be nice to walk out your door into a park like setting?  A yarden that looks a little wild can bring you lots of joy and be healthier. Here are some photos of our yarden/ small park...

Hopes this helps inspire you to yarden instead of yard...  Ooo... Theresa found the article from Forbs and here is a small part of it...

Type at ya later...

Think You Don't Need Houseplants? Science Says Different...
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Whether it's a bland living room or boring workspace, potted plants are a safe bet if you want to jazz up interiors on a budget. Interestingly, spending a little green on greens can do wonders for your well-being as well. A significant amount of scientific evidence suggests that being around greenery can stave off stress, elevate mood and improve cognitive function, among other things. ‘Nuff said. Here are five proven reasons you need some houseplants in your life RN:

• They reduce stress and anxiety. According to a study published in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology, active interaction with indoor plants (like touching and smelling) can reduce physiological and psychological stress. What's more, even the potting soil can help you keep a handle on daily stress and anxiety. This is because soil contains microbes dubbed "outdoorphins" (M. vaccae) which work as natural antidepressants. "It boosts your mood by releasing cytokines, which then leads your brain to produce more serotonin. So, just by being around soil, these outdoorphins flood your body and boost your mood," writes Joey Doherty, a Certified Wellness Counselor. Although a walk in the park would be more effective (due to increased exposure to those microbes), being around houseplants can be beneficial too. "It has also been established that plants confer positive changes in the brain's electrical activity, muscle tension and heart activity," notes environmental health expert Danica-Lea Larcombe, in an article published in The Conversation. Place potted lavender or snake plant in your bedroom to de-stress and sleep better.

If you want to read more, see the full article here.

Bear here…

Friendly reminder, WINTER IS COMING … Unlike in the Game of Thrones series, our winters happen every year and it is best to be ready for them. This year could be especially rough due to the COVID virus and who knows what will happen with possibly more lockdowns, bad weather, and some people being just plain stupid. Being ready to stay home for a month or more at a time is a good plan. (Just in case anyone thinks this is political because I mentioned COVID, remember, IOWA had FREAKEN HURRICANE winds this Summer! So the weather may make you need to stay home too.) Most people go to the grocery store at least once a week along with picking up food when at gas stations. If you plan ahead, you can have plenty of food for a month or more and don’t need to panic if there is a food shortage in the stores. You don't solve the problem by not needing to go to the store, but you definitely will not be a part of making shortages worse. Keeping the pantry ready all year is definitely a stress reducer when trouble happens.
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BEING PREPARED IS THE BEST WAY NOT TO PANIC. If you have space and enough food for a month or more you don’t need to worry if you can’t travel to get more. Get an emergency supply that you can rotate once a year and have extras of nonemergency foods so your shopping trips can be more organized and you spend less time in the store.

​​Gotta love the pictures, which I hope are inspirational. Here are a few more tips, sadly without pictures...

• Know how you cook and always have plenty of the basics on hand... No, you don't cook much? Have plenty of canned or dried food ready instead. Peanut butter lasts a long time and dried pasta is easy. You bake? Buy your goods in bulk. Powdered milk takes a lot less space than regular milk. Remember if you fry a lot to have plenty of oil for backup.
• MAKE LISTS of what you need, like, and how much you go through. When there is one of something or you take the last of something from the pantry, put it on the grocery list for when you can go to the store. (I've heard running out of coffee or beer can be used as mental abuse in some divorce cases, DON'T quote me...) 
• Remember everyone, this is a good time to get feedback from the family on what they want to eat if supplies are limited. This is also a good time to show others how to cook some things so everyone can help make meals.
• The pets need food too. Stock up on extra for them.
• Remember condiments. Canned tuna tends to suck if there is no mayo. Kids tend to get perturbed if there is no ketchup or mustard. Also, ration the treats so they last longer.
• IF YOU ARE PREPAIRED, THERE IS NO NEED FOR LAST MINUTE PANICKING, nuff said...

This is a short blog and I’m a full share type of guy so if you want more info from our site here are some links:

• Here is our EMERGENCY PREP page
• Info on how we built our pantry
• How to cook from a pantry
• How to make essential cooking staples.
• More ways to preserve food for the pantry.

We are ready, are you? Hopes this helps, stay safe out there...

​Type at ya later...

Bear here... 

Tis the season to preserve for Winter and we are doing just that. This year we got a new dehydrator and Theresa went nuts, in a good way. See the pictures below...

THIS IS THE PRETTY...

(Note from Theresa: the above is 10 lbs of sweet peppers,
​which after drying fits in one quart and one pint jar.)

THIS IS SOME OF THE MANY...

... What did I tell ya?  We did fruit, vegetables, and herbs. (I tried meat jerky and found out I need more practice, hopefully I will have good pictures later.) We also updated our pantry/preserving page to include more about dehydrating. Take a look if you want to... and see why Theresa now thinks that dehydrating may be the best way to preserve food.

Type at ya later...

Bear here...

Just reminding you you can harvest some of the weeds from your Yarden if it's Spring in your area like it is in ours. We have a book on Amazon telling you some of what you can do with them. Here is the link to our books. Here are some pictures of what you can do when you get creative...

Hope you like the book and use what's in your yard...

​Type at ya later...

Bear here...

Hope everyone is safe. We are on day 40 of no store shopping or going anywhere. Good thing we have our Yarden to keep us busy. We had a few good days outside and thought you would like to see some of what we did to get ready for summer. 

We did a lot of work by our white shed. Lots of deadheading while we could still walk back there...

We also put some round pavers on our patio tho give us something to walk on when we pick wild strawberries this year.

Last year we had a lot of weeds growing in the path of our Celtic Cross garden so we decided to pull them and use the mulch we had on hand. The pine needles from our front tree. This year when we cleaned up some of our front paths we put the pine needles back on the Celtic Cross path for a head start at stopping the weeds. Looks pretty good...

As you will see below, one of our big projects was to clear out the sunchoke area enough to start digging them up. 

Now all we need to do is dig them up before they start sprouting. Hopefully this week.

Hope you liked the cleaning tour.

​Type at ya later...