Bear here...

Here is the history of our patio:

In the beginning there was grass and it was ok but not what we wanted. Then some dang fool bought 10 yards of gravel for the new driveway when he only needed 2 yards at most. The gravel had to be off the driveway by winter or, well you know, it would kinda be stupid if we had to park on the street our first winter because our new driveway was still filled with gravel. The fix was to dig a big hole about 2  or 3 feet deep, have the packed dirt leaning away from the house, fill it with said gravel and call it a patio! Below is our In the beginning process photo from 2006.

The patio put a dent in the gravel pile but didn't take out enough gravel so we could park our cars. That would take a few more projects and this post is about the patio. below is the hole is filled and leveled and ready for the next step.

Have I mentioned we like Celtic and Scottish landscape? What would be more Celtic than a standing stone circle, done to back yard proportions of course. We didn't have stone but we had a sidewalk we broke up and could set the pieces on their sides so they look like standing stones. You can see below what we had to work with. Notice there are four "stones" that are taller than the rest? Those are our compass stones, they are set in the four directions and represent the four elements. ( North = earth; South = fire; East = air: and West = water. To add bling to the patio we decorated the tall stones with the element symbols. Later I would put my grill closest to the south as I could get, seemed right.) 

Next step was to fill the gaps in the gravel with fines then tamp flat then spray the fines and tamp them flat again so we had a solid level base for the weed blocking fabric. I learned my lesson with the gravel and only ordered two yards of the fines.  Wait, when did this turn into a how to blog? I'm on a roll, might as well keep going.

You will notice we also put weed fabric around the outside of the stone circle part to keep the weeds down. 

Time jump to 2013. I don't remember when we put the trellace up but Theresa wanted a place for runner beans and more privacy while we were outside. the trellece works great. We found out some weeds were able to grow in the sediment that sits between the weed fabric and the rock. They are easy to weed, just pull and they come right out. Other weeds have been able to get through the fabric over the years they are a little more difficult to pull and some we don't worry about pulling.

You could say we let it get away from us sometimes, like this shot (below) from 2016. Theresa could get this cleared out in about 40 minutes. I would take a couple hours because I'm not that focused and there is usually some bugs I can take pictures of. (Oooo... Distraction Side note: see the tall thistle plant in the lower left? Bumble bees love those. When the flowers are mostly dead cut them off before the seeds can spread and you don't have to worry about unwanted thistles. You can also eat thistles, I know it's in a book we own somewhere. If I try it, I'll blog about it.)

In recent years we weed where we want to walk and let nature landscape our patio for us. Why Do I consider a patio part of the yarden? Because food grows there. If we wanted to we could eat the dandelions, we have had wild salsify grow there and we can grill that if I get to it on time, around the patio is areas of suncholks and wild ginger we can harvest. You think the patch on the left is weeds? think again...

Surprise! We have a wild strawberry patch!  Theresa planted two or three wild strawberry plants near the front of the house. In 2016 found our first wild strawberries an have been harvesting them ever since.

That's it for the patio. I'm kinda glad it didn't stay so neat and tidy. Where's the adventure of that?

Type at ya later,
​Bear

Bear here...

Cool news, we were included in two articles on other websites:

1. Kids come first or, should I say Kits...

The first article is from the U.K. and has many inspirational examples of the types of catios you can build. We are one of twenty four catio owners in the article. Here is the link. It includes information from our Catio page. 

You know we like our cats. So, just for fun, here are a few pics of our cats enjoying their catio all year long:

2. The next article we were included in was about backyard ponds. Theresa was interviewed about their pros and cons, because of her book, How to Build a Backyard Wildlife Pond. Here is the link to that article.

​Of course one of the biggest pros is wildlife in your yard, so here are a few pics of our pond wildlife:

The pond makes a fine bird bath, don't it?

As I've said before, we are grateful for people being interested in what we do. And who knows? Maybe someone will write an article about our other book, Eat Your Wild Yard: Spring.

Type at ya later,
​Bear

Bear here...

Anybody afraid of wasps? I used to be afraid of them too. Then I got interested in the Small World and bumble bees (see the Save Our Bees page). I figured wasps weren't that different from bumbles, so the fear went away. I have seen many different wasps in our yarden. I have had a wasp land on my arm and my first reaction was "Oh crap" and a little fear. Then I took a breath, looked at the wasp, and said "Hi dude." I am thinking he or she could have been thinking the same thing. I gave my arm a light shake and it took off. No harm, no foul. We exist together. This theory was pushed and tested even more in 2020.

We noticed a wasp nest being built above our back door. These were Areal Yellow Jackets, known to be a-holes and have a reputation of being dangerous, provoked or not. I felt a thump on the back of my head that was a wasp "bumping" me as I went out the door, giving me a warning to move on. We didn't want to kill them and we didn't know who to call to get them safely moved, so we decided to handle it ourselves and hope we weren't being really stupid... Below are pictures of what we did and me getting ready for the worst...

I did a little research and there are four big rules to what I was about to do...

1. Armor up in case you screw up. Wear several layers and netting over your face. Dress like a bee keeper, no gaps in your clothing.
2. Do it at night when they are mostly asleep.
3. Use minimal light to see what you are doing. I read they can't see red light, adjust accordingly.
4. Have an escape plan in case things go FUBAR (bad). I had the back door partially open for quick escape and if any came in they were fair game to get smashed, just sayen... 

The sheet worked for Theresa for a while until she got stung, after which she starting just using our front door. I used the back door to go in- I usually made sure it was unlocked and easy to get through. No stings for me!

The wasps were only aggressive for two or three weeks, then for some unknown reason, they abandoned the nest. I think putting the sheet up reduced the possible size of the nest- maybe that's why they left? We decided not to take chances, though, and left the sheet up after it was too cold for the wasps. Supposedly wasps don't build nests next to abandoned nests, so we've left the nest there. It is really cool looking.

Everything went right. I clipped a sheet to the awning the best I could and used duct tape to secure the sheet above the door, so we could still go in and out. The wasps could fly above the sheet to get to their nest, but couldn't get a direct shot at us. Here are a couple close ups of the wasps doing their thing. In case you are wondering, yes, I used zoom on the camera, I'm not that trusting of these gals...

Some wasps are solo hunters, others that live in colonies and make group nests are considered "social wasps" In case we didn't have enough wasp pictures in this blog, here are the "social" areal yellow jackets enjoying a grape jelly social at our bird feeder (my guess is the birds were not amused)...

Type at ya later,
​Bear

You are cordialy invited to a history tour of what's been going on for 17 years under the large pine tree in our front yard. Be like Theresa, sit back, and enjoy...

Did you notice the first relaxing thing? I didn't for the first few years, then Theresa let me know how to get rid of a weekly chore. If you leave the pine needles where they fall on the ground, you don't have to mow, ever. Just sweep the pine needles off the sidewalks and back under the tree, easy. Exceptionally great news for me. I'm 6' 4" and the pine doesn't have 6 feet of clearance under its branches, so mowing sucked.

The next cool thing is: we decided to do front yard artwork in 2005 or 2006. You can see three stumps and some rocks behind the bench. That is StumpHenge. Here is a close up pic below, where you can see the stumps and how the rocks and crystals (which we got at a geologist's garage sale) were placed around them...

For a couple years (2015 - 2018) the pine tree provided good storage for our shitaki mushroom logs. It created plenty of year round shade to protect our $80 investment. The logs were from a commercial grower who was going out of business. It was a great investment. We got at least 5 to 10 lbs of shrooms each year for 5 years. 

The next big project was in 2010. We decided to try a rock garden under the pine tree. It's a tricky space because it's dry and shady under the pine, but Theresa figured it was sunny enough along the edge to try plants that like partial sun. We are almost done with creating and planting it in the pic below.

Here (below) is the rock garden two years later and we noticed a few things about the pine tree area:

• The pine needles still makes a nice ground carpet.
  
• The bench we put around the pine tree needed to go soon so the tree could keep growing.
• The garden didn't maintain its initial neat appearance, but still had its cool (at least in our opinions)....
  

Here is a better picture of 4 bumbles and a drinking buddy on the sedum plant:

The last project in this area was in 2018. We finally got a free little library in the front yard, where people could take our books or leave theirs. We even had a place to sit if you wanted to rest and read a while. The library is gone now- it wasn't used as much as we thought it would be. We put a bench there instead of the chairs for when we want to watch sunsets. See the standing rock to the left of the chairs? It is formed from stones from different geological eras. It also weighs over 500 lbs. It's staying there, no matter what projects we decide to pursue in the future. Just sayen. 

I'm guessing if you got this far you liked the historical tour, so thanks. Next up... who knows? Oh crud, that's my job ain't it?

Type at ya later, 
​Bear

Bear here...

Ever do something cool by accident? We have. Here is the history of our bird condo. It started in 2014 when we needed a place to temporarily put some limbs that we had trimmed from our trees. We made a pile and figured we could burn the limbs at our fire pit when we wanted to and keep the pile small enough to be rid of it by Winter. Below is a picture of our small brush pile.

We were wrong. By the time I wanted to burn the pile Theresa noticed it was full of birds. It was Fall, so no burning- we left it so the birds could have habitat over the Winter. It became our bird condo and it has been growing ever since. We both like it, so we don't try to burn it. It is good bird shelter for all seasons. Below are some pictures, see if you can count how many birds are there.

One day we noticed a young hawk waiting by the condo (below). He sat there and four birds took off from the condo and he went after them. While he was gone we saw at least three flights of birds leave the condo, each flight had at least 20 birds. When the hawk came back, everyone was gone. Who said birds weren't smart? ( Name story: We tend to name some of the wild critters we see in our yarden. Why do I call all hawks in our yarden, MaGee? I called that first hawk MaGoo after a cartoon character that couldn't see well. Theresa informed me the hawks had to be good hunters to survive the winter so I changed the name to the computer expert character (who a master at hunting information) from NCIS. Thus... Magee.)

Above is a better hawk shot at our bird feeders. We think it's cool, I am guessing the smaller birds and squirrels don't. Good thing they have a bird condo to hide in until he leaves. Some people think brush piles are ugly, we think they are cool because they bring wildlife into our yard and we get to watch it. If you'd like to see a hawk up close in your yarden, you might want to start a brush pile too.

Type at ya later
​Bear

Bear here... 

Ever been to one of those houses that is always clean enough you think the people have cleaning staff? Everything seems perfect all the time? That ain't us and I am guessing others feel the same way. While we always try to maintain a certain level of cleanliness, we don't sweep and dust every day. Cleaning the house every day sucks. We have better things to do. Theresa and I (mostly Theresa) came up with a plan that works for us. We have a monthly cleaning day, usually on the new moon.

Theresa inserts that the New Moon is a time of clearing out the old and then starting the new, so it's a perfect time for house cleaning. She also points out that one reason she was able to talk Bear into this system is that even he couldn't say that cleaning only once a month was too often. She likes the system because whenever she sees something untidy that is driving her nuts, she can tell herself that she'll get help cleaning that on the next cleaning day.

So sometime near the new moon everyone, even me, helps clean the house. Only the cats don't have to help. They tend to get in the way. (This was Clover, way back when, saying "OI, you forgot sumthin!")  

Like I said, we work, they sleep...

The plan we came up with has a few parts...

1. We hope to get everything done in 2 or 3 hrs, but sometimes it ends up taking all day. Usually it's only half the day. We also (try) to go into the day with a good attitude. Theresa is better at this than me. Music helps. When we're done, we get a treat meal (did someone say steak?) and the rest of the day to goof off. 
   
2. Next thing is we got a 2do list to keep track of what needs to be done once a month or a couple times a year, as well as the basic things we do every month. What would your basics be? Our minimum work includes: dust shelves and lights, sweep all rooms and move furniture to get into the corners, deep clean the kitchen and bathroom, have all dishes done, etc... The list can be as long or as short as you want. As a bonus, you get to cross things off the list, doesn't that feel good?
3. Like I said, every room gets swept and dusted, but we also choose one or two rooms a month to get extra treatment. Whatever untidiness happens to be bothering us (mostly Theresa) the most, such as cleaning closets, moving nicknacks to dust behind them better, washing the covers of the couch cushions, etc....
   
4. What are the (big?) projects we usually forget? It's usually a home maintenance list. Add these to your 2do "sometimes" list and keep track when you do them so you wont forget. Like cleaning the lint out of various machines like the dryer, refrigerator, or computer? Deep cleaning the refrigerator or freezer? Clearing out the cobwebs in the unfinished basement you don't go into often? Washing the curtains that are collecting dust?  We run hot water down our sinks then pour a pan of boiling water down to clear them of old grease (it's cheaper than calling a plumber). Look around, you will find stuff you usually miss, then don't forget to add those to the 2do list.

That's about it. Remember to take some small brakes if you are going to have a long list. As you can see below some breaks are more  intense than others...

Type at ya later,
​Bear

Bear here...

The next stop on the Yarden Evolution is our white picket fence area in the front yard (fortunately Theresa edited this post and told me it's not spelled "picked" fence).
​
Theresa said she wanted a house with a white picket fence (although she insists she said no such thing). My mind went back to the movie "It's a Wonderful Life." Anybody remember the gated yards and the nice, waist-high white picket fences around it that one could chat over with ones neighbors? In reality, we no got gate and the fence is a little short (about knee high), but that's OK, we like it. Theresa says that since our house is so close to the public sidewalk, she wanted a small fence because it makes a good psychic barrier. I'm not sure what she means by that.

Below is our starter picture of the same front yard space in 2005. The first year we were doing a lot of indoor work, so we just put down some railroad ties to separate the yard from the driveway.

The next two pictures are from 2006. Theresa wanted to have a garden to attract bees and butterflies. We also wanted it be good looking so hopefully the neighbors would forgive some of the things we knew they wouldn't like as much that we'd be doing in the backyard.

Don't that next pic from 2008 look nice? The stone path is a decorative spiral that let us walk in amongst the plants for watering. 

Eventually the plants filled in, and buried the spiral path, but the garden still looked cool. Every year some plants would be the same and others would change. See the blue plant (Theresa says it's a delphinium), that was there in 2013?

Fast forward to 2016. We didn't plant anything different, but the delphinium bloomed in two shades of blue and some of the flowers are white. These were my favorite flowers for a while because they seemed to attract several bumble bees that I would watch from my car when I got home from work. Around 2019 they died off and I kinda miss them... Theresa has tried replanting others (she says it was amazing that I actually noticed that a plant was gone) but nothing new has survived.

But we still have lots of other things that are good bee attractors (and I don't mean me in the shorts).  The pink flowers feed the bees in the early spring and summer (Theresa says those are purple coneflower/echinacea)...

... see , told ya... bee food...

The asters feed the bees in the fall. They also tend to go past the fence, but that's ok, because I have counted over 10 bumble bees at a time on them.

Can you see the bumble? (Below) This shot goes to show you our fence also needs a little maintenance. Over the years Theresa has touched it up and repainted it a few times. She told me many times, but who's counting since she did the work?

For the last three years the big summer attractor has been the New Jersey Tea bush. (White flowers pictured below.) I've photographed bumbles, other bees, and cool black wasps feeding on it, but those pics are for a Small World Life post.

Hope you liked the history of this garden area. It's amazing for us to revisit the early pictures when the garden looked bare. Keep in mind that Theresa pretty much only planted one of each type of plant, but if you're patient, over the years they spread, and you too could end up with a garden bursting with flowers.

When I figure out what's next I'll type at ya.

Later,
​Bear

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