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...

Bear here...

Sense we are limited in where we can go it's good our yarden and back yard is so cool. Our catio 2 is ready for spring and summer fun. The cats like it. Another thing the cats like is grass so be sure to have areas for some...

...I think Frost is a little perturbed the kids got the good spots,
Rue was unavailable for comment...

Gotta love catios for keeping the furry kids happy...

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Bear here...

Letting you know what we are doing during the shut down. One of the things we are trying to do is  experiment with baking bread and making crackers. Since we have a good grain mill (see below) and lots of different grains we can try lots of experiments.

I am going to spend some time this week grinding different stuff to try as flour. We have 2 types of wheat one for pastries and one for breads. Just to let you know the pastry flour works a lot better for making pancakes, just sayen...

Currently my list of flours also include whole groats (pictured above), the two types of wheat, black beans, barley and chickpeas. So far the chickpeas make the best crackers. I am thinking another Cook of Anarchy challenge may be with the different flours. I gotta read how gluten works and see what happens. Who Knows?

Hope you are all doing well, 

Type at ya later...

From Theresa: During this time of global upheaval, as many are forced to take a pause from their “normal” lives, I have seen people express their hope that, after we mourn our losses, this time of isolation will bring about positive change, in ourselves, and in the societies in which we live. How do you hope the world will change as a result of this upheaval?

Click to see my list of what I hope will happen after the pandemic...