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...
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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...
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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...
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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...