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...
​

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...

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? ...
​

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...
​
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.
​

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...