How To Make A Toad House

I was working in the garden the other day when I suddenly noticed I had an unexpected visitor.

He was very patient while I chased him around with my camera trying to get shots because I thought he was just so cute! After a while I resumed my gardening and he hung around to keep me company. David and I were talking about toad houses just the other day, and after seeing "Toadie" in the garden I told David we should make a house for him.

There are many expensive and elaborate toad houses for sale online, but we just used a large terra cotta pot that we found at a local thrift shop for $2. To begin, David simply chiseled out and smoothed half of the bottom of the pot to provide a back door escape hatch for the toad in case he gets chased into the house by a predator. We then buried the bottom half of the pot in a shady corner of our garden to help keep the inside of the house cool and damp. To make it look like a part of the garden, David transplanted some sedum and other plants from another location. I really like how it turned out!

Since we use organic gardening methods, we welcome the toads because they will eat insects and pests that we don't want messing with our vegetables. We also feel good that we are giving the toads a place to hang out and hopefully helping to boost their population.

Do you have any toad houses in your garden?

~Tammy

PS - We found this post very helpful in planning our toad house.

Shared with From The Farm Blog Hop, Sunny Simple Mondays, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Eco Kids Tuesday, Tuesday Muse, Tweak It Tuesday, What To Do Weekends, Clever Chicks Blog Hop

Year In Review

Today marks the one year anniversary of Our Neck of the Woods! I'm really excited and thought it would be fun to look back over the past year and see what all we've accomplished. I was hesitant to start this blog, but my sweet friend Heather gave me the push I needed to put myself out there and I'm so glad she did. I've never been one for attention, so it was hard for me to express myself for the whole world to see. But now I can't imagine NOT doing it. Sharing bits and pieces of rural living through photos and words has become a passion for me and I am so glad I took the plunge one year ago. Here's what we've been up to this past year.

1) Discovered how much we enjoy exploring our woods and feeling like kids again when we discover amazing bugs and critters we've never seen before.

2) Learned more about foraging and went mushroom hunting in our woods for the first time. Figured out how to identify and cook puffballs!

3) Realized that it's important to take time every once in a while to treat yo self.

4) Made the discovery of a lifetime - banana ice cream!

5) Started a new tradition of Christmas tree shopping in our own back yard.

6) Waged a war on ticks with the help of a new flock of guineas.

7) Dealt with the worst heartbreak we'd ever experienced as homesteaders and learned to let our bad experiences strengthen us.

8) Eight new little pullets were added to our flock; one of which turned out to be a rooster!

9) Started a new series on the blog called Feathered Friend Friday.

10) Lots of progress was made with Duchess. She's so playful and happy now!

11) Started a facebook page for the blog and also registered a custom domain name for the blog.

12) For the first time ever, we witnessed eggs hatching and became proud grandparents!

13) Successfully completed the logging process on our 20 acres of woods. Still working on clean up, though!

14) Perhaps my favorite change over the past year - finally upgraded to a new camera!

15) Learned so much about gardening this past year and plan to use what we've learned to help us out with next year's garden.

This past year has been a wild ride. Can't wait to see what the next year brings!

~Tammy

Tomato Hornworms

Over the long holiday weekend after the rain died down, David and I found time to work on our much neglected garden. We let the weeds run rampant and they had completely taken over. We ended up getting rid of the plants that weren't producing (green bell peppers) and transplanting herbs (sage, lemon balm) to different locations. Basically we only left the tomato plants that were still viable and producing and mowed over everything else. Like we've said before, we knew this first year would be a lot of trial and error and we are already planning next year's garden layout implementing changes as a result of what we've learned this year in our mistakes.

David started working while I was finishing up some things inside, and he came back inside after a few minutes saying, "Grab the camera. There are HUGE green caterpillars on the tomato plants." I said, "Will I be creeped out?" and he replied, "Yeah, most likely."

Ok, sufficiently creeped out! Am I the only one who sees all the "eyes" staring at me? Honestly I didn't even know if I could write this post because my skin crawls every time I look at these photos.

It's so funny, because my friend Sonja over at Lally Broch Farm wrote about these mysterious critters in this post just a few days ago! (PS - Sonja is giving away a few more samples of her handmade eucalyptus-scented goats milk soap. Go here to have a sample delivered to you. I can't wait to get mine!)

I did some research on these caterpillars and found that they are known as tomato hornworms due to the red horn on their tail end.

These worms eat the tomatoes and the plant itself, leaving the plant looking like the branches were cut off with scissors (maybe what I previously thought was deer damage was actually hornworms?). Apparently the best way to prevent them from snacking on your plants is to keep the weeds from growing around your tomatoes. Oops. The weeds act as a breeding ground for these little buggers. Also keeping a close eye on your plants so you notice any worms early on will keep them from decimating your harvest.

The caterpillars eventually morph into the five-spotted hawk moth (photo here) but David didn't let ours get that far. Let's just say the chickens had some special treats over the weekend.

~Tammy

Tiger Moth

Today when I stepped outside the back door to go about the morning chores, I was greeted by a sweet visitor waiting for me by Sylvester's food bowl.

We have a lot of critters out here, and I've seen some really beautiful butterflies and moths. This guy caught my eye because of his striking graphic wing pattern.

After I snapped a few pictures, I pet him lightly on his wing and he stretched out a bit to reveal something even more breathtaking.

How gorgeous is that?! If I were a fashion designer he would be perfect inspiration for a garment (maybe I'm watching too much Project Runway?).

I've said it before and I'll say it again, nature never ceases to amaze me!

~Tammy

This post shared with TALU

Garden Spider

Last week I went outside to put some vegetable scraps in the compost and got quite a scare. I saw a huge, colorful spider hanging from a massive web on the side of the compost bin and immediately thought it was out to get me. Well, not really, but I did keep my eye on it. But the more I looked the more I was in awe and had to snap a photo.

Last Friday night my friend Angela was over, and since she works for the Department of Conservation, I figured she knew her spiders and had her identify it for me. Apparently it's a very common garden spider, but I'd never seen one before.

The most important thing I learned about them is they are not aggressive and not poisonous to humans. Phew! One cool fact I read is that each night they eat the interior part of the web and spin a new web the following morning. Seems like a lot of work to me, but I guess they don't have anything better to do while waiting for prey to fall into their web!

~Tammy

Five-Lined Skink

Yesterday I was on the phone in the driveway (that's one of the only places I can get cell reception out here!) and saw this lizard crossing the porch. The first thing I noticed was its brilliant blue tail. I couldn't believe how bright and almost neon-like it was! I slowly sauntered past him back inside the house to grab my camera. I hoped I wouldn't scare him off and that he'd still be on the porch when I got back outside. Luckily, he was still there!

Isn't he the most gorgeous thing ever? I wanted to know exactly what he was, so I googled "blue tailed lizard" and found out he is a five-lined skink, the most common skink in Missouri. Based upon his cobalt blue tail, he is under one year old. I guess he could actually be a female; not sure how to check that!

According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, they average 6.5 inches in length and munch on crickets and other insects. The females lay their eggs between May and July, which makes sense because we have been seeing tons of tiny little skinks out here lately.

Nature never ceases to amaze me.

~Tammy

Shared with TALU Tuesday

Bee Tree

I first wrote about our plans to have the property logged back in February. Since then we have learned a lot and realized it's not nearly as simple of a process as we previously thought. We were just marking trees that we thought looked good and wanted to keep, but there is WAY more behind it!

A couple months ago I called our regional Missouri Department of Conservation office to get in touch with the resource forester in our area. He has been out to our property twice now, and most recently marked all our trees that we will get cut down (more on this in a future post!). He is such a smart guy, and pointed out lots of cool things to David about the types of trees we have out here. In particular, he found one very interesting thing on our property...

A bee tree!

We never noticed it before, but a colony of bees has set up shop in this old, hollowed out tree.

David has been talking about wanting bees for some time now, so he was pretty excited when they found this. We are going to talk to a local beekeeper tomorrow, but from what we understand, it is possible to move the colony from the tree to a different location. We can't harvest their honey as it is now, but if we move the colony to a beehive we can eventually collect the honey. I can't imagine anything better than having my own honey!

~Tammy

Butterfly Bush Blooms

We planted a butterfly bush on the side of our house last year, and so far this year it has grown like crazy. It looks a little funky, though, because some of the branches are longer than others and some stand straight up while others fall to the ground. David decided it was time to cut it back so it would grow more evenly. It was hard to do because there were a lot of beautiful purple blooms at the tops of the branches.

But I had an idea. There was no way I was going to let those gorgeous, fragrant blooms go to waste! I sorted through each branch and threw the ones that didn't have any blooms into the compost. Made a couple friends in the process. :)

I gathered some of my favorite containers, filled them with the blooms, and placed them in as many rooms as I could!

They smell sooooo good. I love having fresh flowers in the house and it's even better when they are gathered from my own back yard!

~Tammy

Clearing the Camera

Here are some pictures I took over the weekend -

This is Baby, our outdoor cat. She came with the house! The guy we bought the place from asked if we wanted her since this is the only home she's ever known. Of course we said yes! She's so pretty and such a sweetheart.

 

 

More critters! Found these guys while working on our compost bin (more to come on that later!). 

I didn't get any pictures of it, but today I saw something just as creepy and science fiction-y as the stick bugs. I was hanging out with the chickens and one of them ate the body of a daddy long legs that was right in front of me. One of the legs fell out of the chicken's mouth and started twitching! Just the skinny leg of the spider, moving on its own. Thought I was just imagining things, so I looked again and still twitching! Sat there in awe for a couple minutes until I picked up the leg and ran to find David to show him. As usual, I guess he's seen this sort of thing before because he wasn't nearly as shocked as I was. I swear that thing twitched for a good 5 minutes before I tossed it and tried to make sense of it all in my mind. Crazy. Definitely felt like a kid again today on that one.

~Tammy

I Feel Like a Kid Again

One thing I love about being out in the country is seeing so many different insects and creatures that I've never seen before or even knew existed. I feel like a little kid every time I see something new. I have to find David and drag him away from whatever he's doing to come and look at what I just discovered.

Case in point, one day I saw a stick on the door of the chicken coop. I remember thinking how strange it looked, almost like a bug of some sort. Well, the stick started moving and I thought I was losing my mind. I ran inside the house to grab David and show him this crazy thing I'd found. His response was a cool, "Oh yeah, that's a stick bug." A stick what?! I had never heard of this in my whole life! This was blowing my mind.

This morning there were three of these hanging out on the garage door. They are EVERYWHERE out here. I found some cool facts about stick insects online. http://insects.about.com/od/stickandleafinsects/a/10-facts-stick-insects.htm. Crazy Stuff!

One of the first things I saw out here was a cute little toad sitting in my new flower garden. Of course I took a picture and told David, "Look! A frog!" Always the animal expert, he replied, "That's a toad, not a frog." Maybe this is something most people know by the time they are 27 years old, but not me.

Get that camera away from me, crazy human.

Here's another little guy I saw right beside the back patio just hanging out one day. I think he's smiling at me!

There are so many different types of moths out here. I've seen some that are bright solid white, white with black spots, bright pink, multicolored, tiny, and huge. But this one kind of blew my mind.

I saw this butterfly out in the chicken run one day. At one point there were three of these flying all around me.

We've also seen raccoons, opossums, deer, praying mantises, spiders galore (daddy long legs are everywhere and we saw a Missouri Tarantula once!), lizards, the tiniest toads ever, snakes (a big black one and also one so tiny I thought it was a worm), hawks, hummingbirds, and so much more.

I feel so full of wonder and awe every time I step outside my door and see God's creation. Now what I'm really looking forward to is seeing all the leaves change color this fall. Fall is my absolute favorite season and I can't wait.

If you live in the city, I encourage you to take time to go out to the country and explore. It's great to feel like a kid again!

~Tammy