When Ed and I started rebuilding Little Bear Ranch, our place in Bozeman, Montana, I knew I wanted the place to be fun and playful. It’s a retreat–big enough to share and enjoy with family and friends. And Bozeman is a place where we love to hike, usually to a waterfall. And Ed enjoys taking friends fishing, often on the Yellowstone. It’s a place to picnic in summer, and hike with the wolves in winter.

Swinging from living room into dining room

So. What’s more fun than having a swing inside? In the living room. It’s easy, simple, carefree, and pretty much captures the spirit of life at Little Bear Ranch.

Why the name Little Bear Ranch? Because the black bear in our kitchen wasn’t little and the place really isn’t a ranch. So it’s a joke name that Ed came up with on the spur of the moment, and it fits. Though a Bozeman friend assured us that any property in Montana that has bear, deer, elk, and moose qualifies as a ranch.