For the first year of our life in Hotchkiss, we lived in a tent. One reason for this was to observe the landscape and experience the seasons before deciding where to build a tiny home. We are so glad that we did this! Although the shade under the elm trees was nice, the elm bugs were not nice at all. That spring, they were in our bed, on our skin, and in our drinking water. Hundreds gathered in our tent flap, in our shoes. Enough of them crawled into the cracks of our portable radio that they broke it with their molting bodies. Needless to say, we chose a spot farther back on the property with hardly a tree in sight to build our casita.