The Weather Furcast with Hanley Bear

Ay up, everyone!  It's Hanley Bear here, with a blog about my new science project, which is learning about clouds and becoming a weather forecaster.  Sonning and Endon hope it will keep me busy while I wait for the new football season.

Polar and Grizzly's house is high up on a hill, north of Stoke-on-Trent, with views all the way to Snowdonia, the Long Mynd Hills and The Wrekin, and over to the Peak District.  We have better views now than when I moved here, because some trees had to be cut down that had Ash Die-back, and because Polar has been pruning some big shrubs during 'lockdown'.

When the other bears are napping in the garden, I like to look up and watch the clouds.  Grizzly bought a book about clouds a while ago, which is usually kept on Uppie so he and Polar can try to work out what weather will hit them when they are boating, but it has been at home while Uppie has been having the work done, and I borrowed it earlier this week.

The book explains that there are low-level clouds, mid-level clouds and high-level clouds.  Different types of cloud have different names.  You have probably heard of the high-level clouds called cirrus, which sometimes get called mares' tails but there are lots of different types of cirrus with different Latin names.  The ones in the picture on the right are called cirrus spissatus, and I think the ones in the next picture are cirrus floccus. 

High-level clouds are a good clue to what is happening in the upper atmosphere and what weather to expect.  When we saw cirrus spissatus, I told the other bears that was a sign of stormy weather within the next 48 hours, and I was right!

'Why do they always do scientific things in Latin?' I grumbled to the other bears.  'We aren't Romans!  It makes it extra difficult.'  

But Endon said it was to help scientists from all over the world communicate with each other using names for things they all understood and agreed on, like they do with plants and animals.

'Polar encourages me to use the proper Latin names for our plants,' he reminded me.  'If you're going to do proper science, you have to use the proper words.'

Endon Bear is right, of course, so I'm going to take lots of sky pictures to compare with Grizzly's book, and practice learning my proper Latin cloud names too.  I think the ones above are cirrus fibratus and the next picture is a type of altocumulus but I'm not sure which one - I think it's what's called a chaotic sky!

I've picked a really exciting time to start my new hobby, because we've had some great cloudscapes and big storms with thunder and loads of lightning.  You can just seen a huge cumulonimbus capitalis thunder cloud in the next photo.

That night we had a storm with lots of lightning.  Polar and I took some film of it which I am going to try and put in the blog - we haven't dome this before, so I hope it works.

Polar has promised to see if she can get me signed up as a BBC Weather-watcher, although she says she'll only do that if I study hard and take my weather-watching seriously, even when there is football to enjoy again.

It's small bears' bedtime now and I think we're in for a quiet night, but the storms are due to return in a couple of days.

Yay!

Garden Bears' World - Busy Bees and Busy Bears

Hello everyone!  It's Endon here again, with another Garden Bears' World episode.  

It has been so warm for the past few days that us bears haven't felt like doing any digging or planting and have spent a lot of time having naps and listening to the birds singing and the bees buzzing.

'We know how to recognise most of the birds,' said Hanley one afternoon.  'But the bees don't all look the same either.  We should see what types they are.'

He remembered that Grizzly had a chart with all the different types of British bees on it, so he asked if he could borrow it.  

One of the reasons there are so many bees in the garden is that there are lots of flowers blooming just now that they like, including some huge pink lilies and these pretty purple phlox.

The garden smells very nice too, thanks to those scenty flowers and the honeysuckle.  The butterflies' favourite food plant, the Sedum, isn't open just yet, although they also like something called Verbena bonariensis which we have too.

I don't think the bees are very interested in the big pink roses but they do like a plant called Monarda which Polar says is also known as 'bee balm' - you can see a bee on one of the flowers.  We looked it up on Grizzly's chart and it's a Common Carder Bee, or Bombus pascuorum, to use it's proper scientific name.

All the bees love borage, which comes up in the vegetable patch year after year and has lovely little single blue flowers, although it can get quite scruffy and rusty when the plants get big and old.  You can see a honey bee (Apis mellifera) and one of the bumble bees on these plants.

And here's a bumble bee on one of the sunflowers on the allotment.  I think it is a white-tailed bumble bee, although there is not much difference in colour between these, the garden bumble bee and the buff-tailed bumble bee.  The bumblebees' scientific names all start with Bombus and there are more than twenty different types!

While we were bee-spotting, Polar asked if I could help her in the front garden.  She had picked most of the yellow plums, but there were still some ripe ones at the very top of the tree, just out of her reach.

'A small bear who is good a climbing would be able to pass them down to me,' she said, so I let her carry me out to the front garden and place me in the plum tree, then up I went!

Soon we had the last of the ripe and almost-ripe plums picked and into a bowl, which Polar carried back to the kitchen - where there were already dozens of plums!

They smelt wonderful and are very sweet to eat fresh, although Polar has cooked and frozen some of them, and turned others into pots of jam, for us and for our friends and neighbours.  

We offered to help, but Polar said it was too hot in the kitchen for little furry bears at this time of year, although we will be allowed to help to eat it!

A Visit to the Dry Dock

Last week, Uppie the narrowboat was due to be moved into Mr Steve the boat-painter's dry dock at Middlewich.  

Mr Steve invited Polar and Grizzly to watch, as Uppie would be the first boat into the dock for years.  We bears all wanted to go too but Polar said it might be a bit dangerous for small bears and she wasn't sure she could keep an eye on all three of us. 

The smaller bears agreed that, as I was the first boating bear, I ought to be our representative at the dry dock's opening ceremony.

'You must be very careful and sensible, Sonning,' said Grizzly, so I promised I would be.  I hoped there would be flags and bunting, tea and cake, and a ribbon to cut, but there wasn't, probably because of the nasty virus.

Mr Steve and his friends had done a huge amount of work at the dry dock, re-covering the shed with big sheets of cladding and cleaning lots of mud and silt out from the dock.  It looks huge, doesn't it?  

I asked Grizzly what was the biggest boat that would fit in there.  'A full-length narrowboat, 72 feet,' he said.  'Although it's longer and wider than that, the only way to get to it is via the narrow locks of the Middlewich flight!'

Then we saw Mr Steve on Uppie, coming down through the lock above the dry dock - backwards!  Uppie looked so smart, I almost had leaky eyes.

Mr Steve steered the boat into the dock, switched off the engine and jumped off, then he and his pals used ropes to move Uppie right into the centre.  

Mr Steve and Mr Dave then had to drop some big planks into the water, to close the way into the dock, rather like lock gates do.  Once they were in place, Mr Steve could open the paddle that empties the dock, which is like the paddles on locks.  All the water runs away through a channel to the canal below the locks, but I was a good and sensible bear and didn't go too close to look.

Because the planks are leaky, Mr Steve's friends put a big tarpaulin in front of them to stop too much water leaking back in.  Soon, we could see parts of Uppie's hull that are usually under water!

When most of the water was out, Mr Steve and Mr Dave got to work with tools like giant wiper-blades on sticks to get all the silt that had come in with the canal water cleared away.

While they were busy, we could take a closer look at Mr Steve's sign-writing, on the side that had been away from the towpath when we came up from Northwich.

Uppie is going to have a new cratch cover fitted, so we will have our little dining room - and small bears' look-out cabin - back in use soon.

Grizzly has asked Mr Steve if Uppie can have a bigger propeller too, to give us a little more power when we are on big rivers like the Thames and the Trent, so we don't nearly get swept away again!

In this photo you can see a boat out on the canal and some water leaking in around the planks, but Mr Steve won't get wet feet because there is a little channel across the floor that channels it all into the outflow.

When the dock was dry and they had finished talking to Mr Steve, Polar and Grizzly said it was time to go home for lunch, so I went for another quick look at Uppie and to say 'bye, bye,' for now.

'See you soon, Uppie!' I said.  I do hope we can have more boating adventures before too long.

Hanley Bear's End of Season Report

Ay up, fellow sports fans!  It's Hanley Bear here with a look back at the last few matches of Stoke City's season.

Last time I was writing, Stoke were trailing at Leeds.  Things got worse and worse that night and we lost that game very heavily, by five goals to nil, meaning that not only did we not get any points, our goal difference was suddenly very poor too.  This is the difference between the number of goals your team have scored and the number teams have scored against you, and can matter a lot if your team is in trouble, because it is used to decide your position in the league table if you have the same number of points as other teams.  It can be the difference between staying up and getting relegated!

But then, we started to do better.  We picked up three points by beating Birmingham City by two goals to nil, then got a one-all draw against Bristol City.  That result meant we were probably safe from relegation, which was a relief, although strange things can sometimes happen, especially if your team loses heavily again and there was a chance that we would with two tough matches still to go.

So I was glad I had my pals with me for the last couple of games, as even I didn't think we would score against Brentford - who were after an automatic promotion place - or Nottingham Forest, who were expecting to get into the 'play-offs' for promotion to the Premiership.

But Mr Michael O'Neill must have given the boys extra oatcakes and marmalade for the Brentford game, as we won it, by one goal to nil, thanks to a goal from Mr Lee Gregory.  Grizzly and I cheered and cheered, and so did Sonning and Endon, because those three points meant we were definitely safe.  

I did feel a tiny bit sad for Brentford's players, manager and fans, because that meant they wouldn't get automatically promoted, although it helped West Bromwich Albion to be, who used to be supported by our much-missed Twitter pal, Toddy Furrington.  Poor old Brentford lost the play-off finals to Fulham, so we'll be playing them again next season.

And then, in our last game, we beat Nottingham Forest by four goals to one!  They were very cross, because it messed up their goal-difference and that meant they wouldn't be in the play-offs after all.  I felt a little bit sorry for them too, but I was also very happy we got lots of goals because my favourite player, Mr James McClean, scored one of them.  He often sets up goals for other players, with crosses into the penalty area, but he doesn't get to score many himself.

And lots of the other fans agree with me about Mr James, because he was voted our Player of the Year.  Yay!

So Stoke finished fifteenth in the table, a long way away from the relegation zone.  In fact it's a shame the season ended when it did, because our lads suddenly seemed to find really good form just as everything was winding up.  

It is still a whole month until the season starts again, which seems ages when you are a small bear.  I hope it will be safe for Grizzly and I to go to watch matches again soon, as I think Mr Michael is going to manage us all the way back to the Premiership next season.  

I have my paws and claws crossed already!

Garden Bears' World - Purple Potatoes!

Hello again everyone!  It's Endon Bear here, with another look at Polar and Grizzly's garden and what us bears do to help.

Recently, Polar started lifting some potatoes we had planted back in the spring.  They were a variety called Violetta and they are purple inside, with dark skins which are almost black.  This makes them quite hard to find, if all you are relying on is human eyesight.  

Even though Polar was being very careful with her digging, she was worried that she might be missing some of them.

'I'll help you find them!' I said.  'I'm a bear, which means I have a bear-illiant sense of smell, so I'll sniff out any potatoes you haven't seen.'

Polar said she would be very grateful, but I must be careful to stay well away from the big fork she uses for lifting potatoes.  'Sit on the little stool while I lift a root, then we'll search through the soil together,' she said.

Some of the potatoes weer too big and heavy for a small bear like me to lift, so I pointed to where they were with my stick, and Polar put them in the dig trug.  

Then she dug the ground over, ready for the next crop.

Polar said we would cook and eat any damaged potatoes quite soon, as they wouldn't keep, but the others would go in wooden boxes in between layers of newspaper and would keep for months and months.

'Let's pick some broad beans too!' she suggested.  'Then we can cook them with fishcakes for our tea.'

I was a very hungry small bear by tea time and so were Hanley and Sonning, who had been helping Grizzly in his workshop.  They were very surprised to see the purple potatoes and not sure whether they wanted to eat them but, when they did, they found they were very tasty indeed.

And we will be lifting pink potatoes soon!