Garden Bear's World - Grizzly's Orchard

 Hello everyone!  It's Endon Bear here, with an update on the garden and allotment I help my human guardians' to look after.  Spring is always a busy time of year, with plots to dig over, potatoes to plant and seeds to sow but, this year, we had a special extra job to do. 

 

At the end of March, Grizzly celebrated his 80th birthday.  Because there was still quite a lot of the nasty virus about, Polar hadn't booked a big party for him.  Instead, they had a  nice dinner at their favourite pub and planed a special holiday, which is happening next month.

Polar ordered eight new fruit trees too - one for each decade of Grizzly's life so far.  They arrived in a big cardboard box, wrapped in plastic to stop them drying out, and Polar had to put their root-balls to soak for several hours before we could plant them.

I helped Polar to dig some holes for them - not too close to the fence - and she collected some compost from the heap to dig into the soil at the bottom and around the planting holes.  Then we planted the trees and watered them in well, and Polar gave them a good prune to encourage them to grow well.

They are cordon trees, so grow straight up rather than making a spreading canopy, and can be planted close together.  This means there is plenty of room for more, so we can add one when Grizzly is 90 or 100, or put a row along the other side of the garden when Polar is 60.

Polar chose six apples and two pears, concentrating on varieties that are ready to eat later in the year and store well.  Hopefully, we will have fruit from the currant bushes as well this year.

Polar and I have been planting lots of flowers and vegetables since then, but I will tell you more about that in another Garden Bears' World another day.

A Visit to Grandad Polar

Last month, we bears went on a little holiday to the south of England with Polar and Grizzly, staying at Grandad Polar's house for a few days, then at the little shepherd's hut so we could see Grizzly's grandcubs and their family.

Grandad Polar is over 92 years old, which is a great age for a human or a small bear.  He used to be a steam engine driver, and Grizzly got him a replica of his favourite locomotive's name-plate for his birthday one year, which you can just see in this photo Polar took of him in his workshop.

He still enjoys pottering in his workshop and growing plants for his garden, and he still cooks his own dinners, but he cannot walk very far these days.  He is always kind to us bears when we visit and, this time, he let Hanley and Huddlesford explore the workshop, which is full of what he calls "handy stuff", as he knows they like engineering. 

While they were exploring, they found a plug and a switch.  Hanley wondered what it did, so he flicked the switch to find out.  It made the lion fountain in the little pond work, so we all went to have a look at it.

We were thrilled when we found there were newts in the pond, even though it is only small, and also dragonfly larvae.  We called Polar so she could take a picture of one of the newts.  We get frogs in our ponds, but have never seen newts in them.

Grandad Polar's garden has several fruit trees, which Polar helps to prune when she comes to visit.  They are a good height for small bears to climb, so we did, and the cubs found a hanging basket they could use as a swing!

Endon Bear found some runner bean plants in one of the greenhouses.  Grandad Polar said it was probably time to plant them out, so Endon helped Polar to plant them for him, in a sunny bed beside the patio.

"We have to start our beans much later," Polar explained to Endon.  "Grandad Polar lives on the south coast and almost at sea level, while we are two-hundred miles further north and up on a hill, so we tend to get later frosts."

Here they are, all planted out.  Grandad Polar says they have already climbed all the way to the top of the canes!

We all enjoyed playing in Grandad Polar's garden that afternoon, climbing trees, running about on the lawn and playing hode-and-seek among the flowers, but we were very careful not to break anything.

Another day, when it was warmer, Polar took us to see the beach.  It isn't sandy, but among the stones and gravel there are lots of shells.  We decided to collect some to decorate our garden.  

Polar says she thinks there are more shells than there used to be when she was a child, which she hopes is a sign that the water is cleaner.

Polar checked the tide times before taking us along the section by this sandy cliff, as she says the water comes right up to it at high tide.  Southampton Water is unusual in having four high tides a day, because of the way the tides flow around the Isle of Wight.

Hanley Bear found a huge lump of what looked like iron on the beach, which he decided was either part of a ship-wreck or was a meteorite!

Huddlesford thought he had found a bear cave in a gap in some metal piling but, if it was, the bear who lived there wasn't a very friendly one!

Later in the afternoon, we came back to the beach to watch two big liners setting off on cruises.  The first one, which had two funnels, was called the Britannia.

We watched it all the way from when it left the docks until it was passing the Isle of Wight to go out to sea, including making a zig-zag around some sandbanks called The Brambles.  

Grizzly told us that when they lived in Southampton, one of their neighbours was a maritime pilot and used to guide big ships in and out of the port.  One day, he ley Grizzly go with him, and they had to climb up the side of a huge container ship on a rope ladder!

Then another big ship left the port.  This was the Queen Elizabeth.  We didn't watch this one all the way to the Isle of Wight as it was almost teatime, and Grandad Polar was making a cream tea for us when we got back.

We even got to see Doctor Rachael one day, when she was still Nearly-doctor Rachael, when she and her mummy and daddy came to visit, although we were a little bit sad that Horsey didn't come too.

Aren't we lucky bears!

 

A Visit to Parrot's Drumble

We have been very busy small bears having a lot of adventures recently, which means I have lots of posts to catch up on.  I am going to work backwards and tell you about the most recent ones first, starting with a visit to the lovely bluebell woods at Parrot's Drumble, which are close to where we live.

This was Huddlesford and Dudley's first visit, and we were looking forward to showing them how pretty it is there.  We explained that the nice people from the Wildlife Trusts help to look after it,although we suspect there may be a very secretive colony on wild small bears who help them.

  

The woods cover quite a large area, between the big shopping mall at Talke (which used to be called the Freeport but is now Affinity) and the A500 main road.  You get to them along a farm track, or through some boggy paths behind the industrial estate, or along a much nicer path from the farm where the Arbour Farm Shop is (although that can also get boggy when it has been rainy).

Polar carried us along the path to the woods in the Bear Bag, then let us all out to explore.  The bluebells were all in flower and looked glorious!  Huddlesford and Dudley thought it was a beautiful place. 

   

Polar and Grizzly trusted us to run about and explore on our own for a little while.  Endon found a little bear cave in the foot of a small beech tree, which we thought might be the home of very small wild bears, although we didn't see any.

During the winter storms, one of the biggest beech trees had been badly damaged and had needed to be cut down.  This made us all sad, although the Wildlife Trust have made a big pile of logs for creatures to live in and used the biggest branches to make seats.  When Grizzly sat down for a nap, we all came to sit next to him.

 

 Grizzly started counting the tree rings to try and work out how old the big beech tree had been.  He estimated there were over 150 rings, so it was quite an old tree.  Luckily, there are a lot of young beech trees growing in the woods, so hopefully, when we are very old bears, some of them will be great big trees like the one that has been cut down.

Then we went for another walk along a path and through the flowers.  When there are so many bluebells together, even humans can smell their perfume but, to small bears, it is very strong and pleasantly sweet, rather like a hyacinth.  We were careful not to step on the flowers or break their stems.

When we caught up with our human guardians, they were looking at a mosaic they had found.  I asked if it had been made by the Romans, because I know from watching programmes about human history that the Romans made lots of these, but Polar said she thought it was probably a community project the Wildlife Trust had sponsored.  It is still very nice.

  

Polar and Grizzly carried us home along the footpath that leads up through the fields to the farm where the farm shop is.  We were glad we were in the Bear Bag as there was a big buzzard soaring overheard.

There were sheep and lambs in the fields and quite a lot of their wool had caught in the hedges and on the fences.  Grizzly collected some of it to show the cubs.  I wonder if Polar can spin it to make one of them a scarf or even a little pullover?

 

We hope to visit some more bluebell woods while they are still in flower, as they are lovely places for small bears to play and explore.  We hope you are lucky enough to have one near you!