Lending a Helping Paw

We have many wonderful adventures with our human guardians, Polar and Grizzly, so we try to be good and helpful bears when we are at home. 

One of the ways we can help is by gardening.  We love to explore and to play in the garden, climbing the shrubs, smelling the flowers and looking for interesting things in the pond, so it seems only fair to help to look after it.  Last weekend, Hanley Bear found frogspawn in the pond.

We know that there is serious work to be done when Polar gets her big boots out.  These are so big that a small bear could make a den inside one!  This time, Polar had some early potatoes to plant in one of the vegetable beds. 

'Let us help!' cried Endon, who loves to eat potatoes, especially scrummy little new ones. 

'Okay, bears,' said Polar.  'It'll be quite hard work, as we need ten deep holes to put them in and you only have little tools to dig with.'

'I have an idea!' I said.  I asked Polar to fetch the bulb planter from the greenhouse and pushed it into the ground where we wanted the first potato planted. 



It was very hard work for a small bear and it was even harder pulling it back out of the ground.  Hanley and Endon came to help and, after much huffing, puffing and pulling, we had our first potato planted.

Then we had to squeeze the bulb planter to get the soil plug to drop out of it, which took all three of us using all our might again.

'Poor little bears!' said Polar, seeing how out of breath we were.  'That's very heavy work for you.  Why don't I make the holes, then you can roll the potatoes in and use your little fork and spade to cover them over?'

This sounded like a much better idea.  Soon, we had all the potatoes planted and could have fun exploring again.

Polar put some netted frames that Grizzly had made over the potato patch, to stop naughty cats digging in it.  One of these made a very good small bear trampoline!  We did lots of bouncing and kept jumping until we were too tired to jump any more.

We went to check on Polar's nursery of spare plants.  'Some of these might be for the Secret Garden at work,' I told the other bears.  We hope to see it one day soon

When we went into the greenhouse, we found lots of pots to sort out and to clean.  We know this is a boring job Polar hates and were going to make a start on sorting them for her, when Grizzly came to fetch us.

'We're going to the allotment now,' he said.  'There are more potatoes to plant down there, and some onions.  Would you like to come along?'

'Yay!' we cheered, and we jumped into the big trug.  When we arrived, the small bears ran up the path to check on the garlic we had planted.

'It's taller than us!' Hanley Bear announced.  'And it's still very smelly!'

The onions were rather smelly too but, as they didn't have to be planted too deeply, I said I would take care of that while the smaller bears helped plant potatoes again.  I made some neat rows across a bed which Polar had raked ready, then started spacing out the onions in them.

There were a lot more in the bag than I had expected.  Even after I had planted a whole bed of them, I had enough left for four more rows.

'I'll plant those, Sonning,' said Polar.  'You've been such a good bear but you've done enough for one day.  Come and sit down by the shed and have a nice, cool drink of water.'

Hanley and Endon had been busy too, helping Polar and Grizzly plant potatoes.  There was only one job left to do, which was to put rotted horse manure on the beds.  We left that to Polar and Grizzly, as we can't push the big wheelbarrow and we knew we would need baths if we got the horse poo on us!

When we got home we had scones and rice pudding for tea, then settled down for a well-earned sleep, as we were due to go on another adventure the very next day.

A Visit to Dove Dale

Although my favourite adventures happen by boat, Grizzly and Polar also take us bears to interesting places in their little red car. 

Polar has a week off work this week, so we are having even more small bear adventures than usual.

Last Friday, we bears went to the Peak District for the first time.  Most people think the Peak District is all in Derbyshire but my friend Hanley Bear was very proud to tell me that some of it is in Staffordshire.

'The best bits are all in Staffordshire!' he insisted. 

Polar and Grizzly took us to a village called Ilam, where there is an old country house, now used as a youth hostel, and a path that goes to a place called Dove Dale. 

'It's quite a long walk, bears,' said Polar.  'You had better stay in your bag for most of it, so you don't tire your back paws and we can keep you safely away from the rivers.'

There are two very lovely rivers here.  One is called the Manifold, and it runs through the grounds of Ilam House.  The other is the Dove, which is the boundary between Staffordshire and Derbyshire. 

Polar was right that we had a long walk to Dove Dale, at least if you are a small bear.  Humans who like hiking would think it was a short and easy walk.  One path winds around the sides of stony fields full of sheep and little skippy lambs. 

The fields were divided by walls made from loose rocks.  These are called dry-stone walls, because they are not held together with mortar or cement, they are just put together very cleverly so the all pieces fit neatly and snugly, like a jigsaw.

Polar followed a little path the sheep had made across the moors to take a better photo of the view.  If you look closely and the picture on the right, you can just see Grizzly walking along near the wall.  He looks no bigger than a small bear!

Dove Dale is very narrow, with the sparkling river running very swiftly through a steep, limestone gorge.  Because it had been rainy a few days earlier, the river had flowed over its banks in places.  Polar didn't mind, as she had her big walking boots on, but we were very glad to be in our bear bag. 

You can see that, when we got to the stepping stones across to Derbyshire, there was water to wade through just to reach them.  We wondered what to do next.  We knew Polar could carry us across in our bag, but we didn't want her or Grizzly to slip on the rocks.

'We've got quite a long walk back,' Grizzly said.  'Let's stop here for a quick drink of water, then go back to Ilam House for a nice cup of tea.'

'And some cake!'  I said.

'Or scones!' said Endon.

'Or oatcakes!' cheered Hanley.

Polar put the bear bag down for us to sit on, as the grass was damp.  We watched lots of people going back and forth across the stepping stones.  I would have liked to see what was around the corner, further along the valley.  Grizzly and Polar promised we would come back soon, when the bluebells are in flower, while Hanley said we had already seen the best part as that had to be the Staffordshire side of the river!

'You might change your mind when we take you into Derbyshire next week,' said Polar, but Hanley stamped his back paws and gave a little growl.

'Staffordshire is best!' he said.

When we got back to Ilam House, we had coffee and walnut cake in the tearooms.  We had enjoyed our day so much that I asked Polar to help me write a review on the visitor feedback form, then posted it into the little box.

Polar let us play in the gardens before we went home and we found they had little deckchair which are just the right size for small bears to nap in, although the smaller bears were too excitable and wriggly for me to sleep during the afternoon, so we played hide-and-seek around the flower beds until it was time to go home. 

Busy Boat Bears

As it was sunny and still last weekend, Polar and Grizzly thought it would be nice to take Uppie for a short cruise up the Macclesfield Canal.  Grizzly says it is his favourite canal, which is very convenient as it starts very close to where Uppie is moored.

As soon as we got aboard, we put on our life-jackets.  Then we helped Polar unpack our picnic lunch, including some mini stroopwafels for us!

Uppie's engine started first time and soon we were away, taking the sharp left turn under the bridge at Hardingswood Junction, passing the moored boats at Red Bull and cruising over the aqueduct over the Cheshire Locks.  

When Polar had finished making a cup of tea for her and Grizzly (who was steering), she told us she had a special treat for us. Because she could trust us to be sensible bears, we were on a narrow canal and it wasn't windy, we were all going to be allowed to sit in the lifebuoy on the roof!

'Yay!' we cheered.  We ran through the boat ahead of Polar and jumped up the steps to the rear deck, where Grizzly lifted us up onto the roof.

'Stay inside the big orange ring, little bears!' he said.  'If you fall off the roof and into the canal, we can rescue you with the boat hook, but you'll get very wet and cold.'

We didn't want to get wet and cold, so we did as we were told and stayed safely inside the lifebuoy.  We didn't mind, as we had super views from there of the trees and fields, houses and farms.  

We were rather scared when we saw two big buzzards circling above us but, with Polar and Grizzly standing right behind us, we knew we were safe.

After we had gone through the one small stop-lock on that part of the canal, we cruised on past Grizzly's favourite pub and the big house Ramsdell Hall, whose owners only let the canal be built through their land in return for having fancy railings put in along the towpath.  There are some moored boats nearby and a very muddy path to Little Moreton Hall.

Polar took over steering, while Grizzly went for a walk along the towpath.  After a mile or so, they swapped over and Polar had a walk, taking her camera with her so she could take pictures of us enjoying our boat trip. 

When Polar climbed aboard again, Grizzly went inside to read the paper.  He reads a newspaper called The Guardian, which I think must be printed specially for the guardians of small bears. 

We enjoyed sitting in the sunshine, listening to the birds singing and waving to animals and humans from our vantage point, as Polar steered us.  We recognised the moorings at Congleton where we stayed at Christmas, with the turn-over bridges at either end where the towpath changes sides.  

Soon after, we stopped for lunch, finding a space between a couple of boats on the embankment where we could see the railway viaduct. 

That was as far as we planned to go that day so, after lunch, Grizzly turned the boat around at the aqueduct and we started home.  We bears helped Polar put the lunch things away and, when she went back up on deck, we did some dusting and tidying.

'There are ladybirds everywhere!' said Endon.  'They must have been hibernating on the boat.'

'Polar could put them in her greenhouse to eat the greenfly on her geranium cuttings,' Hanley Bear suggested. 

'Don't you think they're happier on Uppie?' I asked him.

'No,' Hanley replied.  'I think the spiders have been eating them.  I've found some dead ones and ladybird wings with no ladybird!  I think they will be safer off the boat.'  Endon agreed that we should rescue the ladybirds. 

'Let's put them all in something, so we can take them home.'  I said.

We found a little plastic box, made little air-holes in the lid with our claws, then climbed around inside the boat catching all the ladybirds we could see.  Because we have soft paws, we didn't hurt them when we picked them up.  Soon, we had fifteen in our box.

'Well done, bears!' said Polar when she saw what we had done.  She gave us all hugs, and took us back to sit in the lifebuoy for the journey home. 

We had enjoyed a lovely day afloat and were quite sad when we got back to our moorings, but Grizzly said we would have more boat adventures soon and some non-boating adventures too, so we have lots to look forward to.

We are very lucky small bears!