Starry-eyed Little Bear

 I discovered something beary interesting the other day!! If you go outside at night, you can see tonnes of stars!! Normally I don't go out at night because it's dark and who knows what is lurking in the bushes ready to eat a little bear but... our backyard seems pretty safe and bushes free (more or less).

Anyhow... Mama told me that there are way more stars out there than I can see from the backyard, so she showed me some pictures online...

 Whoa, that is a lot of stars!! I wonder if that is the Milky Way... we are part of that galaxy you know...

Oh my goodness... this is the Horsehead Nebula!!

That is just beautiful!!! But I asked Mama how come they never name things after little bears... and she told me a story and showed me some pictures...

 See all those stars? Well, we don't see that many when we go outside...

We see something more like this... and Mama said there are things called constellations, stars that seem to form a pattern. There's like Orion (a guy with a sword) and Cassipea (a big W in the sky) and quite a few others...

But the ones Mama showed me are here... do you see them? Just above the trees is the Big Dipper and off the end of Big dipper's ladle is the Little Dipper. The end of Little Dipper's handle is the North Star!

Like that... see them?? Well, Mama said those two constellations have other names as well...

The Big Dipper is called Ursa Major... which is latin for Big Bear!!! Hmmm... I've never seen a bear with such a long tail... maybe that's why he's called Big Bear... his tail is the Big Dipper handle... and the scoop part is in his body... That's kind of a stretch if you ask me!

The most important one though is the Little Dipper which is called Ursa Minor!!! Which means... ta-dah... drum-roll please... Little Bear!!! That's me!!! That's my name!!! Except I do not have such a long tail either...  Heh-heh... I wonder if there are any mouse constellations...

An Island Getaway... no... a Beach Getaway!

Hullo bears & not-a-bears! I am going to go for a hike on an island today!! Yay!!! It's a bit windy out so I am all bundled up and ready for it. Along the way, there were these cool paintings...

On the side of a restroom!! Thought Beanie would like that!

They are pretty cool... But now it's off to the island!

What!! Ferry Service is suspended due to weather!!! Phooieeeeee!!!! A bit of wind and that's it... sigh.. Well, off to Plan B.

Oh, this works too!!! 

There were cool birds here... maybe sandpipers?

And interesting piles of driftwood... I wonder if that is natural or if some giant bear came along and played pick-up sticks here?

Some different plants here too...

They have little fat bladders on the stalks... but these aren't full of water... weird!

Of course there are lots of sea shells here!

This beach sure has a lot of seaweed plants near shore...

Ahhh... sometimes it's just nice to sit by the ocean and soak up the fall sunshine (out of the wind of course!).

Beautiful!!

Have you been on any outings lately or are your humans as busy and preoccupied as mine???

Mail Call!

I got a post card from Hammie today! He went to Bremen to see a great musician... It looks like a beary nice city... I do think that us stuffies could create our own Stadtmusikantnen statue... pig, hamster, mouse and bears!! Thanks Hammie!

Eh? What??? Why am I wearing my winter outfit... ummmm.... well... It's gettting colder out??? Ooops, Mama says my nose is getting longer. Sigh...

I read about Jerry & Ben's Halloween contest yesterday and got so excited about it that I created one right then and there but... it's sort of attached to my t-shirt and jeans outfit sooooo.... I need to wear something else for the next month or so (or until we get a pumpkin!).... Hmmm... poor planning, but then little bears are not renowned for their planning... unless of course it has something to do with honey!

Happy Milestone!

Today is my 500th posting!! Yippee!!!

I got to go to Vancouver in honour of my demi-millenial posting... or so I like to think.

I went down to the beach with my cousin, Daisy... she's a dog... And when she gets to the beach, all she likes to do is dig!

I think it's more interesting to watch the ships out in the harbour...

But Daisy digs... I'm not sure what for though... Is there buried treasure? A dog bone?

"Hullo, Daisy!! What are you diggin' for???"

That's it??? A rock??? Dogs are so strange sometimes...

Oh look, a tugboat...

And a beach full of holes!

Oh well... sometimes Daisy is fun to watch too. So much energy! I guess it's her hobby... like doing blog postings is mine! Heh-heh...

Spider Marsh

It was a foggy day yesterday and no chance of a sunrise, so I convinced Mama to try a different hike! This one looks interesting.

There are oak trees here!! I haven't seen a lot of those - these ones are nice and green.

Yup, foggy... there are supposed to be birds here...

But it looks like nobody's eaten anything yet... or I interrupted their morning breakfast!

Whoa, cool spider web!

Is it a spider web though?? It's not a typical web shape and it is quite dense... hmmmm....

That's a real spider web! But Mrs. Spider must still be in bed cause there was nobody home...

Despite the green oak leaves, there are signs that fall is coming... the hawthorne berries are turning red...

And the Red-Ossier Dogwood is going too... isn't that a cool name for a bush!

Another spider web!! They are everywhere here!

Can you see it above my head?? Mama mutters quite a bit when she is trying to take spider web pictures... her camera isn't really designed for focusing on something so gossamer-like...

But the occasional shot does come out OK.

Hee-hee!! This is me under one of those tent spider webs!!!

And this is what life looks like from underneath one of them...

Hmmm... still foggy...

Cool - some acorns!! They don't look quite ripe yet though. I thought they turn brown when they are "done".

Oh, but some of the leaves are starting to turn colour as well...

Still a few wild-sweet peas around.

But no birds!

Part of the reason Mama was trying to take web pictures was because they are coated with tiny beads of moisture... they are so beautiful like this!

Hey!! It's a bird!!! A little... umm... brown bird... of some sort. I is not a birder by any means!

OK, Mama... enough with the spider web pictures!

This was a cool walk, although it would have been nice to see some more birds. Maybe they are out in the fog there somewhere...