Hullo. I thought I would do a Year in Review... and it's been quite a year!!
January
In January, I hosted an Architecture Contest... with Art Deco buildings being the feature. I was prepping for a trip to London in August and Beanie Mouse and I were going to go hunting art deco buildings. Well... the trip didn't happen (we all know why!) but... the contest went well! We had all sorts of entries, and the winner was Grinnell from Little Fox's gang.
And in mid-January, I took a beary well-timed trip down to the Riviera Maya in Mexico. It was gorgeously warm!! And a nice break from the snow and rain.
February
But... shortly after we got back... we found that the basement had flooded... that meant a lot of digging around the house and a new perimeter drain and I, Handy Sandy, was kept bury busy supervising all the humans! That took up pretty much all of February...
And then... well then the virus hit in mid-March and we all know how that went and is going. Sigh...
Soo... it needed a readjustment and... I had time to work on some projects... like getting my new passport (Bear only known when I will get to use it!)...
It turned out pretty good I think!
And with various forms of lockdown in place, I went on a LOT of hikes to get outside... This year I timed the nettle picking perfectly and we came away with a bounteous harvest...
I also got out to look at the cherry blossoms... they were gorgeous this year!
There was also a long list of house projects to supervise... like patching a wall...
Oh, and I dug through Mama's stash of cards and went on a One-Bear-Mission to rid the house of excess letter-writing material. My stuffie pals got a LOT of mail this spring and summer...
Then Blogger decided to go all New Blogger on us and... the initial months were bumpy with lots of weird things happening... It took a bit of getting used to but I think they've ironed out the kinks now. I still don't like <p> instead of <br> but... ah well...
July brought the 2020 Stuffie Olympics!! It was great fun! Thanks to
Ajdin for hosting it!!
Did I mention that I went on a LOT of hikes! My readers got a crash course in cute spring and summer flowers. This is the rare
Lotus pinata also known as Bog Birds Foot Trefoil...
Sherlock Sandy was busy this year as well handling a number of cases via the mail including The Case of the Missing Bullion!
In August we hosted some esteemed guests... Otto! And...
... Rose!! I made it my goal to show them as many swimming spots as possible during their stay, since both of them are water critters... One day we went to five spots! Lakes and rivers and creeks and the ocean... they were both beary happy.
Our garden also produced bounteously this year and we had perhaps an overabundance of zucchini this year...
Which meant we baked a LOT of zucchini loaf... this is a choco-zucchini loaf...
In October I did a little tour of the coal mining history of the area... that was beary cool...
And of course I entered
Jerry & Ben's Halloween contest... this year as Paddington Bear!
I also took up Geocaching... it's fun to go walking through the forest hunting these caches. Most of them have little toys for kids to trade...
We also found a bonanza of chanterelle mushrooms this year and the humans are trying to develop a taste for them since they are choice mushrooms. If Gramma was here, we'd be giving them all to her... but she's not... so we have to do something with them!
And... I also found one of the survivors of the Great Mouse Island Tsunami! Cocoa Beanie had washed up on our shores and was sniffing through a thrift store looking for some clothing... We took him home with us...
One of the Christmas stuffies (Cat) graciously donated his sweater (temporarily!) to Cocoa Beanie... and, true to Beanie heritage, we got busy crafting some reused cards to use again.... Our pal
Droopy W. Dog makes such cool cards... we can't just let them languish in a drawer!
I do have to say that it has been less than peaceful leading up to Christmas as Cat has a different idea as to what "temporarily" means... Luckily
Beanie Mouse has knitted a vest for Cocoa Beanie and it is in the mail...
And Christmas brought a few gifts (a new outfit for me) and a brandy beans (for Cocoa Beanie)... and some peace on the cat and mouse front...
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
May 2021 be better than 2020
(P.S. It's a certain human's bearthday today!)
