Playing with Popcorn

We are getting creative with decorations this year! Sandy thought it might be nice to try some popcorn strings... since we had a lot of pretty berries and popcorn...

Sandy wanted to know if we could use his Halloween candy corn as well... but Mama said it was the wrong kind of corn to use for popcorn!

Luckily, the place comes with a popcorn popper... so we are all set.

First you get out some popcorn....

And put it in the metal cup inside the popcorn popper...

Then you turn it on and wait... and wait... and wait...

 And slowly the popcorn comes out... and then quicker!

 Whoa... that is a lot of popcorn!

 There we go - we are ready... popcorn and berries and clippers... and Mama with a needle and thread. Hopefully she is better at sewing popcorn strings than she is at sewing the pants of little bears!

Tah-dah!!! Our first popcorn string!!!  As a note... don't use hawthorn berries (they have big pit seeds in them) or holly berries (they break easily).... Cranberries would probably be best!

It looks pretty good doesn't it?? Sandy did an inspection and thought it looked very good... although a bit edible in places!

The Great Christmas Tree Hunt!

There was some debate in our household as to whether or not we would have a Christmas tree this year. With only a few Christmas decorations along on this sabba-tickle... would we be able to decorate a tree? What would we use for a tree stand? But Sandy swung the vote in favour of a tree so... a tree we got!

Yes... it is a little tree... Sandy spotted it underneath some power lines and sent Mama and partner out to hack it down. It's a perfectly sized tree for a little bear!

There he is... checking out the colour of the tree... to make sure it doesn't clash with his jacket!

We had to get creative with the Christmas tree stand as well. We used the ash bucket from the wood stove (with no ashes in it), put the tree stump in there and surrounded it with rocks. That should be nice and solid!! Last year, Sandy was a bit traumatized when our beary expensive tree fell over on Boxing Day and made a loud noise and a disastrous mess. But this one looks nice and solid!

On our tree hunt, we also stopped for some greenery... this is a bunch of Western Red Cedar which will make some nice Christmas swags to hang on the door and the deck railings.

 And there is also a big pile of balsam (fir) boughs... they will look nice too... and smell even better!

Oh... and last but not least... some holly!!! With red berries this time... and variegated leaves too... Beary prickly though.

 And Sandy wants a picture of himself with the axe...  Clearly, Sandy was not doing any of the chopping and cutting on this expedition!

And... some Douglas Fir... and hawthorn berries and some orange rose hips... for later!

It's a good thing we went out when we did because this afternoon it rained buckets!

If a A Tree Falls in the Forest...

Sandy was ambling through the forest today when his path was blocked!!

There was a tonne of branches and twigs and tree trunks on the ground...

And the big old tree trunk had been snapped in half  too!! What the heck?

And then Sandy looked back... way... way back and saw the beginning of this huge mess... A beary large Douglas Fir tree had fallen over... that must have made a huge crash!

Look at that... wow... It's all snapped and splintered at the base. We had some gale force winds a few days before and this tree obviously didn't survive it.

Sandy's beary glad he wasn't walking in the forest when this happened!! He could have gotten "squeeshed"! Never go for a walk in the woods when gale force winds are blowing!

Leaf Chompers

Sandy Bear was walking along, minding his own business, when in the stillness of the early morning, he heard something (he has very good hearing). It sounded like chewing... chewing?? A bit of investigation (he is a CSI bear after all)... and he found a whole stand of aspen trees with half-eaten or whole-eaten leaves. Closer inspection revealed a whole bunch of creepy critters eating the trees alive!

Sandy wasn't going to get too close to these things. If they could eat whole trees... they might think that his beautiful green coat was a new variety of leaf... and take a few munches out of him.

There were a lot of these things crawling all over the trees and Sandy learned that they are called "cat-er-pillars"... Now he's not sure why there is yet something else named after felines... but in this instance, he's willing to let these things keep their feline-based named. He's also not sure what these things have to do with pillars... And then he hears that they are actually called "tent cat-er-pillars". What the heck? Where's the tent? Well... a few metres away (that's a few yards in other places)... Sandy saw this...

Yup, that's definitely a tent... but a very yucky one... Sandy can see all of the cat-er-pillar poop collecting in the tent strands. Is that what that weird smell is? This small tree is a Saskatoon Berry tree... and Sandy is not pleased, NOT pleased at all, that the cat-er-pillars are destroying the future berry harvest... He tries out his best bear growl... "grrr"... But the cat-er-pillars must be hard of hearing and just kept munching away.