Our local supermarket garden centre has lots of bears this year. They appear to be made of resin, quite lightweight, in various poses. They are quite lifelike, nothing "cutesey" about them. I'll try to check the manufacturer when I go out for groceries this evening.

I believe that wound will heal completely over time and is certainly no worse than the oversized branch that is one of your two scaffolds. You may need to support the leader for the first couple of crops but I think new tissue will wrap completely around that wound and it will be better than new. You could test it to see how strong it is now and even make a splint for it, if necessary. You should remove the small piece of dead wood forming a stub that is interfering with the new tissue. The only thing that can go wrong is if the branch is required to hold too much load before it's sufficiently healed. I suggest you use your fingers to pinch back shoots during the growing season to train the tree to have more small shoots. It may be too late to get that oversized branch in ratio to the rest of the tree, but if you just keep pinching it back during the growing season, you may still be able to keep it. The trick with bears is apparently to shoot a bunch of nails into a plywood so sharp ends are sticking out and put them around trees with ripe fruit. I doubt a bear will damage a tree without fruit again. Maybe it was a cub playing around. http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pdf/pnw/pnw543.pdf This might help if you're interested in learning some details about pruning cherries.

i have older care bear patters from close to the 80's. if you are interested, email me alcnaurewen@comcast.net

Hi everyone. I am looking for care bear & my little pony patterns for my little girls. If anyone could help me or if anyone has any they can send me that would be much appreciated. Please email me patterns if possible. Thanks in advance. spring_boone@hotmail.com