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Baloo's Bugle

April 2006 Cub Scout Roundtable Issue

Volume 13, Issue 9
May 2007 Theme

Theme: Cubs and Bugs
Webelos: Outdoorsman & Artist
Tiger Cub
Activities

THOUGHTFUL ITEMS FOR SCOUTERS

Thanks to Scouter Jim from Bountiful, Utah, who prepares this section of Baloo for us each month.  You can reach him at bobwhitejonz@juno.com or through the link to write Baloo on www.usscouts.org.   CD

Roundtable Prayer
CS Roundtable Planning Guide

Let us take a moment to reflect on all life, knowing that a Cub Scouts, we will do our best to take care of all of earth’s great resources.  Amen

Let the Bee, Be
Scouter Jim, Bountiful UT

If you want to live and thrive, let the spider run alive.  American Quaker Saying

Spiders are among a large number of “bugs” we could not live without.  They are predators that seek out those insects that would make themselves a pest. 

Any farmer can tell you about the importance of pollinators.  Without them there would be no apples, pears, cherries, citrus fruits, nuts, berries, melons, squash or many other common foods.  Pollinating insects are estimated to be worth a least eight billion dollars a year to our economy. 

But other insects also play an important role in our environment.  Natural predators like lady bugs or lady bird beetles, praying mantis,  lacewings, parasitic wasps and tachinid flies and others, when properly maintained, reduce the need for expensive pesticides that poison our environment.  Wolves were introduced to Yellowstone Park to restore the natural balance of predator and prey to the park  Beneficial insects in our communities will do the same in our yards. 

When we attack our communities with large amounts of pesticides, we not only kill those target insects, but we kill our allies who would help us.  This is a good month to teach our Cub Scouts that not all bugs are bad, and that when we work as a team with our beneficial insect allies, we all have a better environment.  So let the bee, be!

Quotations

Quotations contain the wisdom of the ages, and are a great source of inspiration for Cubmaster’s minutes, material for an advancement ceremony or an insightful addition to a Pack Meeting program cover.

Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar.  Bradley Millar

Hurt no living thing:
Ladybird, nor butterfly,
Nor moth with dusty wing,  Christina Georgina Rossetti

We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics.  Bill Vaughan

Some primal termite knocked on wood;
and tasted it, and found it good.
That is why your Cousin May
fell through the parlor floor today.  Ogden Nash

For CD - The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey.  Andy Warhol

What do you suppose?
A bee sat on my nose.
Then what do you think?
He gave me a wink
And said, "I beg your pardon,
I thought you were the garden."   English Rhyme

The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee, a clover, anytime, to him, is aristocracy.  Emily Dickinson

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragonfly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Silent Noon

We are closer to the ants than to butterflies.  Very few people can endure much leisure.  Gerald Brenan

And what's a butterfly?  At best,
He's but a caterpillar, dressed.  John Grey

Aerodynamically the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it, so it goes on flying anyway.  Mary Kay Ash

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. Richard Bach


You hail from Dream-land, Dragon-fly?
A stranger hither? So am I,
And (sooth to say) I wonder why
We either of us came!
Agnes M.F.R. Darmesteter "To a Dragon-fly"

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. Buckminster Fuller

Spin and die,
To live again as butterfly.
Christina Georgina Rossetti "The Caterpillar"

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
Isaac Watts "Divine Songs"

I'VE watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!--not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
William Wordsworth "To a Butterfly"

The Butterfly....
Baloo’s Archive

One day a man found a cocoon of a butterfly.  When a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the tiny hole.  Then it seemed to stop making any progress.  It had gotten as far as it could and could go no farther.

So the man decided to help the butterfly.  He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.  The butterfly now emerged easily.  But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.  The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand, to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened!  In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was, that the restricting cocoon, and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what our Scouts and we need in life.  If people were allowed to go through our life without any obstacles, they would be crippled.

And they would never be able to fly....

As you learn and re-learn to fly each day, keep in mind that struggles are not always bad; they define us and make us stronger!


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