Never give up

Last year, most of the Webelos II Scouts from another pack crossed over into our Boy Scout troop. One boy didn't -- and that's okay. I wouldn't want to have a boy join a Boy Scout troop just because his parents are pressuring him to do it.

Sometimes, when you step away from an activity for a while, you realize just how much you miss it.

Fast forward one year. This particular boy is still friends with the other boys who were in his den, and he has started to miss the fun of Scouting. His friend invites him to check out a troop meeting, so he does... and he loves it. While the meeting might not have been the most fun a boy can have -- most of it was spent working on knots and lashings -- you could see how much he enjoyed being with his friends. He had no trouble joining the group, even with the boys he didn't know. He and his father took home an application, and they will join our troop this week.

As luck would have it, his old pack will be having a crossover ceremony tonight, and they will let him be a part of the ceremony, giving him a chance to do what he missed out on last year. It's a good opportunity to remind the boys that if they ever drop out of Scouting, they can always come back.

Good mourning, my little doves

This morning, we saw a mourning dove picking through the bird seed on the ground. I was surprised to see him all by himself, as I always see mourning doves in groups. He proceeded to pick through the food for about 20 minutes before flying away. However, he soon returned... with about a dozen friends. The ground was suddenly overrun with doves! I knew he wasn't all alone. ;-)

Meanwhile, we believe we have spotted at least one female finch to go with the two males that we have seen. We'll have to see if they move into one of the bird houses.

More birds

Having a well-stocked bird feeder while the ground is covered in snow is paying dividends by attracting more birds. During the week, Deana spotted a house finch. This morning, the kids and I were able to confirm it, spotting two males. They look a lot like sparrows, but the male finches have red throats and chests. We will have to keep on the lookout for the female finches which will be harder to distinguish from the sparrows.

The early bird gets the... snow

We have had a very dry winter this year. There has barely been any snow so far. So, at the beginning of February, some of the birds that ventured south for the winter made their way back north. Of course, that's when it started snowing.

I feel bad for these birds. It's too far for them to turn back and go south again, so they are stuck here. However, since we have a well-stocked bird feeder in our tree, we are attracting all sorts of birds. We have seen cardinals and blue jays for the first time in our yard, and we have a flock of robins hanging out as well. We even have one bird that we can't quite identify yet, but it looks like a baby turkey. Of course, we still have the house sparrows that stayed through winter.

If you have a birdfeeder in your yard, keeping it stocked in winter is even more important than keeping it stocked in summer. When it's warm out, the birds can find food just about anywhere. When the ground is covered with snow, your feeder might be the only place that they can find food.

From trash (literally!) to treasure

As I was driving in to work one morning, I saw that somebody had put several wooden tool handles in with their trash. I don't know what tools they came from, but the handles were dark, spattered with paint, and generally in rough shape. But while this person saw these as trash, I saw them as something different. They are about 5' in height and 1" in diameter. Also, tool handles are typically made of hard woods like oak or hickory. I pulled them from their trash pile and put them in my car.

My son and I used an orbital sander to quickly strip off the layers of paint, stain, and grime from their previous use. Once we did all that, we were left with a very nice piece of wood. We used a woodburning tool to put his name and Boy Scout troop at the top. We applied a stain with polyurethane to give it a nice color and shine. We then wrapped the handle area with a colored cord, starting with a clove hitch, doing a series of half hitches to create a spiral, then finishing with another clove hitch. At the bottom, we put a furniture bumper.

In the end, we had a beautiful hiking staff -- one that he will be proud to take with him on hikes and campouts. And to think that somebody was just going to throw it away.

Ceremonies

When I took over as Cubmaster several years ago, the outgoing Cubmaster gave me some scripts that had probably been passed down by several other Cubmasters before him. One was for our Arrow of Light ceremony, another was for the Webelos II Scouts crossing over into a Boy Scout troop. We have used these for the Blue and Gold banquets for as long as I've been involved with the pack.

While the crossover ceremony isn't bad, the Arrow of Light ceremony is a snoozefest. It is long, drones on, and none of it sounds like anything I would say. If I feel that way as I read it, I would hate to know what the audience thinks of it.

Here's the bottom line: there is no "official" ceremony for either the Arrow of Light or crossing over to Boy Scouts. You are free to do what you want, but you still want to make sure it is all about the boys and making them feel important and proud of what they have accomplished.

So, with that in mind, I whittled our Arrow of Light ceremony down from three pages to only one. It is short, sweet, and to the point. No more endless droning. It sounds more like a ceremony and less like a sermon.

In the end, I didn't make a lot of changes to the crossover ceremony. It has some elements that I really like, and it feels traditional to our pack.