Little Billy Cricket peered out of the nest to see if anyone was nearby. You had to be careful when leaving the nest because of all the danger lurking in the Green Expanse. When he had lived at home he would usually grab one of his younger brothers and throw him out just to make sure it was safe before venturing past the doorway. Of course, he wouldn’t do such a thing now since he was much more mature.
Now that it was getting to be summer, that Fenimore kid had been sighted more often in the area and everyone was on the lookout. It looked okay, so he decided to take a chance and scurry over to a nearby pile of twigs. Once there, he felt safe to move around since he could see better in all directions and would have ample warning of any danger.
The sun had been up over the trees for awhile….long enough to warm things up and dry the dew off the plants. Little Billy walked under the bush where Rafael Spider lived and looked up to see him hard at work on his web. He had the neatest web on the bush, and with good reason since he was a hard working spider. He was also quite organized with his store of aphids neatly piled up in one corner of his web. They were the appetizers…..the main courses were individually wrapped in another corner.
‘That web sure is more tidy than Latimers and my nest’ thought Billy. You could barely find anything in their mess and they had only been living there for a couple of weeks. He was embarrassed to have any friends over for a visit. Little Billy made a mental note to discuss it with Latimer when he got home.
Out of the corner of his eye, Little Billy saw a movement and he caught his breath. ’Oh, thank goodness! It’s only Franklin Centipede out for a walk.’ Relieved, Billy decided to follow Franklin for awhile and see where he was headed. After all, what else did he have to do today? Other than looking for food, he didn’t really have much to do although he was quite socially active.
It was very fascinating to watch Franklin walk with all his legs going in a continuous wave of motion. Now, that is true grace and such a thrill to see….Billy was impressed.
All of a sudden Franklin stubbed one of his feet on a small tuft of grass barely visible through the dirt. This set up a chain reaction of legs going totally out of sync with each other and Franklin almost veering off into a large stick, which would most certainly have scraped him badly. Embarrassed, Franklin quickly looked around to see if anyone had witnessed his clumsiness. He didn’t notice Billy, who had ducked behind a fern to spare Franklin his ego. ‘After all, we insects have a reputation of graceful movement derived from eons of evolution to live up to.’ thought a wise beyond his years Billy.
As Franklin regained his dignity and moved on down the trail, Little Billy started off on another tangent and on to new adventures. And as luck would have it, he shortly came across a strange and wondrous object looming up in front of him. Wide eyed, he studied it from top to bottom and from side to side. It had very smooth sides and appeared to be a large box made up of multicolored rectangles. It had a number of openings in it, with one large opening at the base of one side that Billy easily walked through.
‘It smells very good in here,’ thought Billy. ‘Like the wild strawberries I ran across one day.’ There were a number of spots that were very sticky and covered parts of the rectangles. Billy was soon licking the side of a green rectangle and was enjoying the good tasting treat. ‘Now this would be the perfect place to live. Nice and clean and if you get hungry you can just lick the walls!’
All at once the green rectangle, and in fact the whole structure, was suddenly lifted into the air leaving Little Billy in mid lick. “What the heck??” Billys’ eyes followed the object disappearing into the sky and as it grew smaller he could see the reason why it had decided to defy the laws of gravity. It was the Fenimore kid and Little Billy was on the verge of becoming his next victim.
Little Billy did two things simultaneously……..one he hadn’t done since he was a baby and not toilet trained….and the other was to do a quick one eighty and start racing towards the safety of home.
“Hey! There are those Legos I was missing.” Little Bobby examined the block building and noticed the sticky spots on the sides. “That must be from that jam sandwich I was eating the day I put this together. It’s a wonder the bugs didn’t find it.”
Monday, December 14, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
SLIDE!!!!!
Leroy Dung Beetle struggled to get over the large twig that lay in his path. The storm from the night before had left a lot of debris everywhere, but he could see that he was not the only one having difficulties. Conrad Beetle was also having a hard time negotiating the obstacles in his path. It didn’t help that he had a bum leg from the little episode that had happened just that morning…
It had started out to be a good day…the sun was shining and Conrad was feeling good. Only the day before he had run into an old girlfriend and they had reminisced about the old days. She was meeting him this fine morning for a quiet breakfast of aphids and to continue their conversation. Conrad was getting sweaty feelers and he felt a little twinge deep inside as he thought of the possibilities of a newly rekindled relationship.
“Ow!!” Conrad banged his knee on a rock that he hadn’t noticed while daydreaming about the past events. He stopped walking and rubbed his knee. Soon the pain subsided and he continued stumbling along, while once again thinking
Leroy waved to his cousin, but apparently Conrad was lost in thought, because he didn’t seem to notice his wave. “Oh well, I’ll probably run into him later.” When you are a bug and wander around aimlessly day after day, you usually run into someone you know on a regular basis. But Leroy wasn’t complaining because he figured it could always be worse. He had heard about some poor defenseless potato bugs being harassed down by the Gray Expanse. Seems like it was always something around here.
He continued up and over other twigs and bits of debris in search of his ultimate goal…..that of finding a chunk of dung to bug handle back to the nest. His family was proud of his ability to provide for them and he didn’t want to disappoint them. However, it was getting harder and harder to find good dung that was close to the nest. If he has to go much further afield, he may have to pack up the family and move away from all their friends. It will be hardest on the children, he sadly thought to himself.
If I would have been just a little quicker, I could have taken that guy, thought Conrad. He couldn’t help but keep running this mornings encounter over and over in his mind, thinking about what he could have said or done. How could he have known his old girlfriend had just broken up with a jealous maniac who had no qualms about putting anyone in the bug hospital that even looked at her cross eyed? Well….He couldn’t, which would explain how he had ended up on the ground with one of his legs bent up and over his back. He had gotten out of the guys grip only because the girlfriend had distracted the wild beetle long enough for him to make a break.
So now he had a bum leg, no breakfast, no prospects of a rekindled relationship, and he had to limp home over a wasteland in a bummed out mood. The day was not going well for Conrad Beetle.
As for Leroy, he had just come up against the biggest pile of dung he had ever seen in his life. It appeared to be shaped like a huge round disc and had never seen one quite like it. ‘This is going to be a job getting it back to the nest…..it’ll take a lot of trips to pack this baby out.’ he thought to himself. He climbed up onto the dung disc and started walking out to the middle so he could plan on how to cut it up. He didn’t get far before he heard a thumping noise coming up quick behind him.
He spun around and his jaw dropped as he saw a horrific sight coming towards him. It was a tremendous wall of white approaching at a high rate of speed. Before he could blink, it was upon him and driving him into the pile of dung. He could tell that he and his whole world was moving the same direction as the white wall, even though he was buried deep inside the pile. Slowly, the pile and Leroy came to a stop. It took a few minutes for him to regain his senses and to start digging up out of the pile.
“OH MAN!! LOOK AT MY SHOE!!!” Little Bobby could tell right away that his new pair of Red Ball Jets had just been broken in and broken in hard, and on his first slide of the game at that. “I was going to wear these to school tomorrow,” he said getting to his feet. “Dang it! I wish we had regular bases instead of these stupid cow pies.”
Finally reaching the top of the dung pile, Leroy got to his feet and looked around trying to get his bearings. “Hey!……this place looks kind of familiar!!” Down at the base of the dung pile he could see his wife and kids waving and running towards him. By some miracle he and the entire pile of dung had practically been delivered right to his very own doorstep. The family won’t have to move now. Little tears of joy were trickling down his cheeks as he climbed down to join his happy little family.
(The part of Conrad Beetle was played by Jose’ Cricket)
It had started out to be a good day…the sun was shining and Conrad was feeling good. Only the day before he had run into an old girlfriend and they had reminisced about the old days. She was meeting him this fine morning for a quiet breakfast of aphids and to continue their conversation. Conrad was getting sweaty feelers and he felt a little twinge deep inside as he thought of the possibilities of a newly rekindled relationship.
“Ow!!” Conrad banged his knee on a rock that he hadn’t noticed while daydreaming about the past events. He stopped walking and rubbed his knee. Soon the pain subsided and he continued stumbling along, while once again thinking
Leroy waved to his cousin, but apparently Conrad was lost in thought, because he didn’t seem to notice his wave. “Oh well, I’ll probably run into him later.” When you are a bug and wander around aimlessly day after day, you usually run into someone you know on a regular basis. But Leroy wasn’t complaining because he figured it could always be worse. He had heard about some poor defenseless potato bugs being harassed down by the Gray Expanse. Seems like it was always something around here.
He continued up and over other twigs and bits of debris in search of his ultimate goal…..that of finding a chunk of dung to bug handle back to the nest. His family was proud of his ability to provide for them and he didn’t want to disappoint them. However, it was getting harder and harder to find good dung that was close to the nest. If he has to go much further afield, he may have to pack up the family and move away from all their friends. It will be hardest on the children, he sadly thought to himself.
If I would have been just a little quicker, I could have taken that guy, thought Conrad. He couldn’t help but keep running this mornings encounter over and over in his mind, thinking about what he could have said or done. How could he have known his old girlfriend had just broken up with a jealous maniac who had no qualms about putting anyone in the bug hospital that even looked at her cross eyed? Well….He couldn’t, which would explain how he had ended up on the ground with one of his legs bent up and over his back. He had gotten out of the guys grip only because the girlfriend had distracted the wild beetle long enough for him to make a break.
So now he had a bum leg, no breakfast, no prospects of a rekindled relationship, and he had to limp home over a wasteland in a bummed out mood. The day was not going well for Conrad Beetle.
As for Leroy, he had just come up against the biggest pile of dung he had ever seen in his life. It appeared to be shaped like a huge round disc and had never seen one quite like it. ‘This is going to be a job getting it back to the nest…..it’ll take a lot of trips to pack this baby out.’ he thought to himself. He climbed up onto the dung disc and started walking out to the middle so he could plan on how to cut it up. He didn’t get far before he heard a thumping noise coming up quick behind him.
He spun around and his jaw dropped as he saw a horrific sight coming towards him. It was a tremendous wall of white approaching at a high rate of speed. Before he could blink, it was upon him and driving him into the pile of dung. He could tell that he and his whole world was moving the same direction as the white wall, even though he was buried deep inside the pile. Slowly, the pile and Leroy came to a stop. It took a few minutes for him to regain his senses and to start digging up out of the pile.
“OH MAN!! LOOK AT MY SHOE!!!” Little Bobby could tell right away that his new pair of Red Ball Jets had just been broken in and broken in hard, and on his first slide of the game at that. “I was going to wear these to school tomorrow,” he said getting to his feet. “Dang it! I wish we had regular bases instead of these stupid cow pies.”
Finally reaching the top of the dung pile, Leroy got to his feet and looked around trying to get his bearings. “Hey!……this place looks kind of familiar!!” Down at the base of the dung pile he could see his wife and kids waving and running towards him. By some miracle he and the entire pile of dung had practically been delivered right to his very own doorstep. The family won’t have to move now. Little tears of joy were trickling down his cheeks as he climbed down to join his happy little family.
(The part of Conrad Beetle was played by Jose’ Cricket)
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
It was a cloudy night and the air was very still. Latimer Beetle could feel trouble in the air. ‘I don’t like nights like this,’ he thought to himself. ‘You never know what may happen.’ Latimer was riding herd over about two hundred head of lady bugs. Hiram Potato Bug had hired him to take the lady bugs down to the lower pasture. He had a contract with Tobias Caterpillar to supply him with lady bugs to pull his freight wagons.
Tobias had a good business supplying the other bugs with dried aphids for their winter stores. You can’t hibernate all winter without a good stockpile of dried aphids on hand. It took a team of eight lady bugs to pull the heavy wagons across the green expanse to fill the orders. Tobias made a good living doing this and also helped out a lot of his family members by giving them a job.
The herd was on edge and reacted as one to any unexpected noise. So, it was no wonder that when the lightning lit up the sky and the loud clap of thunder followed, the herd was immediately on the run. Latimer first heard the thunder from above and then the thunder of all the feet of two hundred bugs coming directly towards him.
In the ensuing chaos Latimer lost all control of his bodily functions as he scrambled out of the way of the stampede. All his ramrod experience went out the window and he could only watch as the entire herd, that was under his care, quickly disappeared into the darkness. ‘Oh, great.’ thought Latimer, ‘This is all I need. I’m in trouble now!’
He started running after the herd. He had no problem tracking them because everything in their path had been trampled down. After awhile he tired and slowed to a walk. He could see it would be impossible for him to catch up to the herd, so he decided to just stay put for the night and rest. He would certainly hear it from Hiram in the morning when he had to explain what happened.
He hadn’t been there for more than five minutes when he again heard thunder. ‘That’s funny,’ he thought. ‘ I didn’t see any lightning.’ He soon saw the reason for that! The herd had circled around and was heading straight back towards him. “YIKES!!!” He exclaimed to no one in particular. Latimer apparently had forgotten how tired he was because he started racing back up the trail with two hundred ladybugs hot on his heels.
It got to the point that he could run no further and he slowed. Thankfully, the herd did the same and came to a standstill just before reaching Latimer. He panted as he looked over the milling animals. ‘Well, I think I handled that pretty good’ he thought to himself.
Tobias had a good business supplying the other bugs with dried aphids for their winter stores. You can’t hibernate all winter without a good stockpile of dried aphids on hand. It took a team of eight lady bugs to pull the heavy wagons across the green expanse to fill the orders. Tobias made a good living doing this and also helped out a lot of his family members by giving them a job.
The herd was on edge and reacted as one to any unexpected noise. So, it was no wonder that when the lightning lit up the sky and the loud clap of thunder followed, the herd was immediately on the run. Latimer first heard the thunder from above and then the thunder of all the feet of two hundred bugs coming directly towards him.
In the ensuing chaos Latimer lost all control of his bodily functions as he scrambled out of the way of the stampede. All his ramrod experience went out the window and he could only watch as the entire herd, that was under his care, quickly disappeared into the darkness. ‘Oh, great.’ thought Latimer, ‘This is all I need. I’m in trouble now!’
He started running after the herd. He had no problem tracking them because everything in their path had been trampled down. After awhile he tired and slowed to a walk. He could see it would be impossible for him to catch up to the herd, so he decided to just stay put for the night and rest. He would certainly hear it from Hiram in the morning when he had to explain what happened.
He hadn’t been there for more than five minutes when he again heard thunder. ‘That’s funny,’ he thought. ‘ I didn’t see any lightning.’ He soon saw the reason for that! The herd had circled around and was heading straight back towards him. “YIKES!!!” He exclaimed to no one in particular. Latimer apparently had forgotten how tired he was because he started racing back up the trail with two hundred ladybugs hot on his heels.
It got to the point that he could run no further and he slowed. Thankfully, the herd did the same and came to a standstill just before reaching Latimer. He panted as he looked over the milling animals. ‘Well, I think I handled that pretty good’ he thought to himself.
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