This Week in 4H

We have been very busy this week, especially with our 4H events...so it has been hard to stay up long enough to post about our events.  I thought I would take the time now to update our activities.

Tuesday was our regular 4H project meetings.  We had a brief discussion about our mock contest from the week before.  The meeting was cut short because we were rained out about half way through the meeting.  We did have a new 4Her come to the meeting and we look forward to learning with Anna in the next few weeks.

It was a good review overall and I was able to give the group some last minute things to go over at home before the contest the next day.  The main focus was on techniques and gaming laws.

We then had our Robotics meeting.  I was not able to stay due to another event, however, the boys enjoyed adding a claw to their arm construction.  I hope to see these next week, especially since I did not leave the camera with the boys to take pictures!

Wednesday was the big day for our district Wildlife contest.  We arrived with plenty of time to study any last minute questions.  Our boys choice to listen as I read from the Hunter's Guide.  I guess this must have been a good choice because they would later find out these were the questions asked on the contest!

The contest was different from a year ago...we had no compass and pacing course.  It seemed strange to see the four groups divided and sent out to an area within view.  Normally, we would see them walking out into the woods for the contest.

The contest still took over two hours to complete.  While the 4Hers were having a BBQ sandwich lunch, Wanda and I made it around the contest.  It was great to see that we could answer most of the technique questions and the plant samples were all identifiable.  There was one tree that I had to ask about (black gum) and another that had leaves so high up from the ground they were hard to identify.  All in all it seemed like a straight forward contest.

With a short delay after lunch, we were given the results.  We do not have competition at this level so we were guaranteed the two slots to go on to the regional contest.  However, it was good to know we had divided the teams properly so the same groups will work together in a couple of weeks.  The big surprise was the high point individual...Sean was given this award!  So proud of him for that last push to practice before contest!  Also, for the first time...the scores for our groups were comparable to FFA members.  This has not happened in a while, so I guess we are finally studying the right material!  That is always good to know as a project leader.

We look forward to the next contest with hopes of going on to the State level in the spring.

Today we also joined with Ms. Christi and Jaron to serve the Veterans sandwiches, coffee and donuts.  This is always so rewarding.  I can never stop helping these Veterans...they are so humble.  They really are happy to see the young 4Hers join in to help.

And while the other activity we enjoyed this week is not technically a 4H activity, you might be interested in our wild bee harvest from the last week.  Check out my other blog (go to the end of the blog to get to that part of the story) as we had two bee harvests this week!  Today we had the second of the two hives set up in the corner of our garden.