Franklin County 4-H Fair

Last fall I started a 4-H group on our county. There really aren't a lot of them in our area and most of the ones that do exist are animal specific. The focus of our club is GPS/GIS and we are learning about that through geocaching.

However, on this particular day, there was a 4-H Fair at the local fairgrounds. This was a chance for the kids (and not just 4-H - this event is free and open to the public) to show off what they are learning as well as attend some workshops.

We started our day by watching one of the K-9 units from the Sheriff Department show us how his dog works and explained her training. It was pretty fascinating to watch.

The Deputy showed us how she can track, find drugs (some were planted on an adult attending for the dog to find), and find a bullet casing. Okay, that last one was a bust for us as it was a big field and a small casing and the deputy hadn't watched to see where he tossed it. I think we all learned something about how important these dogs can be to police work.

She just showed who had the drugs hiding in his pocket.

The deputy made it fun and interesting to stand and watch for 40 minutes. He was engaging and encouraged the kids to ask questions. While his dog loved to work, she also loved her ball and he said that was her big motivator. Work = play with ball time.

One of the workshops my boys attended was a build your bluebird house. The pieces were all pre-cut, but they were able to put it all together. They were taught a bit about bluebirds as well. They are pretty rare to see in Maine and houses like these will encourage them to stay in our area.

Another workshop they attended was called "Weather sticks: Money Grows on Trees." Basically they were taught how to create a weather stick and how it works. Weather sticks are pieces of fir trees that help tell what kind of weather is coming. These can sell for around $8-$12 each. Thus - money grows on trees!

Learning about weather sticks

Working to get all the bark off. 

After lunch our club put on a rather fun compass learning game. It wasn't until I began this 4-H club that I realized I don't really know how to read a compass! I'm still not proficient but I'm getting better. Thankfully my boys and other club members DO know how to read one!

The game we set up is a Boy Scout one I picked up somewhere along the line a few years ago. Using some grade stakes from my hubby's work, We created a circle around a center area. Each stake was placed at a different degree mark around the center and had a letter written on top. Then each player was given a card. The card had a letter written on it (the starting point) and five different compass degree markings. They had to use this to navigate around the circle. 

I had small sticky notes and pencils for each player. As they made their way around, they would write the letters on the sticky note. I had a master key so I could tell them if they had it correct or not. All players were given a lollipop at the end. 

It was unfortunate that this was not a well-attended fair. Most of the players were are own club members. However, they all had a blast! Those who had been unsure of how to read a compass before walked away with more confidence when we were all done.

Also unfortunate....I took no photos of the game being played! I am planning to do it again at some point with our club and perhaps as a type of workshop/demo for kids. Its amazing what they will do for a lollipop!

Snow Much Fun

Today there was the Spruce Mountain Sled-In in the next town over from where we live. My hubby is the coordinator of the event. Aside from the vintage snow machines that came to do radar runs, there was a HUGE sliding hill with three runs down it, sleigh rides pulled by more snow machines, a snow shoe race, and a snow sculpture contest. There were food vendors, raffles, and a huge bonfire as well. And it was sunny! We've had very few sunny days it seems this winter. 

My 4-H Club entered the snow sculpture contest. Last year was the first year for this event and no one entered the contest. There were cash prizes! This year I was happy when my 4-H club agreed to enter. We had no idea until today how many other people we would be competing against. For the first hour we worked, we thought we were the only ones! However, eventually three other groups showed up. Everyone worked hard on their sculptures and the above photo was our final entry.

We made the 4-H four leaf clover and a GPS unit since that is our focus this year. The name of our club is the 4-H Adventure Seekers. This year we are focusing on a GPS/GIS project. We'll see what the following years bring. 

Our snowy GPS unit

I was extremely impressed by all the work the kids did. We had about a foot of powdery snow on the ground. We had to create our own mounds of snow to make our sculpture. The kids hauled a ton of it and packed it down and created a 3-D model of the 4-H clover. I'm beyond bursting at all the help we had and all the work that was put in. I had hoped it would only take a couple hours, but it took almost three full hours to make the above. 

This photo just shows the shear size of our sculpture. I took this on full zoom on my phone from the top of the hill near the center of activities. The 4-wheeler on tracks was hauling kids back up to the top of the sliding hill. 

We did place second which means we finally have some much needed funds for our club. The kids worked hard - super hard - and I'm very proud of the club I'm involved with. 

Blasting

Our 4H group is currently working on our educational display for the summer fair season. Our broad topic was "Backyard Ballistics." We've since narrowed it down to one aspect of that. However, in the meantime we've had fun trying our various "ballistic" type experiments.

This past week after our regular meeting had concluded, we all headed outside to try out the very fun "Diet Coke/Mentos" experiment. We actually decided to test various types of soda as well as the regular mint flavored Mentos vs. the fruit flavored ones.

The clear winner was a generic Diet Cola and Mint Mentos (five to be exact)....

It blew about ten feet in the air. We are lucky enough to have one Dad who has the day off and comes to our meetings. He happily did this experiment for the kids to observe. Saved us from having soda soaked kiddos.

We tried a number of different sodas, but none blew as high as the first (and best).

We had orange....

Caffeine-free Diet Coke...

And even a hefty 3-liter of Ginger Ale...

All in all the kids had a fantastic time (and so did we!).

And just for fun...check out this video of another Coke/Mentos experiment... 

Gardening

The boys are in a local 4H group which I love. It allows all three boys to do the same thing at the same time which saves me from having to run them hither and yon to various "age-segregated" activities. This is our second year in 4H and the opportunities they continue to have are amazing.

One thing our group is doing is a Kids Can Grow program (our program is based on the one linked, but is not run the same way). This teaches kids about gardening using a square-garden/raised bed method. Our group of kids were broken in to four teams and they each planted a bed at our county extension office where we have our meetings. We have two Master Gardeners who live close by who have been helping us which is great since most of the adults in the group (myself included) don't have a lot of gardening experience. I should say I do have a lot of experience, but it was mostly the "weeding" and "harvesting" experience from the huge gardens we had when I was a kid. If I ever find a photo of them I'll post.

The kids were also able to plant home gardens and then used the techniques they learned at our meetings to create them. It's been a bit of a hit or miss for us. We were also able to get all the materials we needed including wood, soil, and seed to create all the gardens for all the kids. What a blessing!

Here is what the gardens looked like today - a bit overgrown and full of long grass. You can barely see the containers I have near the bed which hold squash and pumpkin plants.

And here it is mostly weeded with sawdust spread to kill the grass making it easier to maintain the garden. (Still need to figure out what we planted in all of J7's squares. I have a list somewhere!)

I had B14 haul over all the bags of sawdust from my inlaws next door. My FIL has a portable sawmill and we've been milling lumber for our addition. I used about six or seven bags here and will need another 4-5 to complete it. I may break down and buy some bales of shavings to finish it up. While I would have like to have thought ahead and put something down (like a tarp or plastic) I didn't, so I'm making do with what we have on hand. 

We certainly are having fun with the gardens and the boys do help as asked. Their favorite thing to do - of course - is water. Any excuse to use the hose!