Weeks 3-4 at Meade County

Things have started to pick up here in Meade County! I started off my third week with the Rough River District Swine Show in Breckinridge County, where I got to work with the intern, Nicole, and the new 4-H agent, Alex.  It was my first time helping out with a swine show, but I have run other livestock shows in the past, which was fortunate seeing as neither Nicole nor Alex have ran any type of livestock show before.  The day was really long, with 266 hogs in the show, but after the first couple classes the show ran as smooth as you could want it to.

We also finally installed our Ham House! The Country Ham project has taken off in Meade County in the past couple years, but we unfortunately did not have a Ham House in the county.  Having to take hams to a neighboring county was very expensive, so we finally got one of our very own! It is not ready to use yet, but it is in place which is very exciting for our 4-H program.

The Wednesday after was our foods workshop.  About ten kids were there, and we all had a blast making pizza muffins and healthy banana splits.  All of our food was delicious, and the kids now have a super easy recipe that they can make by themselves.

The following Monday was our woodworking workshop here in the county, and we had around 17 kids show up to make footstools, birdhouses, and other fun crafts. Most of them are planning to paint their projects and enter them into our county fair later this summer.

Seeing as State Teen Conference is next week, we had our final orientation for our delegates on Tuesday.  Three of our five delegates are going for the first time, and they are all really excited! I know I am! As a 4-H’er, I participated in many of the conferences and State Conference was always one of my favorites. I’m really looking forward to going as an intern and helping put on a Track with my supervising agent.

Speaking of our track, we will be teaching a course on drunk driving.  Along with having an officer come in and speak with the delegates, we will have some fun games and trivia.  One of our activities includes a “video game” like simulation of driving drunk, where the delegates will be attempting to steer a car through a town while sober, and then again drunk, to represent how alcohol affects you.

Also on Tuesday, I interviewed all of our girl camp leaders before we make a final decision on who gets to go to camp.  With camp numbers down, we may only need two camp leaders for our girls, rather than the usual four we take every summer. Knowing each girl personally, and with them all being well qualified and experienced, makes choosing really hard. But, working in extension isn’t always easy and you often have to make tough choices, especially working with 4-H.

Wednesday we had an arts and crafts workshop, where we worked on paper crafts, specifically for Father’s Day.  First we used tissue paper and Modge Podge to decoupage canvases.  All of the art work turned out beautiful, we sure do have some really creative kids here in Meade County!  After they finished their decoupage, we moved on to making Father’s Day cards by embossing. It was really tricky trying to help all of the kids at the same time, we had limited supply of embossing powder, so both me and Callie were in charge of powdering their stamps while the ink was still wet, as well as heating it up to melt it to the card. I had never embossed anything before, so it was a really crafty learning experience for me.

I’m so excited about these next few weeks! With Teen Conference next week, and camp a few weeks later, I’m really starting to understand all the work it takes to be an agent.