Sooner or Later…

Went to 4H ORama practice in a neighboring town last night. It was cold and windy, at least for my southern soul. Several of the competitions have had changes so even my older kid needed to learn what the changes were. We only practiced outdoors events and were frozen at the end. This is Zach’s first practice as an official cloverbud and he was determined to do everything.

Frozen baby. She wouldn’t stay tucked in the blankets.

Bike competition has had a major redo. Now the is a written test, name the parts of a bike, and the riding has several more components. This is Robert’s event (he went to state and placed 4th) but he will have have to practice.

Lyn on Zach’s bike. We didn’t have room for all of the bikes. Robert on the new strip - try riding 100 ft on 4 inch wide line without either tire getting off - not as easy as he thought. On the new bots dots section. Ride between without riding on one and while being timed.

BB shooting: has a written gun safety test and shooting. The kids shoot from standing, sitting on the ground, kneeling, prone (laying down) and choice. The ideal is a bull’s eye cluster but a cluster is better than a single loan bull’s eye. The idea being that the kid can aim & shoot in the same spot. Zach is showing off his first hit.

Thomas aims, Lyn gets instructions, same for Zach, his first hit:

Bait casting has been tweaked. There is a target on the ground (like a shooting target) that the kids aim for. Positions are standing, sitting on something 24 inches high to simulate sitting in a boat, sitting on the ground, and choice. (I think I need to check) They use a plug but it was left in the box with the old bike stuff so last night was a washer. They also have a written test to ID fish.

We didn’t do the inside practice for crop judging & seed ID, sports fishing (has knot tying and habitat as part of the written test but no casting), or leaf identification.

Over the years I learned a lot esp. from the crop judging and seed ID. (This was Robert’s main competition for a long time and I was dragged along.) Strange to say, I never knew that good hay should be green in color NOT yellow. Or that there is a big difference between straw and hay. Or that sometimes broken seeds are better than some weed seeds. The younger kids are now interested - at least this time I have a clue. And I can now judge soybeans, cotton, rice and hay. 

We froze, learned a lot and now to practice, practice, practice.