Upton 4-H at Fireworks Festival!

Saturday, June 27, 2009

The sun was finally shining, and we had a great day!

"Hooray for 4-H!"

Members offered Face Painting and a craft activity, along with info about the club.



Many people stopped by to play with the rabbits!

THANKS to Gina & Gabby and Ann & Isabella + Gabriella for planning/organizing our club's participation at this annual community event!

Trophy Winners!

Several of our club members attended a show sponsored by the Central MA Rabbit Breeders Network and the Happy Hoppers 4-H Rabbit Club, held at the Spencer Fairgrounds on Sunday, May 31st.

Ally won 2 trophies for her cavies and Maline won a trophy for her lionhead bunny! Congratulations, girls!

4-H Club members meet author

Terry Golson, author of Tillie Lays an Egg and The Homestead Egg Cookbook, visited Upton last week to read her children's book about her backyard chickens. After the storytime, she stayed to meet with some of our club members and showed them how she used Clicker Training to get her hens to pose for pictures in her book!

Check out Terry's HenCam here: http://www.hencam.com/index.php

MA 4-H Statewide Rabbit&Cavy Quiz Bowl & ID Contest 2009

Once again, CONGRATULATIONS are in order for the Upton 4-H Club! Our Junior Team took FIRST PLACE in this year's Quiz Bowl competition! The Senior Team (which was comprised almost entirely of Junior Members!) took 3rd in their division, and everyone did great in the ID Contest.

Our Junior Quiz Bowl Team displaying their CHAMPION ribbons! l to r: Gabby, Gabriella, Tori, Maia

Our Junior Team with their 3rd place ID Contest ribbons.


During the Senior Quiz Bowl competition

Round #1 of the Junior Quiz Bowl competition

Junior Team ... getting ready!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to all Upton 4-H Club members who completed Records last year and received recognition, ribbons, medals, trophies at the Worcester County 4-H Awards Banquet last night!!

The big surprise for our Club was: We won the Boyd Award! This was in recognition of the Club, as a whole, for participating and volunteering at the 2008 Worcester County 4-H Fair! We received the award last night, with "The Upton 4-H Club" engraved on it, adding to the list of all the clubs that have won it over the years. We will bring it to our next club meeting for everyone to see!

Our Club also received a Certificate of Recognition for Reaching Out to Military Families in MA, which was presented by Gretchen May:

I have made copies of this certificate for all members who participated in the OMK Yellow Ribbon Event held in Worcester on February 28th.

The Banquet was held at the Spencer Country Inn. (Here are some pictures, but they didn't come out very good because of the lighting!)

Easter Egg Hunt

9 Members of the Cuddly Critters Rabbit & Cavy Club represented Upton 4-H Club at this year's annual Easter Egg Hunt, sponsored by the Upton Men's Club and Upton Police Dept. held at the Upton Community Playground Parking lot and VFW Fields. The weather was beautiful and many families enjoyed visiting with our animals while waiting for the egg hunt to begin. Ally attended w/Chris & Dave and their 5 rabbits; Tori & I brought her velveteen lop ("Ace") and my American Chinchilla ("Merlin"). Taylor was in charge of Merlin for the day and handled him very well! Bella & Beth brought Rainbow and 2 Flemish Giants; Gabriella & Ann brought mini-rex "Licorice" and LionHead "Fuzzy Bear". Chris, Maia and Trish brought 'Charlotte' (an English Spot) and 'Emma' (a LionHead). Gabby & Gina were there with 'Mr.BunBun', Gabby's mini-rex, and Kate & Lucy brought their 7 brand-new baby Rhode Island Red chicks!!
Here are a few pics from this morning's festivities. Thank you to all who participated!

Maple Sugaring ... part 2

After attending the Maple Sugaring Tour on Sunday, some of us went home and tapped trees. Kate just sent me these photos today ... they have already made syrup from all the sap they have collected just since Sunday afternoon!! Way to go Lucy!! The sap from Tori's tree is quickly filling our fridge and we need to figure out how to boil it down, outside, SOON!