Love Bugs

February is not exactly the Sunniest month or the Buggiest month in NY but February is definitely the "Love" month so with love in mind and bugs the theme we set up to make Love Bugs in with our 4-H Club.  Oh and candy right you can't have Valentine's Day with out chocolates.

Stained Glass Bug sun catcher made by the Oldest Daughter at the Feb. 4-H meeting.  Beautiful!

Our Love Bugs came in the form of some pretty amazing stained glass sun catchers.  Each member had a turn at learning the art of copper foil soldering stain glass just as Mr. Tiffany did many years ago.  Well, I'm sure our version was a lot simpler then his as he cut all his foil pieces by hand from large sheets of copper and we had modern age copper tape to use but you get the idea. 

The kids just did amazing!  None of them had ever soldered before and you know the thought of touching broken glass pieces and smoking hot soldering irons has to be a bit intimidating to the younger members but the results speak for themselves.

These may not be "Tiffany Glass" masterpieces but even better!  I'm am in awe of these wonderful kids and their master pieces are just as impressive when you consider our youngest member is only 6yrs old and did it all on her own!  I absolutely could not be prouder of these kids.  Love the determination and trust they put into my hair brained projects.

Oh and don't forget the chocolates!  We only had 4 soldering irons and 14 members so we had a side project of making Valentines candies, in bug shapes of course.  A sweet reward for all their hard work

February 2018

So I am patting myself on the back as I managed to post a lot since January.  Well, a lot compared to not posting for a year and a half so I guess you could consider it intense posting. haha 
February usually mean we are smack in the middle of Maple Season which is one of my favorite parts of this time of year.  It smell and tastes so delicious out in the sap house it can almost make you forget about all the mud you are sinking in while collecting sap. 

February is also "Love" month.  So our 4-H club had a Love Bug meeting.  Members made Stained Glass Bugs and Chocolate bug shaped candies.

This month is also prime ticket sales time for our 4-H club's Basket Party so its a bit of a crazy time of year for us.  Which basically leads us right into March as it ends with helping the local American Legion with their annual Corned Beef dinner just days shy of  St. Patrick's Day.
Since we have a large Iris presence on both the Hubby and My sides of the family I try to do a little extra for St. Patty's Day.  One thing is I really like to do is decorate for it.  I usually just stick to indoor decorations as the weather stinks this time of year for putting anything outside.  Its usually cold or wet and definitely muddy but I really wanted a wreath on the door this year so with my typical last minute decision, limited supplies and no wreath frame I whipped up a quick pool noodle wreath using a noodle we had from last summer.  Although skeptical at the frame at first so far its holding shape well and I'm really quite happy with how it turned out.

It really has seemed like we have just run non stop this month and its not over yet.  It is also time for the Schools Drama production, which both of the girls are in so we have been making regular trips town for practice.  We have added to the non stop traveling back and forth this month by making extra trips around town trying to visit all of our local attractions.  Not exactly the best season for sight seeing but we have Traveling Tracy visiting us from Texas and we want to show her a good time.  We are showing her around all the fun places like the Covered Bridge, the Pepacton Reservoir and showing her how to make Maple Syrup and feed chickens. Hope she is enjoying her visit as we have to send her back next week.  Don't worry I'll be sure to share all her fun with everyone after she leaves.

Hopefully I will be able to keep up the great posting streak for everyone as I have tons I still want to share with everyone but for now I have to go collect sap to make more Maple Syrup.

St. Patrick's Day Wreath

No wreath for St Patrick's day?  No problem, you can make this one up Easy Peasy with just a few simple items.  And if you are a craft hoarder like me you probably have them on hand already.  Of course if your a craft hoarder like me finding your supplies was just part of the fun of all craft projects.

This simple wreath was made using a pool noodle, some felt, and ribbon and a little tape and glue.
Connect the ends of your pool noodle using some duct tape (I used gorilla glue tape) to form a circle and presto you have a wreath frame.  Next wrap strips of felt around your new wreath frame.  I used felt from previous projects so its a bit darker then I would have probably chosen if I was purchasing some but since it's for St. Patrick's Day the greens worked well and made the ribbon (yes I already had this stashed in the St. Pat. decorations) pop out nicely.
I have to admit I was a bit unsure of the pool noodle being able to hold weight as a wreath frame so I did try to keep the decorations to a minimum on the wreath.  So far its holding up well for the little I did put on it so I'm sure it would be able to hold more if I wanted to add them. 
My decorations are just little pieces of scrap felt and let the kids cut me out some shamrock shapes.  I loved how they turned out and add special touches to the wreath.
Seems like we always have pool noodles around so I definitely think it was a great quick hack for a wreath frame.   I will be giving this method a try for other wreaths  Maybe I'll do a Pool themed wreath for Summer?  I mean it is a pool noodle after all.

Bird Watching Raffle Basket

So as you know I am the leader of the Team Clover 4-H Club.  Each year so far we have had a Local Basket Part  to help cover the cost of our community service project.  We raffle off baskets that are not just you typical raffle baskets but rather large overflowing baskets and some things are not even baskets at all.  For example we have a chainsaw carving of a bear,  A Bluestone garden bench and more.  Each basket has a theme and each basket has to be "big" by my standards to make it into our basket party.  Why?  Well if you are looking to have a big return give away big, so we do.

One of those "Big" baskets that has been part of the last few years is the Bird Watching Basket.  Why bird watching?  Simple our first 4-H year was themed around birds so we chose that as a basket the first year and it did wonderfully for us and again last year.  So yes we will do it again this year.  Guess we are going with the if something isn't broke don't fix it motto.

Being in the country we have lots of access to bird watching by simply looking out our windows.  And although most of the time you do not need fancy feeders to see birds here, myself and I'm sure like most bird watchers we still have them.  So the basket party gives them a chance to get some of those nice supplies for almost no cost and helps out their community as well. 
What would you put in a bird watching basket?  There really are lots of choices from seed to binoculars.   Our bird basket has lots of donated items and each year the Hubby and I put our brains together to design and make a large feeder to host as the "basket" to store all those wonderful items.  Last year it was a log pedestal feeder, the year before that was the large hanging feeder and this year we have the Metal Framed Garden Shelf Feeder. 
Each year we also like to add some one of a kind items to our basket like our DIY Hummingbird Feeders.  These are feeders that we made in the club the first year but had such an amazing response to them we make one to add to the "basket" each year.  This year we went with the "beach" theme in our design.  We also add lots of bird feed from suet cakes to seeds and even supply some smaller feeders too.  We also have some pretty amazing houses for the birdies too.  The gourd house is my favorite of all the types of houses we have done for the baskets by far.   We were donated gourds last year to the club that we made into bird houses.  This was an extra gourd and since we all liked them so much I decided to make one up for this basket.  Just another one of a kind touch that gives our baskets such a great response.
Are you planning a Basket Party (raffle)?  Then the Bird Watching Basket might be a basket to consider.  You don't have to be handy and make your items as we did but if you are in an area where bird watching is available this basket could turn out to be one of your best ticket sellers.

Maple Season

Yummy!  I can taste it already or I can't wait to taste it, either way its just so delicious.  And after 3 years of making it in the "new" sap house you can definitely smell it in there.  The sap house is not heated and one of its walls is literally still plastic but for some reason you can go in there and it just smells so sweet and delicious and makes me want french toast with Maple Syrup on it....... 

The "New" sap house

.....It is also the smell that tipped me over the edge as to whether or not to make syrup this year.   With the kids getting older and us needing to be places all the time things have gotten busy for the Bull family.  I now work a few days a week and the Hubby never stops working so squeezing in Maple Season was a question of do we want to do it or not?  Well, of course we want to do it so I guess it more of a can we squeeze it in or not?   I was on the verge of saying we are not doing it this year and making up all the excuses to talk myself out of doing it.  Like we don't need to do it this year we have enough left from last year to get us though till next year.  Or we can take a break from it and do it next year and all other rationalizations to justify not doing it.  Then about a week before Mother Nature said it Maple Season I walked into the Sap House, I don't even know why just because it was that time of year I guess.  That delicious smell was there even after a year it was still there.  That was it at that point when I knew we would at least have to make a little this year.  So the Hubby and I talked it over and of course at that point I was all for making some  you know because of all the rationalizations like its so healthy for us, and if we don't make it we might not have enough to supply the person who sells it for us and even more importantly like the kids would miss out on licking the last little bits off the spoon when we empty out the sap pans.  Oh yeah and we would not be able to sample the sap straight out of the tree or have Sap Cicles (frozen sap) and Maple Peanuts if we have extra syrup left we can make them and they are so delicious.   All of which will be great memories for my kids to look back on <3

I'm not even going to lie I sampled the sap the first day we tapped and soon as I snapped that photo I ate the deliciously, yummy sap icicle pictured above and it was just as good as I knew it would be.
So needless to say here we go making Maple Syrup again.  I'm so glad I walked in there that day.  Now I cant wait till we are cooking it again and we can walk into the sap house to the smell of sap steaming away.
So here we are a few days into this years Maple Season and we are right back with all our taps in the trees (more then we need lol) the sap lines are run and dripping.  The firewood is getting split and piled up.  Sometime later today I will go out and make our first Sap Collection of the year and all that work will be worth it.  We might not have time for Maple Season but its the one thing we all love this time of year so we are going to do it anyway. 

Local Basket Party

Its time to work on our Community Service Project so that means in order to afford our CSP it is is also fund raising time for our 4-H club.  Each year so far the fund raiser for our club has been a Local Basket Party.  The proceeds raised then cover any cost we will need for our project.  Photos of last year's CSP are below.  The club made and installed fencing around the Honor Pavers at the American Legion.  As you can see in the photos the pavers were exposed on the ground and even though they were laid out in a decorative fashion and had names on them most people walked on them as though they were a sidewalk.  Proceeds from last years fund raiser also covered the cost of a sign to let onlookers know not to step on them.  These few items have made for great decorative items around the pavers but not only that I have had countless people tell me they did not realize they were not meant to be a sidewalk.
*NOTE members pictured below were not walking on pavers but rather around them.  We forgot to get a before image so this was the closest we had.

Any way on to the LOCAL BASKET PARTY.  These really are a great fund raiser for not only the club but the community and they are fun too.  I know  you are wondering what is the difference in a Local Basket Party and Raffle baskets?  Well its sort of like having baskets to raffle off but a whole lot more awesome for our community.  Since we are working on our "community" service project we do our best to support our community as much as possible through the whole process.  First we collect items from local businesses to fill our baskets with local items through donations and member purchases. 

Members selling tickets at the Downsville Diner~ who also donated items to the cause.

We go to local businesses once the baskets are completed to sell tickets (advertising for them in the process).  We try to only sell tickets to our local community which allows them to take advantage of the great items our area has to offer them.  And if all that is not great enough community support, the day of the Local Basket Party (ticket drawing day) we hold the basket party at the local American Legion's dinner/fundraiser where we help them set up, server and clean up.  Which in turn also brings in additional customers for them.

Some of the members who helped server and sell tickets at the Legions benefit dinner.

Oh and don't forget that all this great community support takes place before we even do our Community Service Project.  This year we will be purchasing and making picnic tables and benches for Downsville's Covered Bridge Park.  The seating there has seen better days and most of the tables are not even safe to set at.
Lets just say these kids should be quite proud of all they do for their community before they even do their community service for the year.  I know as their leader I could not be prouder of them.