East Sounding Creek 4H News May 7
By Coleman Norris
Breaking! Breaking!
Sorry for my absence of articles this winter and to my loyal followers. Even you, Carol out in Linden Alberta. This winter is one to remember. I know you haven’t heard from me since November, but it’s not from a lack of activities from the 4H club.
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The month of December was a harsh one. There were many days that we couldn’t get out of the yard, so you guessed it - we had a lot of snow days. Do you know what a 4H kid does on a snow day? Well it’s not playing video games all day. We walk to the barn when it’s -40 to make sure the animals are fed and have water to drink so a lot of chopping water and this year a lot of shovelling snow so the animals could get to their feed.
Christmas holidays were full of fun from our club going on a sleigh ride and caroling around town to halter breaking steers. Tugging, pulling just to try to get these big donkeys moving. A Lot of hollering “don’t let go” by all of our Dads as we get pummelled into the snow bank but eventually they calmed down and realized we’re just there to love and care for them. All this halter breaking is done early because a large majority of our club took part in taking their steer and heifer projects into the Oyen Crossroads Center to compete in the Beef Expo which was held on Feb 19.
January was full of joy for we were at the task of writing our 4H speeches. Our club joined together with knees a knockin and hands a shaken on January 30 for our annual public speakoffs. Two from each group moved on to Districts and then from there 3 extraordinary members Olivia Mundt Sr, Dylan Woods Int, Camrie Norris Jr, moved on to represent at Regionals on March 26, I’m telling you to make it that far is very impressive and those kids should be very proud of themselves.
Our District Key Member Cash Norris, put on an epic curling tournament on March 13 for all the District 4 H clubs to get together and have some fun. A lot of our members participated and they were not disappointed.
Mock Achievement was held on April 11, the morning was spent on district judging, and afternoon was spent learning some showmanship and clipping with our steers and heifer projects. Thank You to Jaren Letniak for providing us with a clipping demonstration. After getting our steers all shined up at the Mock Achievement day we were ready for pictures which was held at the Westerlund ranch on April 30. You can be on the lookout in the following weeks for our District catalog where you will see all our hard work on display.
Coming up on May 15 the Carcass club will be finishing off their project. They will gather at the Crossroads where they will do a live evaluation of everyone’s calves. The calves will then be transported to Provost to Bouma Meats where in a couple weeks the kids will get to see the carcass animals hanging and will find out from a professional meat grader who is the Grand Champion Carcass. Where I will be reporting live as these kids anxiously await the final results.
This is Coleman Norris saying, “Do yourself a favour and put some beef on your plate!”