Aroostook County 4H Program

The Crafty Critters have been busy.

They took part in a costume contest at the Rabbit Fun Day done in conjunction with the Aroostook Rabbit Breeders and they have been making spider mobiles.

We have news from up north!!! Our 4-H Aide in the Fort Kent Office, Stacy Paradis, sent in this article and photos!

Four lucky teenagers had the time of their life attending the New England Regional Volunteer Forum in Portland at the Doubletree Hotel. The theme for this year’s conference was, “Healthy Lifestyles, Healthy Living”, and the lucky delegates spent time at the various workshops learning about ways to incorporate many aspects of: healthy living, health and wellness, and physical fitness into their lifestyles. They also learned about emotional and psychological wellness, drug and alcohol prevention, college life, healthy brains, get moving, cooking with healthy foods, looking at sugar, lifetime fitness/healthy decisions, and activities that include whole body awareness. Sarah Paradis helped out at the workshop entitled, “Cooking Up Fun, Helping Youth Gain Food Skills”. Four Aroostook county teens, Sarah Paradis, Alissa Picard, Vanessa Barriere and Samantha Paradis attended NERVF and plan to implement this fun and innovative cooking program in the St. John Valley.

The New England Regional Volunteer Forum was a Youth/Adult Partnership Forum.

The Healing Hearts 4-H Club is busy, busy. They are starting to collect items for Operation Christmas Child. The club has grown to 30 members! The Healing Hearts Ranch just acquired two new ponies, two new goats and two new sheep. Healing Hearts Ranch is run by John and Tami Cote, leaders of the Healing Hearts 4-H Club. Check out their website at

http://www.healingheartsranch.org/

ALL CLUBS

PLEASE - TAKE NOTICE…

The absolute deadline for getting your 06-07 Financial Records into the Houlton Extension Office is:

November 15th!

This will leave us time to get all the necessary information reported to the IRS by their December 1st deadline.

If you miss this deadline, your club will not be allowed to raise money using the 4-H name and Emblem.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, get your financial records in!!!

ANOTHER REMINDER…

Re-enrollment deadline is December 31st!

Get those re-enrollments in!!!

Here’s a really neat looking Fall Decoration that you can make!

scarecrow craft

You will need:

· A straw hat

· Googly eyes (20mm)

· Pipe cleaners

· Craft Foam or felt scraps

· Raffia

· Tacky glue

· Scissors

Cut pieces of the raffia and glue them all around the brim of the straw hat. The “cone” will be the “head”. Cut a hat shape out of the foam or felt and glue to the scarecrows head. You can use other colors to make smaller patches as shown in the picture. Glue on the eyes and make a pipe cleaner nose and mouth and glue these into place. Be creative and give your scarecrow a personality of his or her own. Maybe some colored yarn for hair, or give him (her) a tongue and some teeth!

This and other projects can be found at:

http://www.makingfriends.com/fallcrafts/fallcrafts_more.htm

Just a quick little snack that you can make ahead and eat while you are working on your Scarecrow decoration…

Snacksicles

You will need:

· 3 cups of miniature marshmallows

· 1/4 cup or margarine

· 1/4 cup of creamy peanut butter

· 3 cups Honey Nut & Oat or similar cereal

· 1/2 cup of raisins

· 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds

· 10 ice cream sticks

Heat marshmallows and margarine in a large saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until marshmallows are melted and smooth (or melt in a large bowl in the microwave. ). Blend in peanut butter, then add cereal, raisins, and sunflower seeds and stir well. Let stand 2 minutes. Form mixture into 10 2-inch balls. Insert sticks into balls and let stand about 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

These may be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Recipe courtesy of the “Healthy Treats and Super Snacks for Kids” book by Penny Warner.

We have a special recipe submitted by Samantha and Sarah Paradis who are in one of our 4-H clubs that we have going up in the Valley. Their mom is Stacy Paradis - our 4-H Aide in the Fort Kent Office!

Pumpkin Ice Cream Pie
(don't worry: there's no need to make pumpkin ice cream from scratch for this pie. Your kids can simply mix vanilla ice cream with pumpkin puree, sprinkle in a few spices, and then line a cinnamon-graham crust with their tasty concoction.)

Ingredients:

For the crust:
1 1/2 cups crushed cinnamon-sugar graham crackers (about 12 whole graham crackers)
4 tablespoons melted butter

For the filling
1 quart vanilla ice cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup canned pumpkin
Assorted dried fruit

Step 1: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a 9-inch pie plate, mix the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter. Have your child crumble the mixture with his/her fingers until the butter is evenly distributed. Then have them press it around the bottom and up the sides of the pie plate. Bake for 5 minutes and cool completely.

Step 2: Meanwhile, let the ice cream sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Scoop it into a large mixing bowl. Break apart the ice cream with a spoon, then add the sugar, spices and pumpkin. Mash until the pumpkin and spices are evenly distributed through the ice cream.

Step 3: Spoon (or pour) the pumpkin ice cream into the cooled crust. Cover with plastic wrap. Freeze for several hours or overnight.

Step 4: Before serving, decorate the pie with an assortment of dried fruit to create a colorful jack-o'-lantern face. We cut figs, dried papaya, and dates into triangles for the eyes and nose and into squares for the teeth. Let the pie sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before slicing. Serves 8

Clubwork for Cloverbuds

By now you should have received the information about Maine’s new Cloverbud policy. In The County we will be learning the best ways to meet the policy over the next year. If you have any questions about the policy, please feel free to give Christy a call. What we would also like to know is what kind of training and materials leaders with 5 to 8 year olds in their clubs would like to have. We’d like to put together some kind of training that people would find useful.

Also, if anyone is interested in or knows someone who is interested in starting Cloverbud Clubs just for this age group, please let Christy know and we will get some age-specific information for you.

Pet Treat Fundraiser-

While I was at the NAE4-HA Conference, I picked up some information about a fundraising opportunity for 4-H clubs. Go to www.pettreats4youth.com for more information.

VOLT TRAINING FOR NEW VOLUNTEERS

VOLT- Volunteer Ongoing Learning and Training is our volunteer training program required of all 4-H volunteers who work directly with youth for more than 8 hours or who are going to chaperone 4-H events. In VOLT you will learn about positive youth development, club organization and management, program planning, and risk management and many other useful topics. Teens who are taking club management roles are also invited to participate in VOLT.

There will be 2 VOLT sessions in November:

Nov. 8 5-9 pm at the Fort Kent Office

Nov. 10 9am-2 pm at the Houlton Office

Call the office 532-6548 or

1-800-287-1469 to register

want to find a way to spend money on your horses while fund raising for a great cause at the same time ?!?!?!?!??! well here it is !!!!!

Anytime anyone orders from www.countrysupply.com and enters the code "Maine4-HHorse" 5% of the sale will be donated back to Maine 4-H horse program !!! (Wormers are not included)

For more information on educational programs in your area, contact your county Extension office.