Ready for the New Season of Composting!

Today, I went in my backyard to collect fall leaves and found all my neighbors helping me! They all range from the ages of 3-8. It is nice to see that they care about the environment at such a young age! I am hoping they will be future 4-Her's of our club!

Booth at Farmer's Market -- August 31st

Today our Treasuring The Trash 4-H club had a booth at the farmers market, promoting both rain barrels and composting!
We got people interested in starting both of these methods of sustainability.

Composting in my Backyard -- Hands On!

I have been composting in my backyard for the past two years.

Since I don't have much soil and can't have a compost bin, I decided to make a bin out of an old garbage can. I drilled holes in the can for aeration and left it out on my patio.

My Compost Bin

I put food and yard waste every week and mixed it with a small pitch fork.
Because the compost was in a closed container without soil, I expected there to be no earthworms. Surprisingly, though, I found earthworms in my compost two days ago. I was very thrilled, and this proves that the process is in fact occurring.

Earthworms in my Compost Pile

Recently, I cleaned out last year's compost and started a new pile. During the process, I decided to take a few pictures of the stages of my compost.

1) New compost pile started last week

Stage 1

2) Last year's almost ready compost

Stage 2

3) The finished product!

Stage 3

Our Rain Barrel

Our cub sold our Rain Barrel at the Mercer County 4-H fair on August 4th!

There were several steps taken to make this barrel.

1. We sanded the rain barrel 
2. We drilled all the parts (the faucet, overflow etc). 
3. We decided to paint the rain barrel to attract people. We did an ocean theme and painted different types of sea animals. 

This is what our final product looked like:

Finished Product

4-H Mercer County Fair!

Today there was a fair held at the Howell Farm. This fair was a 4-H Mercer county fair where everyone from Mercer county brings his/her club activities to the fair and presents them. People bring different kinds of animals and do shows based on their training experiences. Then, awards are given out. Further, there are a lot of fun activities for kids to enjoy such as a magic shows, pony rides, creative artworks, learning about the tractors etc. Our club, Treasuring the Trash had our traditional composting booth as well as a rain barrel booth. We educated people about rain barrels with a slide-show print out and hand outs that Mrs. Rector gave to us.We also had our rain barrel for a silent auction and got pretty interesting bids!It's amazing to see how interested people are in conservation and sustainability.  We loved doing the silent auction and we will probably do it again next year. With the money that we earned, we will either donate it or use it for our cub fares.
This is a fun event because everyone in 4-H bonds and we learn a lot about each other. Everyone in 4-H is very diverse and has a lot to bring out.

Visited the Farmer's Market at Wisconsin

This summer I went to Minocqua, Wisconsin and I went to the Farmer's Market. I expected for there to be a lot of cheese; however, there was lesser cheese the Farmer's Market in West Windsor. It had other products such as honey and maple syrup. Further, it had different kinds of breads.
The Farmer's Market in West Windsor has more vegetables and meats.

4-H Healthy Living Workshop

Sustainability- Most people associate sustainability with the environment or material objects. What we fail to understand is that it should also be obtained within ourselves. As a result, this year I decided to attend a Healthy living workshop so I could be edified more about the sustainability of my body through eating and living healthy.
I attended a two day workshop where we learned about different ways of living healthy. The program was sponsored by Walmart and its goal was to educate kids of all different ages about the importance of healthy living and how it can be attained.
We attended this program and learned the New York curriculum for healthier living. Now that we are trained, we are supposed to educate others in our town and society about this program.
I enjoyed this program because I learned about the importance of having a healthy body and the easy steps we can take to attain fitness.