Four Generations of 4-H

4-Hers in our family

 

Earlier this month, Kinley went to 4-H camp at Rock Springs for the first time. Her Grandpa Alan - Eric's dad - texted us during her adventure to let us know that his mom - Kinley's Great Grandma Bonnie - was the first member of their family to attend Rock Springs. Kinley's arrival at camp signaled the fourth generation of their family connection to Rock Springs.

Randy, too, has great memories from his 4-H camping days at Rock Springs. It was decidedly more rustic back in his day when he stayed in a canvas-sided tent. At the time I was a 4-Her, Pratt County 4-Hers went to a camp in Ford County. So did my parents, so our 4-H camping experience didn't include Rock Springs.

However, Kinley and Brooke are the fourth generation of 4-Hers on both sides of the family. (Brooke will wait a few years before she has the Rock Springs experience.)

4-Hers in the Ladd Family

Last weekend, both sets of grandparents came for the Shawnee County Fair to see the girls' exhibits. It was Kinley's second year in 4-H. (Covid delayed her entry into the program the year before.) It was Brooke's first year as a member of the Auburn 4-H Club. 

As Pratt and Stafford County 4-Hers, members took shifts in the fair concession stand. One of the most valuable things (at least from a parent's standpoint) was helping kids figure out how to count back change; it seems a lot art these days. And, of course, 4-Hers also learned to work as a team, serve the public and be a small cog in a big event in a community - all skills that translate in a myriad of ways to life far beyond 4-H.

At the Shawnee County Fair, the 4-Hers serve a Saturday morning pancake breakfast.The pancake and sausage meal was delicious, but even more "appetizing" to me was the continued commitment to helping 4-Hers grow as people. "To make the best better" may be a slogan, but the program truly does teach life skills and leadership that can be used for the rest of their lives.

Of course, ribbons are something to work toward, and something to strive for. But there is intrinsic value far beyond the color of the ribbon. Some of them include:

• Setting goals. 
• Learning new skills.
• Learning parliamentary procedure and how to conduct and participate in a business meeting.
  
• Completing paperwork/project reports.
  
• Working with others.
• Volunteering in your community. 

Yes, Brooke got a reserve champion ribbon on her White Chocolate Blueberry Crunch Bread. (And Grandma's Kim's County Line got a shout-out as the recipe source, which was definitely fun to see). But I also watched Brooke work with her mom on preparing our Sunday meal. Following a recipe and producing a tasty meal is a skill she'll use for the rest of her life. Her family handed out plenty of praise for the delicious meal, but there were no ribbons awarded.

Kinley's sunflower decorated cupcakes earned a purple ribbon, too. It's great to know how to do these special occasion treats yourself. Have you priced similar items in a bakery?

For her arts and crafts project, Kinley decorated a food storage container for the newest member of the Ladd family, their dog, Summer.

 

After watching the dog showmanship and agility competition at the fair, Kinley came home and immediately started training Summer. That project is getting added to the roster next year.
 

Brooke's bee pencil holder was one chosen for the People's Choice Award in Arts and Crafts. (It was a penny a vote, but even the Grandpas stuffing the ballot box didn't garner her the win. And that was OK.)

 

Brooke earned champion for her clothing buymanship project, the dress she wore for Brent's and Susan's rehearsal dinner.

But maybe even more valuable was overcoming her fears and modeling in the public fashion show, where she got reserve champ for both her casual and dressy outfits.

Next year, Grandma Kim has been recruited to help Kinley with beginning a photography project. We spent some time looking at the 4-H photography exhibits at the fair, initially learning things about the Rule of Thirds, leading lines, framing and other basic principles. (I cleaned out a bunch of my 4-H project leader materials during my Covid de-cluttering. But Grandma already got an order for new Photography Leader manuals, and they arrived this week. Let's hope Kinley doesn't lose interest before the project sign-up next fall!)

No matter where 4-H is happening - a rural county in the middle of Kansas or a bigger urban area like Topeka - it's making a difference in the lives of youth and their families.

Family Ties: Going to Pasture

Life can be like a winding river ... or, in this case, ... a meandering creek. 

In 1900, Albert Brinkman bought acreage along the Rattlesnake Creek in Stafford County, Kansas. Brinkman, who was a great-great-great uncle of Randy's, paid about $4 an acre. Originally in a tract of 1,040 acres, 560 acres remain in the Fritzemeier family. 

Today, Randy owns the pasture, along with his cousin, Don Fritzemeier. On May 1, we delivered cow-calf pairs and a bull to graze for the summer on the native pasture. Traditionally, we don't move cattle to the Big Pasture before May 1. Randy says that's because it his grandpa and his great-uncles wanted to keep it fair for everyone. So our Rattlesnake pasture delivery marked the final group of cattle to move to summer pasture this year.

 

Randy helping direct the trailer into place to unload at the corrals. Since it takes multiple loads to transport the cows and calves to the pasture, we keep them in the corrals until they have all arrived. That way, the mamas and babies are able to pair up before we let them out into the pasture.

These babies were born in January and February. It's their first visit to this pasture along the Rattlesnake. But maybe their moms remember from other years.

The next day, we went back to check on the herd. It looked like they were taking their Sunday afternoon nap.

And I wanted to take some new photos of a sign we got about 20 years ago, identifying this pasture as a Farm Bureau Century Farm. 

 

With a trailer attached and work to do, we didn't take time to snap pictures on the bridge as we made the delivery. But as I stood on the bridge and looked east the next day, I marveled at the picture postcard beauty that Randy's family has been privileged to nurture for 121 years. 

Randy has been making the journey to the pasture since he was a little boy. He rode shotgun as his Grandpa Clarence and his Dad Melvin delivered calves to the pasture.

Two generations ago, Randy's Grandpa Clarence owned the pasture with his brothers, Ed and Harve. 

This is an undated photo of Randy's Grandpa, Clarence Fritzemeier, with a bull. The back of the photo has written (in Randy's Grandma Ava's handwriting): "He looks like he knew he was going to be sold."

Things have changed markedly in those 120+ years, whether talking farming or the world in general. So having a tie to the past is unusual in this disposable world we live in today. 

County Line file photo

I miss the cottonwoods that used to line the road that's not much better than a cow path. I understand the reasons for taking them down several years ago, but I miss seeing those cottonwoods that were probably there when Albert Brinkman bought the ground so long ago. 

July 2013 - This was before the township tore down most of the cottonwoods along the road.

 Below, here's a September 2018 photo, which shows that most of the trees are gone.

But even without the stately old cottonwoods, there is plenty of beauty to enjoy. On days like that Sunday, I marveled at God's handiwork on display and felt so blessed to have been a little part of it for 40 years.

The Big Pasture - as Randy's family has always called it - seems like a good place to spend your summer vacation, especially if we get enough rain to keep the grass green and the Rattlesnake filled.

 

Do you like old photos? Here's another blog post about the Rattlesnake Pasture, along with more family history photos. More about the cottonwoods can be found here.

 

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Lofthouse Sugar Cookie Bars

Best Christmas cookies? An email from Taste of Home had me clicking on the link, even if our Christmas gathering this year happened a fortnight ago.  I have a Pavlov-inspired response to cookies.

Surprisingly, when I clicked it open, nothing inspired me to hit the "print" button and further clutter my kitchen counter with maybe-I'll-try-this-later printouts. My kids should be proud of me for not falling back into the behavior that required multiple trips to the burn pit and Goodwill during a Covid cleaning frenzy.

Anyway ... then I saw another link on the bottom of the email: Vintage Christmas Pictures Through the Years:What Christmas Looked Like the Year You Were Born. (Click on the link to see 60 years worth of photos.)

Since I've been on my share of photo Christmas cards through the years, I couldn't resist.

1956 - From Vintage Christmas Photos (link above)

Even though it was a year early, I thought 1956 - with the rocking horse - looked more like my birthday year than my actual birth year. Well, maybe not quite. Our red rocking horse was wooden and bright red.

Lisa & me - Cowgirls

I wasn't the only one who rode miles on that horse. I evidently turned the reins over to my sister, Lisa, on occasion.

My actual birth year - 1957 - had this photo, a tree dripping with tinsel. Yes, there's a real tree underneath all that silver.

1957 - From Vintage Christmas Photos (link above)

But then I remembered putting tinsel on our trees at home. We were supposed to put the tinsel on, strand by stand. And when it was time to pack away the Christmas decorations for another year, we were to painstakingly remove the tinsel from the tree so it could be used the following year, too. I can't say that I'm sorry that tinsel is no longer the Gold Standard of Christmas trees.

1958 - My Aunt Merlene holding Lisa, Grandpa Neelly holding me, Grandma Neelly and my mom. (My dad must have been behind the camera.)

 

 

 

1961 - me & Lisa and the tinseled tree

1963 - Lisa, Darci, Kim

 

I seem to remember more tinsel on our trees than these photos reveal. (It was probably all the individual placement that tricked my mind into believing the tree was covered with tinsel.)

I've been involved in Christmas photo cards for most of my life. It's a family tradition. I starred in my very first one in 1957, as a 6-month-old baby.

By the time 1958 rolled around, I was already sharing space with my sister, Lisa, on the annual missive from Bob and Janis.

Though my brother, Kent, was born in December 1966, he didn't make the Christmas card until 1967. This is the first photo card with all my siblings. I would have been 10, Lisa, 9, Darci, 6 and Kent was 1.

My parents included their children on the family Christmas card until we graduated from college. Since then, we make occasional appearances with a full-family photo, but most of the time these days, the great-grandchildren are the stars in my parents' annual letter. And this year, with Covid, my parents celebrated a little family history of another kind - a retrospective on John Deere tractors' evolution during their years of farming.

Randy and I sent our first photo card in 1981, the year we were married.

We didn't send another photo card until 1985, the year that Jill was born. It was only natural, I suppose, that we continued the tradition with our own children.

Christmas Card Photo - Jill - 1985

We sent one with the three of us in 1986, when Jill was 15 months old. After that, I usually stayed on the other side of the camera and just included the kids. (When you're the one doing the work, you get the most votes.)

Christmas Card Photo - 1986

The first one with Brent was in 1988. Brent would have been about 7 months and Jill was 3.

Christmas Card Photo - 1988

Back when Jill and Brent were little, this annual attempt was captured on film. And you weren't sure what you'd gotten until the film was developed. I have rolls and rolls of film chronicling the misadventures of getting two little kids to look their best in the same frame. 

Here's another of our many attempts in 1988:

The move to digital photography makes the storage problem easier - though it can't help everyone look great in every frame. 

This year, we let a professional handle the front photo. (Thanks to Demiurge Photography, Manhattan, KS).

For the back of the card, Kinley's and Brooke's visits to the farm made the cut. The one with the calf was taken in February - pre-Covid. It seems so long ago. The other was taken during 2020 wheat harvest.

I know that Christmas card letters have their share of detractors. But, I love getting cards and letters from people at this time of year. Even in this electronic communication age, I send quite a few Christmas cards. It's been a way for me to keep in touch of childhood friends and college buddies, along with sending greetings to family members across the U.S. and seasoning's greetings to neighbors. It seems we've gotten a lot fewer this year. 

Today is my mom's birthday. We usually have a birthday/Christmas Eve celebration at my folks. In fact, in my 63 years, I've never done anything different on Christmas Eve.

 

But there are 32 of us now. We've outgrown the dining room table and expanded into a farm shed. But even then, it's probably not wise to mix multiple households together during a pandemic. 

 

December 24, 2019

 

You know, all the kids are having Zoom birthday parties this year. And, now, so is my Mom. Thanks to my brother for getting it set up.

 

No matter how you're celebrating this year, we wish you a Merry Christmas ... and a better New Year!

Peace on earth, good will toward all.