Noelle - Day 270 (Noelle's Guide to 4H Survival)

Hiiiiiii!
It's Noelle, back with more strange thoughts, random stuff, and stuff about my life!

So two days ago (Wednesday) regular Sod Squad started back up.  For those of you who don't know, Sod Squad is my 4-H group, we plant things.  And raised chickens (they're all grown up and vaguely mean and like 200 pounds of cute now).  And eat raw cucumbers (I'll share that story another time...maybe tomorrow)  And I mean regular like "one a week meetings".

Anyway, so we had our first real summer meeting and a bunch of new people showed up, mostly younger kids between the ages of like 7-11 and ugh.  New kids in an agriculture group like ours can be hard to survive, so here is *drumroll* Noelle's De-Classified Survival Guide to Sod Squad (and all us annoying veterans that come with it).



I'll try to make this interesting, kay?

1. Don't be intimidated by us older kids (Jesse, Elena, me, Jarod, Thomas, etc.) because we're here to help.  We just know things.  We've been here longer.  Use our experience dangit.
2. On the other end of the spectrum, try to listen to us.  We are actually telling you to put something there FOR A REASON :P  A lot of kids at this past meeting were like "what no but whyyyyy I don't care if it's a waste how expensive can DIRT be."  Stop right there.  That is SOIL you uncultured swine.  And why?  Because I say so.  And Ms. Wen says so.  It will grow better that way.
3. A rough translation guide of Sod Squadian lingo:
1. "What's your name?" = "I have no idea who you are but I'm trying to be friendly please don't be offended that I don't know all of your names yet."
2. "Hey guys, Ms. Wen is talking, maybe you should listen so you know what to do" = "seriously I can't hear her maybe you should listen and not scream in my ear"
3. "Sure go pet the llamas" = "that is an alpaca and please don't get your hand bit off"
4. "COW BELL NOISES" = "no I'm not calling you a cow it means come over here"
5. "Don't go in the ditch I will not be responsible for your face plant" = "hi welcome to our club I have been here longer than you and I feel partly responsible for your safety since I'm kinda leading the pack even though I'm not president so please don't faceplant seriously I have traversed this field in crutches you don't want to do it"
6. "The mountain" = "a pile of dirt that we love more than life itself please don't hurt our baby"
7. "weeds" = "THE AGONY"
8. "Cucumber season" = those few weeks where we each ate a cucumber the size of our fist and still had three or four bucket fills"
9. "I'm getting a migraine" = "I'm getting a migraine"
4. It is not dirt.  It is soil.

And that's it, really!  Follow this little guide and you'll survive Sod Squad just fine.  Also, never put a gardening tool point up, try not to step in poop, worms are not edible, cucumber season is the best and worst season, manure is useful not disgusting, and MAKE THE BEST BETTER!!

Cya later!