{"id":14583,"date":"2012-04-25T00:05:43","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T07:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=14583"},"modified":"2012-04-25T00:05:43","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T07:05:43","slug":"backyard-farmer-badge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/14583","title":{"rendered":"Backyard Farmer Merit Badge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<span style=\"color: #008000;\">Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/10477\">former life<\/a> \u2026<\/p>\n<p>Well, my little chickadees, I\u2019m moving on to successful Farmgirl in a speedy fashion! I\u2019ve done it: I\u2019m an animal owner (Ms. Twinkles doesn\u2019t count, she thinks she\u2019s a person and I hate to dash her hopes and dreams of world domination by telling her she\u2019s a Pomeranian).<\/p>\n<p>I brought home three of the cutest, spunkiest, most adorable baby chicks EVAH!<\/p>\n<p>Now the requirements for my newest badge, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.farmgirlsisterhood.org\/badges-gg-backyard-farmer.asp\">Backyard Farmer<\/a>, are a no-brainer.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image wp-image-34713\" alt=\"mba_jane-backyard_farmer-5599\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/mba_jane-backyard_farmer-55991.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"474\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><!--more--><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Chickens with their eggs or raise your own rabbits for butchering?? I think not. I can\u2019t kill Flopsie, Mopsie, and Cottontail! But I can go to the farm store and buy some Yellow Sextons and Black Sex Links. After I stop giggling at the breed names, that is. Farmers have their minds in the gutters, I do believe \u2026<\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, these tiny balls of feathered fluff are super delightful. I put them in a big Rubbermaid container that I bought to organize my purse collection but never got around to, hung a heat lamp over the top (Can you believe they like it 95 degrees the first week? Some like it hot indeed), and we were good to go. Instant family. Single mom of three, that\u2019s me.<\/p>\n<p>They think their water container is their own personal swimming pool, so I find myself changing their water like, four trillion times a day. They also poop in it about nine trillion times a day, but let\u2019s not go there. I\u2019ve heard poop is a side effect of parenting, but boy, I had no idea. I don\u2019t even want to think about Midge and the triplets \u2026 let\u2019s just say she went MIA when they were potty training and now I know why.<\/p>\n<p>Their diet at the moment consists of cracked corn and grain that I sprinkle lovingly to them by the handfuls. I feel just like Cinderella. I keep waiting for well-dressed mice to come out and let me sing to them in exchange for a hand-sewn ball gown, but no dice. Anyway, after they get big enough to move out of the garage and to the yard, they\u2019ll move on to the REAL chicken food: bugs and grass. I\u2019m actually a little excited about the decrease of spiders to come. Last time I found a brown recluse during a dinner party, Ken screamed like a little girl and seriously made me rethink my relationship status.<\/p>\n<p>In order to get ready for the big move out of the Rubbermaid, I bought a chicken coop from someone on craigslist. It\u2019s a little \u2026 well, musty and muddy, and old. So, I\u2019m wallpapering. You know, to get that French provincial countryside look. Wish me luck. Those are some way small cubbies but never let it be said that I\u2019m a quitter. I figure they need some beautiful surroundings in order to lay beautiful eggs.<\/p>\n<p>Gracious, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if the eggs come out paisley, toile, and polka dot at this point! I can just see me at the farmers\u2019 market, the belle of the ball \u2026<\/p>\n<p>Now to find those talented rodents to dress me \u2026\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life \u2026 Well, my little chickadees, I\u2019m moving on to successful Farmgirl in a speedy fashion! I\u2019ve done it: I\u2019m an animal owner (Ms. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/14583\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/14583\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[363,548,566,574],"class_list":["post-14583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters","tag-gladsome-sisters","tag-maryjanesfarm-farmgirl-sisterhood","tag-mba-jane","tag-merit-badge-awardees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}