{"id":62876,"date":"2016-11-23T00:09:35","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T08:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=62876"},"modified":"2016-11-23T00:09:35","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T08:09:35","slug":"young-cultivator-merit-badge-whistle-while-you-work-intermediate-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/62876","title":{"rendered":"Young Cultivator Merit Badge: Whistle While You Work, Intermediate Level"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tThe adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our<\/span> Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/span><\/span><\/a>, now with\u00a07,200 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u201410,226 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my <\/span>former life<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

For this week\u2019s Out There Kids\/Whistle While You Work Intermediate Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge<\/u><\/a>, Piper and I took our newly honed and finely tuned grass-whistling skillz to new heights.<\/p>\n

Namely, the tippy-top of her tree, because, well, we had been threatened with bodily harm by all of our respective family members if we so much as blew another blade of grass within their hearing again.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Boy, talk about tough critics.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I guess not everyone is as sophisticated and highbrow as Piper and I are when it comes to the art of whistling camp tunes.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, my minions, camp tunes. Those wonderful and joyful melodies of our childhoods, peppered with catchy lyrics, snappy beats, and endless verses. Oh, I do mean endless, too. Do you even KNOW how many verses 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall has?<\/p>\n

You do?<\/p>\n

99?<\/p>\n

Okay, that was an easy one. I was just testing you \u2026<\/p>\n

So, yes, okay, we had to take our two-person band out to the trees, but that\u2019s okay. The acoustics are great up there anyway! The bluejays are totally onto something.<\/p>\n

The Story of a Little Gray Mouse by author and illustrator Dorothy Sherrill via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

It took quite a while to actually learn and perfect an actual tune. I mean, we were the town\u2019s resident experts <\/em>at grass whistling, but incorporating our honking and tooting and blasting into a real melody? Well, that took some time. Not a problem \u2026 we weren\u2019t allowed to go back inside the house anyway until our pockets had been checked for grass blades. Ahem.<\/p>\n

We started small, with a classic tune: Row, Row, Row Your Boat<\/em>. It sunk. But we patched it back up, and soon enough, it was almost, practically, just about, in a way, nearly recognizable.<\/p>\n

Then we moved onto Home On the Range<\/em> (Emmaline, the Bovine Princess, really enjoyed this one). From there, we began work on a two-part harmony with Do Your Ears Hang Low?<\/em> We really nailed the mournful cry of this one, if I do say so myself.<\/p>\n

Then we practiced Bazooka Bubble Gum<\/em>, followed by a rousing rendition of The Funky Chicken<\/em> (I don\u2019t recommend performing this one while treed), and we topped it off with the classic and oh-so timeless, The Bear Song<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Of course, what are camp songs without all the goofy lyrics? So, we took turns with our grass whistle so that the other member of our band could belt out some singing. Need something to start you off? We\u2019re pretty partial to this one, ourselves:<\/p>\n

The other day\u00a0 I met a bear\u00a0 Out in the woods\u00a0 Oh, way out there<\/em><\/p>\n

He looked at me\u00a0 I looked at him\u00a0 He sized up me\u00a0 I sized up him<\/em><\/p>\n

He said to me\u00a0 Why don’t you run\u00a0 I see you ain’t\u00a0 Got any gun<\/em><\/p>\n

I said to him\u00a0 That’s a good idea\u00a0 So come on feet\u00a0 Away from here<\/em><\/p>\n

And so I ran\u00a0 Away from there\u00a0 But right behind\u00a0 Me was that bear<\/em><\/p>\n

And then I see\u00a0 Ahead of me\u00a0 A great big tree\u00a0 Oh, glory be!<\/em><\/p>\n

The lowest branch\u00a0 Was ten feet up\u00a0 I’d have to jump\u00a0 And trust my luck!<\/em><\/p>\n

And so I jumped\u00a0 Into the air\u00a0 But I missed that branch\u00a0 A way up there<\/em><\/p>\n

Now don’t you fret\u00a0 Now don’t you frown\u00a0 ‘Cause I caught that branch\u00a0 On the way back down<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the end There ain’t no more\u00a0 Until I meet\u00a0 That bear once more<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with\u00a07,200 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u201410,226 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane\u00a0 Wondering who … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62876","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}