When we were growing up we lived in a small suburban town in a regular house. We did not have any amount of acreage at all, but that did not matter to my mom in terms of turning the backyard into a farm. We had several chickens and two ducks for a while in our backyard. I have no idea what the purpose of keeping the ducks was... My guess is that she used their droppings for fertilizer for her huge garden. Other than that, I have no idea. As for the chickens, we ate their eggs. I remember heading out into the backyard to find the brown eggs that they laid. It was like Easter year-round at our house!
Don't call PETA and tell on us, but, one of the most amazing tricks that we did with the chickens was "hypnotization". My brother "hypnotized" the chickens by doing some sort of rubbing on their chests. The sensation made their bodies freeze (quite likely due to fear). He could get them to lay on their backs and not move at all. It was the funniest thing. I will be honest, I was slightly afraid of those chickens, so most (all) of the tricks were performed by my oldest brother.
The hypnotizing was fun and hilarious, but another great trick was tying up the chickens and forcing them to pull our wagon, like we were on the Oregon Trail. We used to play Oregon Trail a lot for some reason... I'm guessing we watched and read the Little House on the Prairie just a little too much. The chickens wouldn't pull the wagon for long, but the fact that my brother could get them tied up for any amount of time was really quite amazing.
I'm thankful for my fun siblings and for my hippie roots. I wonder if my siblings and I would be the same creative people we are now if we didn't have some of the activities our parents provided for us in our childhood. It makes me want to provide more "outside of the box" activities for my own children. I don't think I'll go as far as to have chickens and ducks in my backyard..... but something cool, that doesn't involve a screen of some sort, nonetheless.
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