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Froglette’s Last Day of Work

Hi everybody! Froglette here, and it’s my last day of work already!! Here are my thoughts after being at JFF for 4 whole months.

Being assigned here for my internship has taught me a lot and gave me a once-in-a-lifetime experience that not many people can have. Who gets to work in a farm just like that?

I thought when JFF was assigned to be my place of internship, I would be taking care of frogs every day, checking on their health, etc. But my job scope didn’t have much to do with the care of frogs! Instead, it revolved around events like tours, office work, online work and many more. Also, definitely not MY kind of desired work (especially giving tours) since I’m quite a soft-spoken and shy person. However, the facilitators at my school have spoken, and I have no choice but to have my internship here in the frog farm.

And I don’t regret not rejecting my facilitators.

The 1st week of training was for me to get familiarised with how everything works at the farm. To be honest, I think I learnt (or rather, memorised) the content of the tours rather fast, and I gave my very first tour just that week. Chelsea was with me to help me along if I met with any difficulties, and sure enough, I did. In the very first portion of the tour which is the ‘history of the farm’, I blanked out. It was most probably due to nervousness from talking to a big group of people (10 people was considered big to me at that time) because I’ve never done tours before! But the both of us finished the tour nicely, and the tour group offered me lots of words of encouragement to boost my confidence level.

As the weeks went past, my confidence level in giving tours went up as my knowledge of the content became more drilled into me and also as I become more used to talking to large groups of people. About 1 month into my work, I could give tours to large groups of 40 people without flinching a limb or batting an eyelid. I could safely say that at that point of time, I was a much more confident girl than I was 1 month ago.

All in all, never did I think I would EVER work in a farm for slimy and green amphibians which brings screams to squeamish girls terrified of these lovely creatures. It truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m sure I will exit this place an entirely different girl than from 4 months ago.

 

Signing off,
Froglette 🙂

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Words of Appreciation in the Spirit of Christmas…by Felicia (Froglette)

“Writing a letter of appreciation is something I’ve never done before, but from now onwards, I will make it a point to write one for every Christmas because it’s so meaningful.

There are so many people in my life I want to thank. Naturally, the first people I want to thank is my family. Even though sometimes they are unreasonable, but ultimately, they just purely care for me and my wellbeing. I want to thank my parents for providing me financial support for my whole life up to the second month of internship, because that was when I got my first pay and I weaned off their money and started using my own instead. Without their support financially or mentally, I don’t think I would have been able to survive in this world. I want to thank my sister for always being a listening ear to me, giving me wise advice when I don’t know who else to turn to. She can be very annoying at times, but when she’s not, she’s a delight to be with. (I know I annoy her too.)

The next people I want to thank are my friends. They have kept me going throughout my whole poly life, made school so much more interesting, and made my life a much more enjoyable one. Without them, I wouldn’t be the person that I am today, because they all have influenced the moulding of my personality in order to deal with the harsh world.

Next, I want to thank my boyfriend for “training” me to become a less annoying person, and to have a better temper. Before I met him, my temper was atrocious. Maybe not towards my friends, but towards closer people in my life. He has taught me that not everything will go my way because people sometimes don’t meet my expectations, and I can’t flare up at them because of that.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my JFF friends for accepting me so warmly into the JFF family. When I make any mistakes, I will get corrected in a nice way. I have indeed learnt a lot from working here, and I dare say that I’m not the same person I was at the start of internship in terms of personality.”

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JFF will be moving out in 2017!

JFF has both a bad and good news to share!
The bad news is, our lease will not be extended. This means that JFF will have to move out of this current beautiful plot of land by June 2017!!

Certainly, we experienced the 5 stages of grief when we received news like this, but this is something we can’t bargain ourselves out of, so getting angry or depressed is not the way to go.

However, the good news is, JFF turns 33 years old today!! So this weekend we’re going to have some fun activities for families and special deals. Be sure to read all about it on another blog post, titled “JFF’s 33rd anniversary celebration!!!”.

 

– Froglette

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JFF’s 33rd anniversary celebration!!!

JFF has turned 33 years old yesterday, on 29th October!! It’s incredible to see the growth of this farm in the last decade, attracting countless Singaporeans and also overseas visitors! JFF has come a very long way, having shifted from Old Jurong Road to Lim Chu Kang  in 1994, and also opening up to the public from being a private farm since the early 1990s! That’s amazing! To be honest, I didn’t know about JFF until I was assigned to come here for my internship. When I was first brought here by my facilitator, I didn’t expect it to be such a quaint and tranquil place. I was expected it to be quite noisy with frogs croaking every where!

To celebrate our 33rd birthday, we’re going to have a few activities and bundle deals at our farm on the weekend of our anniversary week, on the 1st & 2nd November.
1. With every entry into the tadpoles’ pen (30 mins/ $6), you may choose from our beautiful royal headband to take home as a keepsake!
2. Next, Frogician and I will do face painting for both children and adults. You get to choose from the many designs you will like on your face!
3. Only for this Sunday, we will have our barbecued exotic range of meat for sale too. Our BBQ skewers have proven to be very popular during the Farmers’ Market, so we’re bringing it back again on this very special occasion. Be sure not to miss it this time if you didn’t manage to catch us during Farmers’ Market!

Note that JFF opens from 9am – 5.30pm, to the general public only on weekends and public holidays and from Tuesday – Friday to appointment bookings and tour reservations only. Come down to the farm this weekend to celebrate JFF’s 33rd birthday with us!! Hope to see all of you!! 🙂

Signing off,
Froglette

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Our froggies’ welfare (& don’t drop the frogs!)

Hi everyone, Froglette here!

During Farmers’ Market, an incident occurred where some visitors queried us on “how will the frogs and tadpoles feel??”

1. We have to concur that we were overwhelmed by the warm responses of the crowd. Many parents were urging their children to take closer looks and get their hands wet in the tadpoles netting activity.
What we could have done better was to place another experienced frog handler to assist Frogician with the crowd who wanted a chance to meet the frogs.

2. The tadpoles were brought to the booth for an activity called ‘Minute to Net It’. The objective of the activity was to allow the children to classify and group the tadpoles according to their respective stages.
Again, our Frogician was fully flat out handling queries from adults, looking after the children, frogs and tadpoles. I was even tasked to drop by the activity booth from the ever-so busy food booth on occasions to make sure that our Frogician has the help she needed and that the welfare of these green hoppers be better cared for with 2 people around.

It was my first involvement in such a big event like this (I heard that at least 8000 people turned up!) and I certainly learnt how we ought to be more cautious in the activities we have designed and consider the implications from all the other welfare groups.

Next, I want to talk about the handling of our frogs. How do you exactly hold a frog?

This is a topic we touch on during our ‘Hands on the Frog’ sessions. Time to time, kids who volunteer to hold the frogs, drop or even throw the frogs onto the ground when the frogs start to struggle in their hands. PLEASE DON’T DO THAT!! As much as we put emphasis on this, frogs slipping out of an adult’s grip is a very common occurrence as these amphibians are very slimy!!

Bruises! Please treat our frogs kindly! :/
Bruises. Please treat our frogs kindly! 🙁

Good news is that frogs are strong survivors out in the wild. They shed their skin periodically and their wound heal rather naturally without any use of medication.

The proper way of carrying a frog is to grip it tightly around its waist with either 1 or 2 hands. For kids, they usually carry the frog with 2 hands since their hands are so small. If the frog attempts to wriggle its way out of your hands, try not to squeeze it even tighter to prevent it from jumping away, and neither should you drop the frog; just maintain a firm grip around the frog’s waist and it will feel more secure in that grip. If you don’t feel comfortable in holding a struggling frog, you can either quickly pass it back to the tour guide, or squat down and put the frog onto the ground gently with the tour guide’s knowledge. All these will be briefed beforehand by the tour guide, so don’t worry if you can’t remember all of the steps to holding a frog now. Just remember: Don’t drop the frog!

Bye for now!

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JFF @ Kranji Countryside Farmers’ Market

Hello everybody!!

JFF will be participating in Kranji Countryside Farmers’ Market for the 2nd time, and this time, we’ll have new activities for kids (or even adults) @ The Kids Corner, an ongoing online photo contest, and there will be a new food item added to our EXOTIC menu!! The Farmers’ Market will be held at Gardenasia (Nyee Phoe), and there will be a shuttle bus from Yew Tee MRT (bus stop) that goes directly there at timed intervals (timings will be shown in the bus schedule below). It will be $2 for a two-way trip there and back (cash collection upon arrival), and free rides for children below 12 years old and seniors above 60 years old. A KCFM volunteer will be stationed at the bus stop holding the Farmers’ Market poster, so gather around that area to board the bus! If you’re travelling by car or any other form of transport, please refer to this website for the exact location of Gardenasia.

KCFM bus schedule
KCFM bus schedule

 

This is the list of our products and food items and the promotions. Our new food item on the menu will be the venison satay, so be sure to try it WHILE STOCKS LAST!!

  • Premium Hashima @ $28.80/box. Bundled Promotion: Buy 2 boxes + 1  8gm packet of dried hashima (worth $10!) @ $60
  • Selected Dried Hashima (8gm) @ $10/packet. Promotion: Buy 5 get 1 free
  • Fresh Frog Legs (500gm) @ $15/bag. Promotion: Buy 4 get 1 ice box free
  • Frozen Venison Flanksteak @ $37.50/kg (Prices vary according to weight)
  • Red Date Sauce @ $4.20/bottle
  • Venison satay @ $5/satay
  • Yummy Deep Fried Frog Meat @ $5/skewer
  • Crocodile Tail Nuggets @ $5/skewer
  • Royal Hashima Dessert @ $5/bowl

Our activity at the KIDS CORNER is called ‘1 Minute to Net It’ @ a nominal charge of $2/participant. For this activity, there will be a large tank filled with water and tadpoles & frogs in different stages of metamorphosis. The 4 metamorphosis stages will be: Tadpole without hindlegs/forearms, Tadpole with hindlegs only, Tadpole with hindlegs AND forearms, Froglet. The participant has to group the different stages of frogs into the tanks provided in the correct order within a minute. ‘Tadpole without hindlegs/forearms’ will be the first stage and ‘Froglet’ will be the last. If you complete this activity successfully, you’ll win a Royal Frog Badge as a prize!! Please note that this activity might require you to get your hands wet.

Our next activity is the online photo contest which we call ‘Eat It Like You Own It’. To participate, take a photo of your best expression while eating one of our frog/crocodile meat skewers or venison satays, then post it on Instagram or our Facebook wall and be sure to hashtag both ‘#eatitlikeyouownit‘ & ‘#jurongfrogfarm‘. The photo with the most number of likes will stand to win a mystery gift, so be sure to get all your friends to like your photo after posting it up!! Here are some photo examples by our very own JFF staff (and dog!):

Lastly, if there are any enquiries about the JFF booth at Kranji Countryside Farmers’ Market or any enquires about Jurong Frog Farm at all, please send them to our email address ‘sales@jurongfrogfarm.com.sg‘, or contact us at 6791 7229 during operating hours! Hope to see all of you at the JFF’s booth at Farmers’ Market!! 🙂

Signing off,
Froglette

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First post by hmm…Froglette?

Hello everyone, Froglette here!

So, how did I come up with this nickname for myself? I don’t particularly LOVE ‘Smurfs’, but actually got the idea from the female Smurf’s name: Smurfette. So there we go! Froglette joins the JFF family for the next 4 months, or maybe even longer.

There were a total of 3 tours that I conducted today (some together with my colleague), and I’m still getting the hang of it. My first tour group consisted of people my age, and I was honestly very anxious throughout the whole duration of this tour. But they were very nice, and a few of them standing closest to me were telling me that I shouldn’t be nervous because they won’t eat me! For my last tour of the day, it was the Gabbe’s Adventure tour, and I conducted this to quite a big group of primary 1 kids. They were very cute! I had lots of fun speaking to them, but at the same time, they were very hard to control. Crowd control is a skill I would have to pick up very soon, if not I’ll easily get overwhelmed. I’m actually very nervous about conducting tours because I have never liked talking to, or interacting with big groups of people. But maybe there is a purpose for me in coming to JFF for my internship, and hopefully by the end of my internship, I would be a more outgoing person, more willing to initiate conversations with all sorts of people, and be a changed person overall.

I’ll probably be writing more in the near future, so look out for Froglette’s posts! Bye for now! 🙂

Hi I'm Felicia (Froglette)!
Hi I’m Felicia (Froglette)!