Farm Fu

I'm developing a new martial art called Farm Fu. The first animal based style will be "Chicken" style. You hold one hand in front of your face like a beak -- this is the striking hand. The other hand you hold behind you with fingers outstreched -- like a tail -- to distract your opponent. You crouch slightly and move about in a "chicken-in-the-straw" kind of shuffling candence. You make the high pitched chicken "coo" in your throat (Bruce Lee-ish), then squawk loudly as you strike with your "beak" hand.

It was Sheep Shearing Day at the farm last Sunday. Blustery weather. Visitors actually showed up! We sheared a few. Mark put on his energetic, humorous, and educational demonstration. A visitor, Jimmy, a music teacher from Indiana, volunteered to turn the crank on the historically accurate man-powered shearing machine.

Tegan, Faith and I watched the sheep dog show for a few minutes after stopping at the visitor's center to buy hand-spun yarn made for KCF sheep's wool on the way out after our shift. The day's chores had also included mixing feed, filling the horse barn and sheep shed with hay, picking-out a few livestock pens, and spreading some fresh straw. (A chicken almost landed on Tegan's head when we fed them.)