Bush Poetry 1 - Fleeced

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I wrote recently about Australian bush poetry. Here is one I wrote. Chooks is Australian for chickens and the Mini was a Mini Minor. I hope you enjoy it. True story. Fleeced Way back in the seventies when we were young and strong We took ourselves to Esperance, bought a farmlet for a song Our own five acres, we were rapt. We thought it heaven sent. Cleared and fenced, with shed and mill. To hell with paying rent. We'd be self-sufficient with eggs and spuds galore. I'd spin some wool, milk a cow; Who could ask for more? We had a tractor and some chooks, a cow and twenty sheep; Black and grey and mottled, I'd play at Little Bo-Peep. And life went on from day to day and every one a pleasure Life in the country is hard to beat, happiness hard to measure. We fenced off half the chook yard to make a vegie patch For growing big tomatoes chook poo you couldn't match. But this tale's not about the chooks. It is about the wethers A friend had grass she needed clipped. We lent her two to tether. Some weeks later we collected the sheep. They needed to be shorn. It surprised us just how fat they were. She'd been feeding them on corn. We laid them down and tied their legs.They rode home on the trailer. The stress it was too much for one. It dropped dead from heart failure. Now we were in a panic. This really was bad news. The body would soon be stiffening up. We had no time to lose. We needed that fleece. It was black and fine. It would bring a tidy sum Because we had no shearing plant the shearer wouldn't come. But we had a good mate up the road who would always lend a hand. If we took it there he'd shear it. He had a shearing stand. Now I had to go, an appointment in town, I was nearly late already And I needed the car, the one with the hitch. As usual my husband stood ready. 'I'll take the Mini, he said. 'But how? That's means you can't take the trailer'. 'Leave it to me. I'll fix it. You'll see'. You couldn't call him a failure. When I appeared later, he was all set to go. He'd found a way out of the strife. He'd loaded the wether, (no need for a tether), it was propped up large as life. It sat up so proud looking much like the Queen, nodding and waving and regal I was impressed and so was the cat, not to mention the pug and the beagle. Its head was nodding though a bit on the side, its front legs gently waving Vin started the car and smiling, drove off; an audience he was craving. Seat belt intact, in the front seat it sat, its sightless eyes staring ahead What a waste of a farce, not a soul did he pass. But his mate did say 'strike me dead'.