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This farming game is not so hot
when things are all boiled down
especially when your neighbours quid
is short by half a crown.
Where the grass grub starves in summer
and the gorse will hardly grow
that's just the kind of ranch he runs
Snake Gully sort of show.
For I fight a loosing battle
hell it nearly makes me weep
with a hundred hungry cattle
and a thousand marching sheep.
They started off in dozens
then increased by the score
and if they'd build some two chain roads
I guess he'd have some more.
If I ever get a paddock
with a dozen blades of grass
I bet a quid the neighbours cows
will scoff it as they pass.
I might even grow some turnips
as a crop they're hard to beat
they're not the slightest use to me
but still they'd feed HIS sheep.
While I'm fixing up my fences
all my gates are getting fits
then his cows will ford the river
while I'm picking up the bits.
I fence the blinkin' river off
his scarecrows still poke through
I wish that he, plus all his stock
would head for Timbucktoo.
Then you get a little careless
and go home and get some sleep
and you wake up in the morning
with a garden full of sheep.
By the time you get them hunted out
his cows are in your hay
you chase them out with pitchforks
(in a gentle kind of way).
Is it any flamin wonder that
a chap starts acting queer
and mistakes a mob of longtailed rams
for a fourteen pointer deer.
Is it any flamin wonder that
you think you're out of luck
if you bag a big shorthorn bull
instead of a Mallard duck.
The lamb may sell at three pounds ten
and wool at eighty pence
a chap would toss the caper in
if he had any sense.
What with multiplying cattle
and subtraction sort of sheep
I guess I'll hit the trail again
and sell the Rancho cheap.
Sure I love my blinkin neighbour
he can all my section keep
he can keep his ruddy cattle
all his horses, all his sheep.
May his shinbone cut tobacco
may his underpants catch fire
may he leave his -er- pants behind him
hanging on a rusty wire.
May he have the scours all winter
may he have the gout all fall
and may throughout the winter months
his bowels not work at all.
Sure I love me dearest neighbour
and I wouldn't wish him ill
but should he ever need the doc
let me prescribe the pill.
J.C.M. 1952
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