Government Inspectors on the Ranch

They came with clipboards, pens held tight,
In shoes too shiny, pants too white.
“This fence,” one said, “violates a code!”
Then tripped and fell in a fresh cow load.
Another asked, “Do chickens pay tax?”
While roosters attacked their briefcase stacks.
“What’s this here?”–“A plow,” I said with pride,
“Looks unsafe,” he frowned, and stepped inside.
The blade spun once and caught his tie,
Now he’s scared of tractors ’til the day he die.
“Your pigs aren’t gender diverse enough,”
Said one while choking on barnyard fluff.
“We’ll fine you for haystack noncompliance,”
I said, “We’ll pay in goat defiance.”
The EPA man tried to test the well,
Drank it straight, then ran like hell.
They weighed a cow, called it obese,
The cow just mooed and broke the leash.
When the vegan cried at branding smoke,
The calf licked her face and made her choke.
By sunset they’d banned our mud and logs,
Tried to microchip our working dogs.
But the final straw came, oh so fast,
When they asked our mule for a W-2 past.
We rode ’em out like an old stampede,
And buried their forms under tumbleweed.

Alan Nafzger (editor@bohiney.com)