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Sanders: Ranch woman image

Want milk, steak, bread, vegetables? Just go to the nearest market and there one can browse and choose one’s favorite edibles. Agriculturists have lately begun campaigns to educate the non-country populace as to how food actually happens. Along those lines, here’s my contribution in verse form penned way back when I daily risked life, limb and sanity in order to be a small part of the effort to feed the planet’s Homo sapiens.

Ranch Woman Image

Keeping up my rural image,



I must dress for county scrimmage;

“Pullquote.”

TV style and glamor looks



Don’t belong in my ranch books.

On my ranch of many critters

None among ‘em cares what glitters;

I don’t ever have to ponder

What to wear for going yonder.

From their place upon the wall

I remove my coverall;

Striped and roomy — though not chic —

Ain’t been washed for many a week.

I slip into my choring jacket,

Ripped and torn, it’s truly had it;

On my head a hat that’s tattered

Worn and frayed and cow-dung spattered.

I stick my feet in overshoes

Leaky, old and patched with glue;

Ragged gloves of yellow cotton,

One is torn, the other rotten.

Off I slog to feed the hogs,

Wallow deep in muddy bogs;

Feed the bums a little milk,

They don’t care I’m not in silk.

Sheep come running to the trough,

Blatting with their snuffy coughs;

Mare comes racing, her tail a kite,

She’s unconcerned my hair’s a fright.

Grazing bovines chewing cuds

Seldom criticize my country duds;

Cows consider me the norm

When they see my scuzzy form.

Rural image I confess

Has no style, no code of dress;

Though my garments aren’t in fashion

Still, they handle all the action.

So, when you choose a piece of meat

Wrapped in plastic, cut really neat,

Think of me a-toting slop

And shoveling up what critters drop! ❖


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