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Cowboy Poetry With
Baxter Black
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The California Farmer |
by Baxter Black |
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The California farmer is Possessed of a mystique
The rest of us sodbusters hold in awe and find unique
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The abundance of their harvest, its variety and means
Is impressive to a farmer who grows corn and soybeans.
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Now, it's not that we're not farmers in New York or Minnesota
But there ain't a sprig of artichoke in all of North Dakota!
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Pistachios in Kansas and kiwis in Montana
Are scarcer than a fig tree in the state of Alabama.
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And where did they get kumquats? Is broccoli Japanese?
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And why do all their Holstein cows speak Dutch and Portuguese?
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But California's bounty isn't all just Providence,
Some credit should be given to its early immigrants.
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The California famer as evolved since he began.
The land of milk and honey drew a simple kind of man.
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They arrived with expectations in their worn out cars and boots.
They're amazed at their good fortune, they remember humble roots.
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'Cause they think that they're still dreamin', not sure it's gonna last
Like a starvin' cow that overnight is belly deep in grass.
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So, in spite of their production and hi tech economics,
They're just like us, they mostly read the market and the comics.
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Yup the California farmer, when you turn up all the lights.
Ain't nothin' but an Okie with a loan and water rights!
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Read comments or post your own comments to this article at the bottom of this page. |
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Baxter Black, was born in 1945 in a Brooklyn Naval Hospital, NY, as his dad was in the Navy. Baxter likes to say his birthday is on the second Friday of each January. He grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico and rode bulls in high school and college. As Baxter tells it, he spent most of his working life in the mountains west tormenting cows. Black now lives in Arizona and travels the country tormenting cowboys. He was trained as a large-animal veterinarian at New Mexico State University and Colorado State University, graduating in 1969. His first column was published in July 1980 in the Record Stockman , Denver, Colorado. Baxter explains: "The last company where I was working as a tech veterinarian changed hands and let me go. I was doing speaking on the side and people just kept calling, so here I am." |
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Since then, he has published over a dozen books of fiction, poetry, and commentary. He is a regular commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and also hosts a syndicated weekly radio program, Baxter Black on Monday, and writes a syndicated weekly DAILY NEWSpaper column, "On the Edge of Common Sense." He also hosts a program on RFD-TV. |
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Baxter Black can shoe a horse, string a barbed wire fence and bang out a Bob Wills classic on his flat top guitar. |
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Copyright © 2008 All rights reserved. The above article is the property of the Author and may not be duplicated or redistributed in any way without permission. |
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