(Photo: The Weekly Times)

Is this hay too risqué?

A farmer in Western Australia is defending his “pornographic” hay sculpture after neighbors called the police to remove it, and he’s found an army of bonking-bale supporters online to support him.

Bruce Cook, owner of the Katus Point Charolais stud farm, decided to have a “bit of fun” promoting his business and erected a model of, well, a bull and cow doing what nature intended them to do. Call it a roll in the hay, perhaps.

The cheeky roadside structure earned plenty of chuckles from many locals in the farming town of Lake Charm near Kerang, but not all were amused. Grumbles from some neighbors sent the police calling for the romantic couple to come down. Cook told the local Weekly Times newspaper that one officer warned he could be charged with “publishing pornographic images.”

No way, said Cook, who then added two calves and nighttime lighting to up the ante. His friend Melinda Davison posted photos of the growing family to the Facebook group supporting the new local sensation, “We Say the Hay Stays.”

“Utterly cute!” says one supporter. (Photo: Facebook)

Cook vows he won’t be intimidated by threats of prosecution and refuses to remove the sculpture. “I’m just a slow farm boy with a weird sense of humor,” he told Australia’s Guardian newspaper, adding that people have to have dirty minds to see obscenity. “I don’t see it — I’ve got problems with my eyes, but I don’t see any hassles with that.”

Pro-bull locals are having fun with the story. “Welcome to Kerang: You Will Have a Shaggin’ Time,” one supporter posted to the Facebook page. In addition, there is an Internet petition to “Save the Bull Hay Bales.”

While detractors are calling the structure “offensive, crude, and in the very least, in very bad taste,” the world is having a blast with the story. (And of course, cue the puns: bale money, the last straw, and so on.)

(Photo: The Weekly Times)

Over 6,644 people voted in support of the sculpture in an online survey taken by the Weekly Times, which broke the story a week ago. Since then, Cook has been showered with media attention from places far, far, away from his corner of south Australia.



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Not in the least overwhelmed, the Aussie is basking in the attention and has printed T-shirts to support his cause. He tells the Guardian: "When Channel Seven came here, they said I might be nervous — I said, no nerves no nothing.”

The Weekly Times reports that Cook plans to also print bumper stickers that the many visitors to the structure can take in return for a donation to charity.

What legal challenge is forthcoming, if any, remains to be seen, but Leanne Talbot comments on the petition website: “On the positive side…. The world will know where Kerang is!!!”