Nothing quite stirs up an appetite like time outside on a cold winter day. And just as people need more energy when battling the cold, so do dairy calves.

This morning I climbed in my van and caught a glimpse of a silver thread of hair mingled with the normally brownish-gold ones. I wasn’t horrified or even sad. I deserve those sliver threads; after all I am at the tail-end of a half a century, and I have seen a few sunrises and sunsets in my young life.

I think it was the winter after the rabbit plague in the 80s. Leo and his nephew David were hauling fairly steady to the ranches south of Mountain City, Nevada. Lyle and I were doing our best to keep the closer-to-home dairymen happy and in feed.

Dear Editor, On the day that I recently hosted a Dairy Beef Quality Assurance program at my auction market facility, I was struck by the fact that on the front page of USA Today was an item that showed that 74 American Bar Association-approved law schools now offer courses in animal rights versus 12 in 1999. Why should we care about this?

One of the secrets of life is knowing how to take a fall; physical, financial or emotional. When you drop something, it breaks.

A growing number of today’s consumers of dairy products are not your father’s consumers. Today’s consumer is increasingly socially-conscious and willing to pay more money for products that they believe contribute to improved care for themselves, the animal, the land that it came from, the environment overall and their fellow earthly inhabitants.

Going “green” is the “in thing” for our world today. But just what does that mean? What is a carbon footprint?

The topic of “intensified feeding or accelerated growth” has garnered a great deal of discussion, and the concept has been applied in both research and on-farm trials in various ways. Much of this discussion involves differences in perspectives about how to best manage the nutrition and nutrient intake and weaning of the calf.

One of the hazards of being a colorful duck in the flock is that you are an easy target! In my travels, my “cowboyness” is routinely tested.

We cry for many reasons. I found two reasons today, November 5, 2008. I write about them in this article.