Recently, our community held a fast for rain. The drought here has been the worst in my lifetime. Arizona has always been dry, but now it is burning up. We didn’t get the usual winter snow and spring rains, so we are fearful of forest fires – and with good reason.

Southern Italy can be a tough place to live. My girlfriend is a hardened product of its streets. She rode the public bus two hours to school each day while ignoring the perverse catcalls of nefarious men (and once a slap in the face from an old woman).

We all know dairy farmers are some of the smartest, most innovative and creative people in the world. Who else gets to do everything and be everyone? We get to be accountants, doctors, teachers, chefs … heck, some of us even have a bit of interest in robotics, microbiology, genetics, nutrigenomics and environmentalism.

As a young farmer, I dreamed of raising super-excellent crops to feed our dairy cattle, especially since I had very limited acreage. A couple years after I started farming here, I had a dairy analyst in to mate my dairy cows. The man also did a little part-time farming on the side.

News flash! It’s hot again today. You know what? I’ll bet you a dollar it’s gonna be hot again tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that, and the … all the way up to about Sept. 22.

A list of risk factors for the most common infectious foot lesion, digital dermatitis (DD, also known as hairy heel warts, Mortellaro’s disease), includes multiple aspects related to the cow, the farm’s management and environment.

Due to greater reproductive efficiency, gendered semen and improvements in heifer rearing, heifers make up a larger proportion of our milking herds today. As a result, the milking herd could see better performance if its heifers are well grown and “ready to get to work” when they freshen.

It is a wonder some vet students don’t get discouraged. I don’t mean from the grueling hours of study, the four years without sleep or the daunting specter of trying to cram 10 metric tons of knowledge into a 6-ounce brain.

America's Top Ten favorite flavors.

On behalf of Progressive Dairyman, we are pleased to bring you this issue of our magazine, with a special focus on new facilities and design.