Hard lessons learned are worth more if they are remembered. When my livelihood came from hauling hay to dairies and ranches in remote places in the Northwest, I was never stranded in the truck without food or drink. I recalled that knack when the solar eclipse came close enough to witness with minimal travel.

Changes come hard to most of us … no surprise there. Mention changes involving “engine emissions,” and the growls get even louder – and with some good reasons, I might add. Of course, changes are nothing new under the sun when it comes to engines and emissions standards.

I was having a discussion with Audrey the other day. I consider her kind of a kindred spirit, since she’s a farm girl turned journalist/editor who, like my wife, hails from a small-town dairy farm.

The USDA Cattle on Feed report was released Friday, and the news was neutral to longer term bearish. Marketings matched pre-report expectations; on-feed inventories were slightly heavy but again close to expectations, while placements were above the highest estimate for the range of expectations.

Corn silage and grain yields have steadily increased since World War II (Figure 1) with a slightly greater increase per year for corn grain than for corn silage, possibly reflecting an emphasis on corn grain improvement by plant breeders in the past decades.