Have you ever heard any of these thoughts expressed, or maybe they crossed your own mind?

• “If Dad would just give up some power ….”
• “If Mom would just say what’s on her mind ….”
• “If the kids just had a work ethic ….”
• “If he hadn’t married her, we’d be fine.”

The Forage & Grassland Foundation is offering a first-ever John E. Baylor memorial scholarship of $1,000 for undergraduate college students in their sophomore, junior or senior year with a major related to the growing and/or feeding of forage to livestock.

This has been a really good year for many of our county’s farmers, particularly our beef farmers. One sign that we have had a good year are the number of calls I fielded about ways to avoid or divert potential tax issues prior to Dec. 31, 2014.

Old Mother Nature can surely be a crafty old gal; just ask anyone in Texas and Oklahoma who suffers through a three-year drought twice a decade or the folks in Iowa, Illinois or Ohio who were trying to calve in 2 feet of snow last spring.

Datamars Inc., a manufacturer of livestock identification ear tags, has announced the introduction of its new Z Tags brand Z2 No-Tear-Tagging System for livestock.

Western United Dairymen (WUD) along with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Audubon California announced an innovative new conservation project to boost habitat and outreach work for the threatened tricolored blackbird of California.

Tom and Tammy Boatman, Rockford, Illinois, were selected as the 2015 Hereford Herdsman of the Year at the National Western Stock Show (NWSS) in Denver.