Two years ago, my frustrated son sarcastically asked me, “Dad, could you make our steer feeding program any more complicated?”

“I accept your challenge,” is the reply that every parent should respond to a sarcastic child.

" ... just because we are in a production mode doesn’t mean we can’t take time to study marketing."

Dave keeps a shoebox on his closet shelf. He uses it to put his odds and ends in, things he empties out of or puts back into his pockets whenever he changes. Every so once in a while, when I get a spring-cleaning burr under my saddle, I’ll muck out the closet – and with it, the shoebox.

I help grow, harvest and feed hay and other forages on our family farm, which is downwind from a small town. If I had a dollar for every plastic grocery bag, beer can, dog food bag, trampoline, shed roof, golf ball and mylar balloon I picked out of a hayfield or bale, it would put me in a higher tax bracket.

“Son, your barn is a mess,” I said.
“Don’t touch a thing in there,” he answered.