The changing seasons and my constant struggle with those changes provides me with plenty of writing fodder. It seems that no matter what Ma Nature throws at me or lays at my feet, I can find a reason to whine about it. There are those around me who might use a different term to describe my incessant “complaining,” but I try to keep my musings as family-friendly as possible.

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.

Hard though it may be to believe, I am not the most tech-savvy guy crashing and burning his way along the information superhighway.

It seems that no matter where I go, or whomever I talk to, everyone thinks that his particular corner of the world has the worst or most unique weather in the world. People in my home country of southern Idaho are fond of whining about the wind, especially in the springtime.

The Matthews boys had gathered their cattle down off of the Camel Rock piece a few days before the real rank weather hit. The next day, Broden called to let us know he’d seen a pair of ours up on the hillside above Emerson Green Spring.

As the cold reality of winter sets in, and the daylight hours shrink, I think fondly of the bygone days of a few weeks ago – when the colors were just beginning to change, and Mother Nature still shed just enough light and warmth on the Heartland to encourage anything green to squeeze out its last tiny bit of growth.

In December, I made the trek to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to check out the Tulsa Farm Show. Oklahoma, in its best effort to make me feel at home, welcomed me with temperatures colder than what I left at home in Idaho.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well, but I was running late. I had to make the 230-mile drive to the Salt Lake airport to catch a flight to Dallas on my way to Tulsa.

Harold A.I.s a lot of cows. As a matter of fact, in my view, he’s kind of a rock star in the world of big Western herd A.I. Every spring he has big breeding projects lined up all over the Great Basin and Intermountain West.