Jeff needed a workin’ pen for his little herd of cows. He decided all he needed was some panels and a head gate. He rounded up some 16-foot panels of continuous fence, a metal head gate and two 8-foot posts.

When someone tells me they grew up on a dairy farm, I say, “You have paid your dues, my son.” The offspring of a dairyman that follows in his father’s footsteps is as scarce as a second-generation Nobel Prize winner, bomb dismantler or president of North Korea. So it is with pleasure that I congratulate those dairymen who are havin’ a heyday this year.

When you hear cowboys tellin’ stories, it’s common for a listener to say, “It’s a wonder you weren’t killed.”“Well, all I did was rope that sorry, no good, fightin’ bull with the crooked horn and tie him to a post in the corral, then throw another rope on him and tied it to the other side, then pulled him tight ’cause I was by myself, you know.

It all started because Jo wanted a small lawn behind the house. Tom encouraged her. Tom’s friend offered to lend them his heavy-duty, magnum, Humvee version of a tiller. Jo borrowed my Ram diesel to pick it up in Sierra Vista, 30 miles away. I received the call at sundown. She was broke down. “It won’t start.”

Man against beast is a theme in many a story, from days of yore to 21st-century wolves ravaging baby calves.It normally takes a hero to slay the dragon or sue the EPA.

The legalization of marijuana in Colorado has brought to a head a common point of contention that has happened in state after state. It is a generational change, a population shift that is the result of the inevitable roll of civilization. It also marks a shift from rural to urban.

I have been a travelin’ man a good part of my life. Most of my speakin’ jobs are Friday and Saturday nights, so Sunday means I’m usually on the road and headed home.For me, Sunday morning on the road is a good part of bein’ me. Nine times out of 10 I’m in a rent car drivin’ to an airport where I board a flight to a major hub where I connect to another flight that gets me within an hour of bein’ home.

I’ve got a year-old Australian Shepherd dog. I don’t intend to use him for livestock; his job will be barker. We live in a rural area. The dogs are penned at night and released during the day into a three-acre house and barn lot surrounded by shock-collar wire.

How should we as food producers interpret the media’s looming concern about headlines saying, “Rising Food Prices Bite Budgets.”Examples given from previous 12 months’ list of percentages increases show: ground beef, 4.9 percent; eggs, 5.7 percent; tomatoes, 6.9 percent; pork sausage, 8.7 percent; potatoes, 9.2 percent; fresh fish, 9.9 percent; and oranges, 12.2 percent.

“Bronc to Breakfast” is my favorite Charlie Russell painting. The scene represents the typical roundup out West. In the foreground is a campfire with cooking pots and pans on the fire or hanging from the crossbar.