Grandma always advised, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth." But granddad never bought a horse without checking its teeth. They eloped to Blackfoot, Idaho, in 1906 and were married more than 50 years while raising cattle and horses. The omnibus budget bill of 2016 was wrangled at a huge "horse trading remuda," otherwise known as Congress’ annual game of showdown poker characterized by continuing budget resolutions against a backdrop of threatened federal government shutdown.

On a side street along the northern edge of Utah State University, a modest two-story brick building houses a research facility wherein the discovery of the causes of cleft palate in calves and goat kids has led to the prospect of intrauterine repair of cleft palate in human fetuses.

It is in small details that Charlie Yegen sees fall calving as an advantage over traditional spring births in the northern latitudes of the U.S.: “No scours; no frozen ears.”

Sitting around the kitchen table on a sunny fall afternoon – 3 to 4 inches of new snow on the pasture – Melissa and Scott Zentner reviewed decisions they made this year.

When considering the effects of the 2014 farm bill, ranchers should keep their chaps on. It’s a rough ride through the gullies and draws of 959 pages. There are cacti, mesquite and sagebrush enough for everyone and will keep agricultural interests hagglin’ for another five years until the next mud-wrestle-in-the-feedlot comes around.

It’s the thick of autumn, with calves coming off grass, funneling into cattle markets across the Great Northern Plains and intermountain West.

An E. coli outbreak in a major Canadian slaughter plant turned the country into a net importer of beef during the fourth quarter of 2012. According to figures supplied by Canfax in Calgary, Alberta, Canadian beef production and exports were sharply curtailed after an outbreak of the lethal bacteria at XL Foods slaughter and processing center in Brooks, Alberta. “The plant closure certainly had a major impact on exports,” said Brian Perillat, manager/senior analyst at Canfax. “In the fourth quarter, Canada was actually a net importer of beef.”

Editors note: Click here to read the first of this two part series. No story of the American West can be told without including a strong sense of place. Is landscape a determinant? What about weather and its much older cousin, climate?