What profitable dairymen know is that you’ve always got to be expanding to survive. Being progressive requires it. But what do you do when you can’t? Find a way. This issue is full of examples of producers who have done just that. For example, take the dairy featured on this month’s front cover. Nunes Dairy is a 1,000-cow dairy in Buhl, Idaho. I recently visited the facility and spoke with the dairy’s owner, Jason Nunes. While my primary purpose for visiting wasn’t to talk about his current building project, we spent a portion of my visit discussing why he was doing it.

Yet another challenge to a common dairy practice recently crossed my desk. This time it is a proposal by the USDA under the Animal Welfare Act to regulate how newborn calves are treated from birth to about eight weeks old. Though only a proposed rule, it does suggest issuing a rule for limitations on the transporting, even the removal from the mother during some or all of that period. This would not be good for dairy farmers. It is not the first such challenge to dairy farming. It joins those that claim dairy farmers mistreat their cows, employ the wrong people, feed the wrong feed, give the wrong drugs, mishandle the waste, waste water and, to some, produce an unneeded product. More will come. How dairy farmers respond to those complaints will determine whether or not and the degree by which dairying survives in America.

Saga of the E-Harmony Bill Someone wise once said, “Teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.” Another wise man said, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” William J. H. Boetcker said:

I wrote of our Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP) Course a few articles ago. The facilitated portion of the course is now done. In this article, I comment on the course and what we accomplished.

This past month I visited Great Britain, specifically Scotland and England, for the first time.

On Memorial Day, we took our children to the cemetery to place flowers of the graves of our ancestors and to remember.As we wove in and out among the headstones, we noticed many faded flags waving among the new flags placed on the graves of veterans.

As I write this column, Memorial Day is two days away. We honor those countrymen and women serving around the world, including those wounded, injured and killed in action.

When a lifelong dairyman passes away, it’s hard. But when that man is your grandfather, it’s even more difficult to cope.

I remember sitting across from her in her living room. Her angel-white hair shining in the sunlight streaming though the window.

I am in our nation’s capital for two days. I’ve written about the first day, just completed, and described the second day that will follow tomorrow.