Our winter period is a slog, at least this year. The snow is old, the wind does not slow, and the sediments saturate the white layer of ice.

This month I asked seven- and eight-year-olds in Dalhart, Texas, to draw for me how they think dairy cows live today.

Editor’s note: The following opinion editorial was submitted by the author in response to recent articles written about U.S. ethanol production and ethanol mandates.

I visited with my daughter’s English teacher today.It was one of those parent-teacher conversations where you find out what’s missing in the grade book. “There’s only one assignment missing. She needs to write an essay about how she feels about liberty and turn it in by Monday. That will bring up her grade.”

Reporting to you from Ft. Bragg Army Base, North Carolina …

Every once in a while we’ll see a poll question that will garner an above-average number of responses. Last issue’s question was one of those. Late in January, I received the following letter from Timothy Jenck, a dairy farmer in Tillamook, Oregon.

After I graduated from college with my bachelor’s degree, I had the rewarding opportunity to work with the Youth Conservation Corp, a program to meet the needs of teens in a summer camp situation.

Dad keeps about 75 yearling and bred heifers in an 80-acre pasture just across the section line from the dairy. Here awhile back, he’d started having trouble with some wild dogs bothering them, so he’d been keeping a watch ful eye and a loaded gun.

A recent article published on January 13, 2008, in the New York Times written by Andrew Martin was titled: “In the Farm Bill, a Creature from the Black Lagoon.” The premise of the article: Federal taxpayer dollars should not be spent on construction costs for a waste storage facility on a large livestock farm, especially those that are expanding.

This issue begins what I hope will be a tradition for our magazine in the future. We highlight how some women in the dairy industry have made a direct impact on their dairy and how motivated women might be able to contribute more both to their dairy and to the dairy industry.