Breeding season has a way of sneaking up on you. One minute you’re finishing up calving, and the next you’re turning bulls out or timing when to inseminate and hoping everything lines up the way it should. It’s a busy time, but it may also be the most important few weeks of the entire year.

There is not much in the world prettier than the cold morning sun hitting untouched snow. I’m not much of a skier or snowmobiler, but the sheer beauty of the glitter of a million diamonds under a late sunrise is impossible to deny, even for the most begrudging of winter enthusiasts.

It was a dreary April day this past spring in western Wisconsin. I spent the afternoon driving back from a cattle event, heading right to another community commitment I had that evening. That’s where I got the dreaded text, “Looks like 048 is calving.”

Cattle people are the same, no matter where you’re from, and you can always rely on finding a friend, new or old, when you find a gathering of “your people” – in this case, cattle folks.

One of my best childhood friends was named Fred. I trusted Fred implicitly, and never once did he let me down.

What can we say about the first round of Donald Trump’s chaotic effort to kick-start a trade war between Canada and the U.S.? Let’s just jump to the end and say wiser heads prevailed.