A lifetime spent in the pursuit of happiness, quite often generally and specifically in pursuit of a cow, in some form or another, has taught me nothing if it hasn’t taught me the world of agriculture is full of paradox and Renaissance men and women.

I was enjoying a dandy start to the new year. January was like a heavenly dream. We’d had some snow and a couple of cold stretches in late December, but the first few weeks of the year felt more like April than January.

The changing seasons and my constant struggle with those changes provides me with plenty of writing fodder. It seems that no matter what Ma Nature throws at me or lays at my feet, I can find a reason to whine about it. There are those around me who might use a different term to describe my incessant “complaining,” but I try to keep my musings as family-friendly as possible.

I was having a discussion with Audrey the other day. I consider her kind of a kindred spirit, since she’s a farm girl turned journalist/editor who, like my wife, hails from a small-town dairy farm.

Hard though it may be to believe, I am not the most tech-savvy guy crashing and burning his way along the information superhighway.

The Matthews boys had gathered their cattle down off of the Camel Rock piece a few days before the real rank weather hit. The next day, Broden called to let us know he’d seen a pair of ours up on the hillside above Emerson Green Spring.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well, but I was running late. I had to make the 230-mile drive to the Salt Lake airport to catch a flight to Dallas on my way to Tulsa.

Harold A.I.s a lot of cows. As a matter of fact, in my view, he’s kind of a rock star in the world of big Western herd A.I. Every spring he has big breeding projects lined up all over the Great Basin and Intermountain West.