I rode shotgun through some of Anderjaska’s summer pastures last Monday. As we looked at their commericial and registered Angus herd, the sky was gloomy. The clouds teased with a few sprinkles, but, like so many times this summer, moved along before offering reprieve.

Hitting 60 percent Choice won’t cut it. When premium Choice branded programs emerged, it was really something to get 15 percent or 20 percent that reached those marbling levels in commercial cattle. That’s when it was incidental production, or luck of the draw that landed those cattle in branded programs.

The 2012 report includes TCSCF retained ownership records from cattle fed in 18 cooperating yards that used common nutrition, health and management strategies.

But just a few decades later, many of those wildest imaginations are real. When the second of the Hanna- Barbara duo (the company that also created the likes of “Tom and Jerry,” “The Flintstones,” “Smurfs” and “Scooby- Doo”) died in 2006, Roombas were already cleaning floors while you were gone to work.

“In order for a crossbreeding operation to maximize heterosis, it takes a lot of different pasture, a lot of management, which, because of size and time, a lot of people can’t devote to it,” says Jarold Callahan, president of Express Ranches, Yukon, OK.

“The matrix of what drives total CAB pounds starts with that, and then it would be the percent that’s black-hided,” he says. “Then we apply our 10 carcass specifications to narrow that down even further, so that we’re running right at 24 percent today.

Students emerge from the school system ready to take on the world. Giving each one of them that chance was the impetus for the No Child Left Behind Act. The bill passed in 2001, meaning this year’s high school class spent most of its education course under the influence of what became a controversial law.

The articles that follow those zingers all explain different facets of the supply and demand equation. Beef prices are up because of a shrinking cowherd, accelerated by drought. Cattle prices are 25 percent higher than this same time a year ago, but can they stay there? That all depends on whether the consumer is willing to pay.

Flood water forces the exodus of cattle to higher ground. Drought does the same on a wider scale, only to greener ground. And in the case of wild fires, tornados and other natural disasters, there might not even be time for that.

Take good food, turn up the tunes, add a handful of tried and true buddies and a reason to celebrate, and you have a party. Everyones definition of a good bash is different, however.