I’m officially pointing out that the dog days of summer have arrived.  For you that enjoy trivia, the dog days of summer refers to the hottest, most humid period of summer, typically from late July to early September. The name originates from ancient times, specifically from the star Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (the Greater Dog).  Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that Sirius, also known as the “Dog Star,” added to the sun’s heat during the hottest part of the summer. Now, don’t ever tell me you haven’t learned something from reading my column.

The reason I bring up the dog days of summer is the fact that the month of July this year was actually very tolerant, fortunately, because we had nearly three weeks of clouds and rain.  If you haven’t traveled through Central Texas recently, let me tell you it looks absolutely amazing. The pastures have changed from brown, short grass to belly high green grass everywhere. When you drive in the pastures and honk your horn, two things can possibly happen. First of all, you might get stuck really easily and secondly, you may notice that the cows aren’t nearly as needy as they were back in January and February. They kind of remind me of a teenager — they acknowledge you exist, but they really don’t think they need you until they want something. The calves are growing bigger and heavier right before our eyes and many of us will be cashing them in the next two months, which is something everyone is excited about.

This next week, I will be traveling to College Station for the Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course, and I am really excited to hear and learn more from some of the best-informed speakers in the cattle industry. I’m guessing that most of us will be interested in hearing the latest on the screwworm problem, weather predictions by our own Brian Bledsoe, and of course, the cattle market forecast and herd inventory prediction. For you that haven’t heard, last Friday the USDA’s monthly cattle-on-feed showed on feed numbers as of July 1^st were lower than expected at 98.4 percent of last year versus 99.2 percent forecast. On the same day, USDA’s bi-annual cattle inventory report was released with total cattle and calf inventory as of July 1, 2025, at 94.2 million head compared to 95.40 million head on July 1, 2023.

Being a good Aggie, I’m used to seeing unexpected things go wrong and to be honest with you, I think most people in agriculture feel the same way. We don’t expect markets to stay strong, we don’t expect the consumer to continue paying higher for beef, chicken, eggs, milk, vegetables and other types of food. But at the same time, consumers don’t appear to have stopped buying $7 coffee drinks at Starbucks or $15 for a salad at Chipotle or $5 for eight small pieces of chicken from Chick-fil-A. Why do we keep looking into the sky wondering when it is going to start falling? I don’t believe that the modern American consumer is the same consumer of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s or in other words, the past. Today’s consumer buys what they want, when they want it. If they have the money (which most of them do) the only problem is they don’t know how to save it or how to do without.

I hope to see many of you in College Station but if not, trust me, Martha Holllida will be publishing some interesting and informative articles in the upcoming months so don’t stop reading and please stop looking up in the sky to see if it’s falling.