Sometime next month, dairyfield.com will go offline. Its unique features -- this blog, the Dairy Field archives and our Behind the Scenes photo gallery -- will be incorporated into dairyfoods.com, in a subsection reserved for Dairy Field Reports. There, I'll continue blogging, hopefully with a little more participation from you folks out there. Lord knows I've thrown enough Molotov cocktails here in the last two and a half years, surely there's something that gets you riled up.

Meanwhile, the new combined magazine is headed for the printer, poised to hit the streets by mid-January. Those who miss it in their mailboxes -- it might not fit; the thing's a phone book -- will get to see it at Dairy Forum, along with the final issues of the two former arch rivals.

Things will be different, and I look forward to receiving your comments about it. My goal remains as it has always been -- to visit with processors on their turf and learn from them how they help make this industry so great, through the efforts of some of the finest folks in the food and beverage business.

So keep watching for me and my reports from the field ...

- J.D.