 Welcome to Frannie's Farm. I'm Frannie Fritz and you're southwest of Iroquois or southeast of Huron. A few miles out in the country, kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Well I was born and raised here. My dad died in 1973 and I had one year of high school up so I finished my, I graduated in 1974 and I had some money saved up for college so I went to SDSU and eventually I settled on animal science and I worked my way through college and got out of college with an animal science degree and a minor in dairy production. When I was in college and when I was taking my animal science classes, after about two years you start taking your major stuff, if I'd walk into a room and there was more than five women in the room, I quickly back out, check the room number, make sure I was in the right new room because there weren't women in animal science back then. If they were, they might have been there starting to get a vet degree somehow. Coming home to farm, there was bets in the community that I wouldn't last a year. It wasn't done. I was the feminist and believe me I'm so far from being a feminist that I think the truth. I just wanted to try. If I'd failed at it, then at least I tried. Mom was here with the farm and my sister and it was kind of like, come home and try since it was my major. Back then kids in college came home to farm and so I came home and I said, well, I guess if I don't try, I'm always going to regret it. That's 41 years ago. I graduated in May and I shipped my first milk the 15th of August of the same year and I milked cows for 10 years and was building a beef herd along with the cows. And pretty soon it was to the point, milk cows take a lot of time and I didn't want to do that and I wanted beef cows and switched over to beef cows and beef cows ever since. You just have to do things a different way. I probably can't use the brute force that men have because they have more strength than I have. I have to stop and think a while. Don't get me wrong when I need some serious help. I'm so blessed in this community that they've accepted me and they will come and help. But I don't abuse it. I'm more into cattle and grass. I've converted everything that used to be row crop or crop into either permanent grass or grass that's coming out and I'm trying something else. This year I planted a field of sane point. I don't know if it's going to work. I'm going to give a shot. So I'd say I'm more grass simply because that's what I can handle. I don't want to invest in the planter. I don't want to invest in the inputs. I don't want to beg somebody to come and do this or that for me. I've got a baler and a hydro swing and a tractor and I got cattle. That's what I got. I love what I do. I, you know, standing out there when the heifers, I don't get to do that very much. I should but I don't. And I love what I do. But I know that when I put a stake on the table for myself or whoever, there's a fair number of people that don't understand it. They think I'm the worst person on the face of the earth. But they don't know the hours that I've spent to save a baby calf or a pair that I couldn't say. They don't understand that. These calves, they're more to you than just a commodity. Oh yeah, too much so. Talk about that. Oh no, then I cry. It's a good life, but it's a stressful life. I mean, I'm sitting in a barn and here comes a cat and the calves are watching and you guys have been so nice and what other life can they have? They have all of this. His name's Petunia. I know. It's Petunia. I didn't know he was a boy.