 My great-grandfather homesteaded the Grandview Angus Ranch back in the early 1880s if I was born and raised here. My grandfather and father were both real interested in conservation and preservation of wildlife. So they entered into the first Great Plains contract in South Dakota, which was in March of 1958. Contract consisted of building dams and dugouts, shoulder belts, and collivation of them, terraces. There were some dykes put in and ground stabilization. They did some interceding of alfalfa and native grasses and one of the things my grandfather was quite concerned about was we're right here along the Missouri River and they built the dam down at Fort Randall and when the reservoir flooded here there was a lot of trees and and cover for wildlife down along the river and so he was real concerned about that. So part of the Great Plains contract he wanted to make sure that a wildlife habitat windbreak was put in so that was 16-acre wildlife windbreak was installed. But some of the challenges right now, like last year, we had so much precipitation that river hills are there's a lot of slide areas developing. This year we had to replace a lot of fences that the area had slid and the fences were down and buried. Another one of the challenges is what I call the green glacier of cedar trees taking over a pasture along the river. The red cedar along the river has developed in more of a challenge. When I first came home I my dad had about 120 pairs down in the river pasture and last year I was only able to have a 85 down there. With the amount of moisture we had I could have had more but last year, but that's kind of what I've been shooting at. To get rid of the red cedars of this probably five six years ago the conservation district came out with their grinder and in a couple areas down in the hills they eliminated the cedars with that. I joined the burn association. The county's kind of long the Missouri River here. I would like to try and burn some in the future, but I'm getting old enough to try and get an area ready so that you can safely burn it. It's kind of a problem for me. Plus the good burn season is right during calving season, so it's kind of hard to take time off. Our ranch here has a variety of terrain. We start here on the east side of the river. It's kind of flat for some farmland, but as you go west it gets hillier and as you get down in the river hills that's where that's a lot of slide areas. There's what we call manganese hills or there are black hills where really nothing nothing grows on them. A few years ago we bought a pasture up north where we earlier today we moved the cattle out of. When we got that pasture it had been overgrazed for quite a few years, so that was kind of the area that I started with cross fencing and rotational grazing to try and get that back into better use. Over the years I have had the opportunity to work with Louie and we've done some planning and implemented some cross fences and some waters so he could do some more rotational grazing. With the rotational grazing and cross fencing I realized that I didn't have as much runoff anymore into my stock dams, which is good. You're taking the moisture and using it for growing grass is what you want to, but didn't have a reliable water source. So that's when we went with the NRCS and they helped me put in pipelines and some more cross fences and tanks and so I could develop my grazing from that. Early in the season I may be four or five days in a apathetic before I move to another one and on the cool season grasses. Once you get on top here and on the flat you get more of the lomi soils and that kind of stuff and so you see a lot more invasive species like the brome and Kentucky bluegrass and I think Louie has been doing a really good job of taking advantage of that stuff and you know when it's growing early in the spring and it's growing fast he's trying to move through them quickly to get it utilized and then it gets us some rest and then comes back and hits it again. So he's he's doing what he needs to to stay productive and keep the ground productive. So his rotational grazing has really I feel like made a big difference in his plant communities out there. I guess my my plan was with rotational grazing and everything was to hopefully that I was would be able to survive a dry year by having pastures in better shape so that I could make it through those dry years and I was able to make it through it. The first year that I actually started in Chamberlain he let us have a tour out here on his place. We got to showcase what he was doing and show other people the good things that he was doing and the grass that he was growing through his rotational grazing and resting. He also has been gracious enough to let us use his land to do some rangeland days so we could educate the kids and teach them how to identify grasses and soil types and rangeland sites and that kind of stuff. He's allowed us to do that out here on his place too. Depending on what time of year it is a good day going out is to go out when I'm calving and find several life calves and not have to worry about bad weather. There's something about being out with nature and seeing calving and it's something that just makes you want to stay here and continue doing this.