 We were building a cow herd and we lost 90% of it in that Atlas blizzard and we spent quite a few years rebuilding after that mess and we went through a lot of hard times and having to figure stuff out and not go broke and we were we were broke we were trying to pay off debt from that and working jobs in town and trying to irrigate and raise crops and we were we were doing everything the experts were telling us that we needed to be doing when we were going backwards and we couldn't get our heads above water and our quality of life is horrible and we knew we had to get stuff figured out we had to do things a different way because what we were doing wasn't working and and so about that time my folks wanted to slow down and retire and so we were given the opportunity to buy them out and come back here and lease this place from them and and take on some other leases and this was coming off the drought of 16 and 17 and we were completely out of grass and we were out of feed and we knew that if we came here and did that same thing we'd be we'd go broke real fast and we knew we had to get it together and figure this out and I contacted Tants and Mitch at NRCS and we we started coming up with a plan I attended a grazing school that fall and knew what I needed to do to get going I also attended a ranching for profit two-day clinic and then I I took their full seven-day ranching for profit school that winter and that really got me jump-started on our goals what we needed to do to accomplish to make this work and not go broke my dad's been doing this new thing so we've been given the grass a lot of rest in order to have your animals healthy your ranch healthy your bills paid you have to have the grass there to sustain everything that you have so we use electric fence most of the time we're looking at putting in a lot of permanent fence 40 acre pastures so we can move continuously around and rest the pastures and when you get that rest your pasture just gets a little time to get more grass and get a little bit litter and get the moisture that it needs my dad was first interested when we moved here from Furtdale he went to a grazing school and I asked dad can I come with you and that kind of started the whole snowball effect and then I got into grazing so I've went that year I went to so many grazing schools and holistic management schools working with your cattle better all that stuff and that just kind of started my love of grass it's a big part I want to be a rancher and do a lot of range science when I get older out of college it's just something that I'm passionate in without the grass nothing's really gonna stay here we need the grass to sustain life I believe kids with work ethic and skill are gonna rule the world and that's our goals for parenting and our kids all each have different things they like to do we do try to do everything together as a family a passion of mine that that I'm working on is teaching youth if we can teach these kids a different way of looking at things maybe they can make wise decisions in their future endeavors and Dallas Mount with ranching for profits said that why are we waiting until everybody's 40 and broke before they come to the school why don't we we start earlier and so they started a youth ranching for profit in Wyoming two years ago and last year we were able through their South Dakota grassland coalition to get him to come to to South Dakota and we had 43 of of the brightest kids I've ever seen come through that school and I know that we made an impact on their lives there's a real quality of life to living here in the West and a lot of it is because of our open spaces and to see young people realize that and hold that as valuable is really encouraging to me and talking to Carly you talk about not just the biodiversity of grasslands but they're a natural system here they're self-containing and functional and that's the beauty of of ranches is we're producing food in fiber on this landscape but doing it in a way that's as sustainable as any system can be and really what it does is it just keeps our biodiversity and our natural systems together which is great for wildlife and open spaces clean air clean water everything that we're always looking for if you're gonna be a good range manager you need to have pasture time and I keep seeing that come up with the with the cameras they keep talking about spending time out in the pasture it's a little more work moving cattle but we get to have pasture time we get to spend time looking at the grass and that's that goes back to what does nature want and you can't answer that question if you're not spending time out in the pastures looking and analyzing what your management is doing when the opportunity came for them to move back to the camera ranch here and be the sixth generation apart from the two of them I don't know if anyone was happier than me because I'm I'm the biggest fan of young couples getting back into agriculture and particularly when that connection goes generations deep like it does here in the West so often now three years in and when this video airs four years in to managing the camera ranch we already see these improvements and it's thanks to thoughtful consideration of God's creation and how they can be stewards I'm doing something that I love that I've been raised on helping make an improvement for my family and for the animals that are living on here and will live on here in the future making the footprint that I want to that fuels my love for the stuff