 When we first moved on to the place, the thing I remember the most was it was a monoculture almost of needle grass, a needle and thread. There had been a pretty significant stocking of the place, so the diversity on the rangeland here was almost non-existent. Beyond the house here, there was only one other source of water, so we had pretty significant trailing and and erosion because of that. It's very sandy soil and so we contacted the NRCS in Sturgis. I believe it was Daryl Vig, was the conservationist at that time and he did just, he really helped us out, helped us put together a plan for a water system, for cross fencing, the start of planting trees. We planted the first trees with Daryl's advice and since then we've planted about 30,000 trees. You know there's a lot of scars on the landscape that was created from from people a hundred years ago and not to say what they were doing was negative or perceived as negative at the time but we still deal with some of those effects now and you know I really feel what they're doing here is positively affecting the landscape and those are going to be things that future generations are going to be able to see for years and years to come. This is so much more than just stewardship of the land. It's about modeling the behaviors that we all should have whether we're a homeowner in town, a 10 acre ranch at or a 10,000 acre ranch. The principles that the Leopold Award stands for and that the Comax put in to play every single day here on every acre of this ranch are something that we should all reach for. My grandfather and my dad have a deep love for everything wild whether it be birds or flowers or plants so we kind of grew up my brothers and I not only working on the ranch but learning what the birds are the name of the range plants knowing all the wildlife enjoying hunting fishing things like that. There's a misconception among people that grazing cattle is not good for the environment and I look at these pieces of property where we have intact ecosystems because that property is still able to be grazed by cattle produce revenue for us we're benefiting wildlife that ecosystems is intact whereas if we weren't able to graze cattle on that ecosystem that ecosystem would probably at some point have been farmed under and would be growing row crops and not that there's anything against row crops but these ecosystems are intact still today because we're able to graze cattle to benefit the wildlife and this as well. The reason I really enjoy working with Gary and Reid is just their observance of what's happening in the range to go out there with those guys and just look at all the different forbs and grasses out there and just watch them kind of observe and evaluate the range is just really tells me that they've got the long-term interest in their pastures at the forefront. When we moved on to the place there was no wildlife those things have always been important to us so we started focusing on some things that we could do to help attract them and also to get some diversity back into the ranch where we've got some carrying capacity to make the operation viable. The whole thing was truly a family affair because we were trying to build a business and build a ranch at the same time. Amy did a lion's share of the work when it come to feeding the livestock and we had four sons involved and when it come to planting the trees preparing those seed beds and helping do some cross-fencing and all that sort of thing huge part of it was family. When we move our cattle because they're used to the rotational grazing you just go to the gate and you haul our kumbos kumbos and they are ready to come and they just come and go through and shut the gate behind them it works really well and it doesn't take them very long to train them that way. Last year when we had the terrible drought we had a new pasture every week where if we had just had the seven original or what we'd had before we'd only had seven weeks worth of grazing and that way we had 13 weeks worth of grazing and every week they have new grass and every time you put them on fresh grass it makes them eat, grow better, look better. We're seeing very good benefits. They're very knowledgeable about what they're doing they have purpose in what they're doing and it's not just to earn some cost share they're they're truly trying to to improve the place and they're very well thought out about what they do and it's it's it's all for the future generation and you get that sense every time you work with them. It's been a fun experience going through the process of taking a piece of property that had been abused in the past putting some inputs into it putting some good management into it and watching how that property really really bloom it's great to see that people are starting to recognize native range as something of great value. The Leopold Conservation Award it's not just a plaque that you hang on the wall it is accepting the responsibility to continue to spread the word and to share the things that you've learned over the years share the the knowledge the successes the failures it's about leaving it better than you found it. We are honored beyond words to receive this award.