 I'm Levi Newhart. And I'm Crystal Newhart. And we farm on Prairie Paradise Farms in Stanley County, South Dakota. We run about 2,300 acres of farm ground, about 3,000 acres of grass. We have a very diverse crop rotation, do rotational grazing, have diversity in our animals. We used to be season long grazers, and we started splitting our pastures up into smaller sections and just doing a once over thing. Well, now one of the things that we're implementing is more of a twice over to keep the living root longer, to try to capture that photosynthesis longer throughout the grazing season, not just hitting it once and then the plant goes dormant later on in the season, trying to have that living root going as much as possible. We've also turned some farm ground back into grass. We seeded it, and the first year it didn't quite look really good, but then the next year it just really blossomed and has really helped the wildlife aspect. The pheasants and deer really love all the cover that it has brought to the area, and they use it for nesting and having little ones and cover during hunting season. So that's been one of the benefits of that grass planting. I've been good friends with David, Levi's dad since middle school probably, so we go back a long ways since way before Levi was even born. When David started farming it was all conventional till, and overgraged pastures as far as you can see, that's just what everybody did. And he started out doing that too. We both knew that it wasn't right, but it didn't really click until we got that old doing back, and then things kind of fell into place, that this was the wrong way to do it, and we started doing it the right way, and then things just went from bad to really good in a quick hurry, and the wildlife deal just falls into place. It's just been a really good opportunity to be able to come into the soil health journey with my father. When we started in this heavy soil with the no-till, we definitely had some challenges. We had that heavy soil one that plugged things up and wanted to fight with this, and that's where it took a lot more drive and desire to get her done. I'd be on the phone with Dwayne and thinking I was doing something wrong, and he said, no, that's the environment you live in until you get that under control. It's an ongoing process, but it's come a long ways. As you can see, Levi's been trying a lot of different things and really had an open mind and had a lot of good support from his wife, and I've been there to try to support him. On the grass, we've put it into our rotational grazing, and it's really been a good thing for us as far as getting more area to put livestock onto the ground. We've also in that area put up new fencing around the whole section of expired CRP and old hay ground and are turning that into our rotation as well, not just taking off all the carbon, but keeping the carbon there and trying to get more diversity in the grasses and forbs. Dr. Dwayne Beck always told us, stop and walk out into nature and just have a look. See what she's been doing. She's been doing it best for way longer than we have, and so if we can sit there and we can take in what we're seeing, and a lot of them have to do with the five principles of soil health, and they're not just for croplands, they're for grasslands too, and if you can take what you learn from Mother Nature and apply it to what we're doing, you can become more successful. Well the ultimate goal of regenerative agriculture, and that goes beyond no-till. No-till is a tool. The ultimate goal is to try to mimic the natural energy, water, nutrient cycles and the diversity that you find on the native landscape. People like Levi and Dave and Crystal, doing the things they're supposed to be doing, don't get a lot of direct atta boys and awards for doing that. I mean everything in our politics is focused on how much can you produce and how short a period of time and how quick can you get it out of here. You know the Leopold Award, we reward management practices and inclusion of livestock and also attention to wildlife. You know the grandkids being involved like they are and taking an interest, we've been very blessed to see them take a hold from the oldest Jonathan right down to the youngest Katie. I mean it's not going to end. You can see that the heart's there and they enjoy what they're doing. My favorite thing to do is like milking because we've got this new double milker that we use. It's fun because we're almost always taking goats down and putting new goats up because it melts so fast. I like to help my mom with tiny dinosaurs. I like helping her getting the bottles and I like helping her melt. My favorite thing to do on the farm is probably watering animals. We're just very grateful and excited for our kids to be excited about agriculture. Not everybody is fortunate enough to have their kids want to do what we do. They're important members of their community. They are sometimes I guess showcase or folks that others can look up to about what they might be doing on their place. I don't remember exactly how we connected with Levi and Crystal about the letter of support but it was easy to do because I saw so many benefits from what's going on out here and the fact that they like to share that knowledge and share their experience with others. I mean they live and breathe conservation and they're making it work for them. They're working with nature and not against it and they're teaching others to do the same thing. I think those key things lead to the fact that they deserve this award. I'm very proud of what Levi and Crystal and the kids are doing and I think this Leopold Award helps to reward them a little bit on what they're doing and how they're doing it. It's very rewarding to see that our hard work is making a difference and we want to continue to share our message.