 We live 18 miles west of Cherry Creek, South Dakota here second-generation rancher on this place my mom and dad Attained this lease down here from the Shining River Shoe tribe in the in the late 60s and they Raised seven kids here, and I was the youngest and in 2003 I took over the lease and begin to operate it And you know growing up we had horses and cattle and it was a lot bigger country than I think it was just Two big pastures of the whole place, and so it was a lot different back Mom taught me to love dad taught me how to work hard You know back in the day one thing that I really point out is that Way back in the 70s when rural water came into our area dad and had a minstrel a couple pasture taps and Didn't have the money to to utilize that But it was here for me to do something with and so Everything that we've been done is it goes back to those two pasture taps that we could you know utilize and take the the lines out from there We are a cow-calf operation We cab out in the spring, but we used to cab in February and that was Always an extremely cold cold time We had a lot of difficulty with Getting to the cattle if we had a lot of snow trying to save the calves and We decided to switch to April-May calving We usually wean and sell calves in the fall usually first part of October in 2006 we had a really tough drought water was very scarce and our dams weren't good And so I reached out to the NRCS office because I heard that they could help with some water lines You know when I did it originally I did it for I will say selfish reasons because I just needed water for my cows you know I visit with them and they came down and we got to talking and the first initial visit and you know started educating myself on conservation and how you can you know change what you have and Utilize it so much better with with conservation practices putting water where we need it with water lines doing shelter belts also cross-fencing had never heard about rotating cattle before and with the benefits of that and so over the next year really sat down and looked and educated myself on How can we make this place the best that it can be you know? I've learned more from my producers like Bo Just through the years of different conservation practices then I've learned almost anywhere else I've learned a lot from dad and a lot just from other people about the importance of cross-fencing I've learned that it's it's really good for the environment as you can utilize every section of the pasture And they're not just kind of staying in one bunch and kind of using up that land the cross-fencing Has been tremendous once we got it in place because we we can put cows in there for 21 days and They'll utilize more of the pasture and then you kick them in the next place And they have fresh grass One of the first things I really noticed was erosion around the dams because with more watering places They're not concentrated on the best dam or and with water tanks. So the erosion stopped around the dams They're utilizing all corners of the pasture The lands repairing itself in those you know places that were eaten down around the best dams The soil that we have here is a shale and in the roads Especially you know dam grades and and stuff like that or high traffic areas It'll it'll get to running and and we'll wash out, you know pretty quick with the the more places to water our cattle And we you know was very careful in where we place the water tanks and so it has really helped that way I Noticed with bow. It was a it was a learning process for both of us He kind of had an idea what might work and definitely what wouldn't work down here. It's it's very unique you know we developed plans and I think it's it's been a great success, you know going from From two pastures to eight You know it sure has helped things, you know, I've seen the the health of the the rangeland Greatly improved, you know both talked about many different things that he has noticed has changed over the past You know ten years With the Bendigo Ranch down here It's it's mostly on tribal ground tribal lease with the Shrine River Sioux tribe It's managed by the BIA the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They kind of come up with a stocking rate Grazing plans, you know, they they're pretty good about listening to what you want to do as Far as your rotation, you know, you can only run so many head of cattle for so long You know with the practices after about five years. We went up. I think it was 44 head we could run more year-round and Just talking to the land specialists. They'd like to readdress that again because we've made more practices since then So it's getting better, you know all the time It's kind of a rarity to see people Want to improve the land because that they they see the bigger picture I mean, there's only so much land on this earth and we have to improve it the best we can Not only for ourselves, but the next next generation