 The education process for us started when we moved on this place, and I will tell you it's never ending. I remember one time when I was plowing, my dad says, you got to get over to the fence closer so we can get two more rows of corn there. And I just thought, I just like grass too much to plow that good grassland under, it just bothered me. So I just kind of thought I got to find something a little different. How do we manage not only the native prairie soils, but how do we manage the crop ground to get our soil structure back to where it should be? That's the real challenge that we have. I think the first step is to understand and gain an understanding of what we're dealing with in the native prairie soils. We started no tilling and then, you know, the cowboy side of the operation started looking at, you know what, we need to start doing some things like this with the cattle. We started rotating pastures, putting cross fences in, using our livestock on our farm ground and utilizing that roughage that we don't have to go putting a bale that we don't have to start a tractor in the wintertime and feed. And then the nice thing about the cows is everything they take off that ground, they leave there. So, you know, it's just kind of a circle and it's been working really well for us. 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. Soil is our biggest resource and it's necessary for us to treat it, you know, as best as we can so that it's never a question about whether or not we should conserve our resources. It's just how we can, how we can do it best. We planted some of the crop ground or what had been crop ground to grass almost right away. And it was neat to see the native plants come back. The ranch has been a hands-on experiment in prairie ecology since the beginning for me. And every time I see a new species or a different forb or different grass, it's exciting for me. That's probably the thing I've enjoyed the most about watching this place evolve. I don't think anybody really gets into agriculture, you know, without kind of having that family component in mind. It's an industry and a way of life that just promotes family and, you know, we're not farming for this year. We're farming for my kids, my kids' kids. And if you don't have that kind of mentality going into it, then you're really not in it for the right reasons. It's all about the future. If you really stop and think, we are only owners of this property for a very short period of time. Everything we do must have the next generation in consideration. I would feel like I was a failure if I didn't pass on what I've learned in my lifetime to my children. And hopefully they'll do the same thing for their children because all the practices that we've installed in this ranch, the minute I turn over the management to my son or to the next generation or next owner, if we don't teach, it's lost. 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 knowledge, the successes, the failures. It's about leaving it better than you found it. Well-known conservationist Aldo Leopold said, the landscape of any farm is an owner's portrait of himself. It's our goal to portray the portrait that leaves a legacy for others to follow that we can be proud of.