 It wasn't so hard to change to no-till for Monty and I as it was for our dad to let us do that because we hadn't been here that long. Between Mike and Danny and I, we decided that, you know, this is the step we need to take and go to 100% no-till. So we went and talked to him and that was quite a shock to him and couldn't believe we wanted to get rid of all this whole line of machinery to start farming this way and basically told us we were pretty much crazy but, you know, it was our decision and we went ahead with it and within a year or two he was the biggest advocate of no-till there was. So same with every generation, you want to try something new and the older generation says we've always done it this way and this was a step that we took and it's been a good one. You know, and I can remember a conversation, we have a neighbor that's probably one of the first no-tillers in the county about seven miles west of us and the talk was that he's going to lose the farm. He just went sold his drill, sold his mulberry plow, bought a drill and a sprayer and we just knew he was going to lose the farm and it wasn't too long later, a year later, we were doing the same thing. No-till farming is not disturbing not only the ground but last year's residue so it lays there on top, it holds the moisture, it holds the weeds down it keeps the soil from running away, keeps the nutrients from being washed away keeps the wind from blowing the soils away. No-till is not something you can do the first year and see instant results. It takes years to build up the soil where it needs to be and actually see results but it's not instant and that's a big deal trying to teach people east of here is they want to see that result that year and then they say, well it doesn't work for us. It will, but you have to give it time. It was funny because 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 or 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. What we tend to do on farms is we have a livestock enterprise on one hand and we have a farming enterprise on the other hand and then tying those two where they mesh together is incredibly complex but that's what Mother Nature likes is complexity. They have the cover crop thing which helps their farming side mimic a little better the water cycles and add some diversity and then they're putting the livestock in there and I think that picks up some biology you don't get if the animals don't make it onto the land. We used to think the cattle were hindrusted, cause compaction and we really didn't really like the idea of them on the ground and now the more cattle we can get on the more grazing we can do, that's what we do. We're really seeing a lot of value and because all the manure stays there it's really a benefit to the ground, the soil. The cows stay so healthy, they're made to go out and live on their own they're not made to be fed out of wagon and fed out of bed bales and everything so the longer we can keep them out there doing it on their own the better and we want them to work for us the other way around. Eventually I hope that how we can work that is to where we'll cut our feed bill in half by plant and grazing cover crops and I don't see any reason why we can't do that I don't see any reason why that's not only profitable but tremendous for the soil. Building up the organic matter by the no-till and the use of cover crops is huge in building up the soil. We have earthworms that we never had when we were tilling they're breaking down all that residue, the microbes and all that are there they're not in the soils that are getting tilled so you have to do it this way if you want to make this land viable to use for years to come. So everybody on this farm right now realizes the benefit of soil health and it's just going to be a win-win situation not so much for us because even though we are getting a touch of gray not so much for us but for their kids and grandkids. I've worked here my entire life. It was the same as my dad and I hope some of my kids come back and do the same thing. It's fun to be able to bring your kids to work every day with you and have that opportunity to do that. Everybody really fits in really well together and you really can't do your job without everybody else's help and that's I think what makes this operation so unique and so strong. I don't think anybody really gets into agriculture without kind of having that family component in mind it's an industry and a way of life that just promotes family and we're not farming for this year, we're farming for my kids my kids is 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. Monies and my grandfather broke the land and my dad took everything out of the land and it's Monies and my job to put it back. By watching Mother Nature we try and mimic that on the farm because that has proven to be successful. So we try and do the same thing and still make a living. Well Ruth and I first of all felt that they were very well qualified in terms of what the requirements of the Leopold Award are about so that was the reason we put in the application. There's a big difference between trying to conserve a degraded resource versus turning that around in building soils and I think Cronin Farms is a really good example of an operation that builds soils. They've done a tremendous job of taking a holistic approach on things looking at all the different elements and filling them all together. They truly take a whole systems approach. The conservation part of it is more of a mindset than anything is you get to thinking that way and then you realize it's the right way and we are very proud to be the winners of the 2016 Leopold Conservation Award.