 Hello, I'm Todd Mortensen and this is my family, my wife Deb, my sons Quinn and Jack. We are the 2011 Leopold Conservation Award winners. I hope you enjoy the tour of our ranch. Well, you know, I guess growing up we've all heard of all the Leopold and his conservation ethic and to win an award with his name on it is particularly satisfying because it says to me that what we're doing is up to the ideals that hold the Leopold had. And the things that we have done here have helped in the ranching operation. I don't feed my cattle very much, you know, I don't have to buy a whole lot of inputs. Why? Because I'm taking care of the land and the land is providing those cattle with what they need. You know, we saw a lot of changes happen when we started rotational grazing, when we started moving the cattle around and instead of leaving them in one pasture for three or four months, now they're in a pasture for, you know, maybe a week, maybe two weeks at the most and then they move on, especially in the spring when the grass is growing fast. They're moving, the cows are moving fast at that time. That way they never have a chance to overgraze any plants or degrade an area and especially around riparian areas, you'll really notice a change in those in a hurry. Usually the control of those areas or the restoration of those areas starts on the uplands. You can't degrade your uplands, you know, farm all your uplands or abuse your uplands and then have your riparian areas be healthy. You've got to, they're tied into a system together. So what we've done is take particularly close attention to those riparian areas with our grazing management. You go into an area and if there's some riparian areas in a pasture, you monitor those and when the cattle start having an impact in that area, you get them out. That way they have a chance to grass over. That way when you get a big grain, you've got grass to hold the water back, to slow the water back. And what that does is, is that when you slow the water down, it drops its sediment load. What we've done is we've grown grass and sedges and stuff in the bottom of these draws, let those come back in and those put the brakes on that water and make that sediment stop. You know, it's great for the cows, you've got trees coming in down there, that's great protection for the animals in the wintertime, not only for the animals that I grow, but for all the deer, you know, and the pheasants, grouse, prairie chickens, everything. Just love that vegetation, especially during, you know, the wintertime. This draw behind me is called Todd's Draw and when Dad first saw it in the early 40s, there weren't any trees on it and it was basically just a straight walled wash. We'd get an inch and a half or an inch of rain and the water would gush down it and be off the place in a matter of hours. So now you see it and there's a whole bunch of trees in it. We put some dams in it in the 50s to slow the water down and to hopefully soak it up. And you can see all these trees behind me are a result of putting all that water underground. And that's what we try to do here is put more water down into the sand layer and have it come out wherever it's going to come out. And you can see those spots where it comes out by the trees. And this area here is, you know, it's kind of what they call a max canopy. There's very little more that can go on in there. There's very little more room for trees to grow. And that's happening all around the ranch, all along the edge of the flat. There's trees like this coming in. If you work with nature, mother nature has her own fertilizers. Mother nature has her own pest controls. If you work within those, it's a lot cheaper to get by. And then when you do have a catastrophe come along like a drought or a flood, it's a lot easier to get through. You know, it's a lot easier to get through a drought if you don't have a huge debt, you know, from buying fertilizer or seed inputs. If mother nature's already done that for you, it makes a lot of difference. And I don't want to live in a place that I can't be proud of, obviously. This ranch has been in the family now, you know, I'm the third generation. And I guess we try to leave it. Each generation has done something different to improve it. And I don't want to be any different than that. I see areas that I can still improve upon. And it's my goal to make sure, you know, when I hand it to my boys that it's as good as I could do. And hopefully, you know, it'll continue with them, you know, hopefully they will continue. And I think it just has to do with the love of the land. It's not about what I can do to make the most money. It's about what I can do to sustain my livelihood out here and then have something to pass on to my children.