222. Resurgent Land, Culture & Food Systems on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, with Lakota Woman Kelsey Scott

Kelsey Scott is a 4th generation cow producer and 125th generation land steward at DX Ranch, on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Kelsey is a Lakota woman, citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, Chief Strategy Officer for the Intertribal Agriculture Council, owner of a direct-to-consumer regenerative beef operation DX Beef, part of the education programs her family runs, a featured presence in the documentary film Common Ground, the first Native American student to give the student address at a commencement ceremony for South Dakota State University, and daughter of the first Native American to head the Farm Service Agency, and all of these roles have been to significant and growing effect.

There is an extraordinary regeneration of land, culture, and regional food systems underway in this country. Largely, it seems, flying under the radar - along with its empowering federal government support. The successes range from Kelsey’s own business, to global premiums being achieved for tribal enterprises, to a new Intertribal Food Business Centre being set up to model that food system regeneration – for the benefit of all. Meanwhile, Kelsey’s father Zach Ducheneaux continues to lead the Farm Service Agency, just landing his key legacy piece to date. And the flourishing return of native grasses on their land continues apace, as if singing a tune of gratitude for it all.

We first met Kelsey and family in Montana, at the CREATE program reunion featured in ep. 215. We talk about her unlikely presence and subsequent transformation in that program too. Then come full circle with her beautiful music story.

This episode has chapter markers and a transcript (available on most apps now too).

Recorded 3 August 2024.

Tune into a tour of Kelsey's place here.

Title slide: Kelsey during our chat (pic: Olivia Cheng).

See more photos on the website & for more, become a member via the Patreon page.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).

Chapters

• 0:00 Music, Preview, Introduction & Supporter Thanks
• 3:30 Seeing limitless potential
• 5:30 A family’s healing
• 12:30 Unlikely presence & transformation at Nicole Masters’ CREATE program
• 20:40 The story of DX Ranch, family & Reservation
• 24:30 What characterizes the leadership you've witnessed?
• 28:30 The transformative evolving of a people with the horse
• 33:25 Learning programs with horses (& flies?!)
• 38:00 Are you experiencing more interest in connection with First Nations?
• 40:00 Thirty words for snow (& what means more than ‘regenerative agriculture’ to First Nations here)
• 45:20 Applying this on the ranch?
• 49:35 DX Beef – Running a direct-to-consumer business
• 54:40 Great successes with the Intertribal Agriculture Council
• 58:30 Regenerative economics & global American Indian Foods Program & labelling
• 59:40 The new federal government-backed Intertribal Food Business Centre to model the regeneration of regional food systems
• 1:02:40 Her Dad’s lending system legacy piece as the first Native American Administrator of the Farm Service Agency
• 1:05:30 Buffalo restoration & the power of intertribal programs
• 1:09:20 Project HELP: education that helps us navigate chaos – with horses
• 1:16:10 An extended family of Project HELP alumni & mentors
• 1:20:08 A big vision
• 1:23:28 Music story and cultural farewell

Transcript

Kelsey: 0:07

Good day. My Lakota name is Soft Little Breeze Woman and my English name is Kelsey Scott.

AJ: 0:20

G'day Anthony James here for The RegenNarration ad-free, freely available and entirely supported by listeners like you. So thanks very much, D Coutts and J Shaw, and J Courtney, for your very generous support this week. If you're also finding value in this, please join this great community of supporting listeners by just heading to the website via the show notes regennarration. com forward slash support. Thanks again.

Kelsey: 0:50

We're standing up right now the Intertribal Food Business Center, which is one of 12 of the regional food business centers that the Biden-Harris administration has established and charged with the responsibility of creating a successful model for regionalizing food systems. AJ: gulp.

AJ: 1:14

After we left Pedro, flora and the buffalo at American Prairie in the north of Montana, we headed to our next visit at DX Ranch on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation by the Missouri River Lake Oahe in South Dakota. Kelsey Scott is a fourth generation cow producer and 125th generation land steward there. She's a Lakota woman and citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and Chief Strategy Officer for the Intertribal Agriculture Council, owner of a direct-to-consumer regenerative beef operation called DX Beef,. part of the education and internship programs her family runs runs, a featured presence in the recent documentary film Common Ground, the first Native American student to give the student address at a commencement ceremony for South Dakota State University, and daughter of the first Native American to head the Farm Service Agency, and all of these roles have been to significant and growing effect.

AJ: 2:18

There is an extraordinary regeneration of land, culture and regional food systems underway in this country. Largely, it seems, flying under the radar - along with its empowering federal government support. The successes range from Kelsey's own business to global premiums being achieved for tribal enterprises as part of an American Indian Foods program, to a new intertribal food business centre being set up to model that regeneration of regional food systems and for the benefit of all. Meanwhile, kelsey's father, Zach Ducheneaux, continues to lead the farm service agency, just landing his key legacy piece to date. And the flourishing return of native grasses on their land continues apace, as if singing a tune of gratitude for it all. We first met Kelsey and her young family back in Montana at the Create program reunion that featured in episode 215. We talk about her unlikely presence and subsequent transformation in that program too. Then we come full circle with her beautiful musical story at the end. Thanks, kelsey, it's so great to be at your place. Thanks very much for having us.

Kelsey: 3:35

It's so great to be here. I always appreciate welcoming folks out to our ranch. I oftentimes share with folks that it's the easiest hello and the hardest goodbye. You only come as a stranger once in your family, the next time you come back. So I'm looking forward to the rest of this visit and your future visits to come.

AJ: 3:53

Thanks, kelsey. Yeah, I really feel that it's interesting that you say what was the name Soft Little Breeze.

Kelsey: 3:58

Yep, soft Little Breeze Woman. My husband would maybe argue sometimes it's more of a tsunami wind my husband would maybe argue, sometimes it's more of a tsunami wind.

AJ: 4:09

But hello, monty, but it's funny because that's exactly what we're in right now. Yeah, it's a beautiful ambience here on the deck outside of your place, overlooking the grasslands and the horses and was it antelope over there?

Kelsey: 4:19

yeah, a little family of antelope walking by there they are.

AJ: 4:21

They're still behind you. Yeah, beautiful, and the grass is a green. I'm told it's not always this green in late summer. It's extraordinary to behold with the missouri river behind us.

Kelsey: 4:30

I wonder what you see when you look at your place yeah, I see a sense of belonging when I look out at the ranch here, and I respect that. That was created by many generations of sacrifice, of hard work and of care, not just for the folks that you know my grandparents welcomed into their home, but the idea that one day this would be a home for folks after they were gone. And so I, when I look out across this place, I get to see a legacy and I see that I have a very unique and privileged responsibility to be responsible and helping to steward that legacy in my time here with my family and limitless potential to come after us as well.

AJ: 5:30

It's really amazing to hear you describe it like that, as much for where you ended it with the limitless potential, because I note that the way you talk about your upbringing even was how rich it was. Yet here we sit on a reservation, which part of its legacy is the other stuff we've talked a bit about the trauma. Yeah, I wonder, was your dad's experience a bit like yours? Like when did it turn around, if you will, and become an enlivening pattern again?

Kelsey: 5:52

As I've really become aware of my distinct view in life and how that may match or may not match that of others in my same generation. I've come to have a deep gratitude for the healing that my father and mother took upon themselves in their lifetime and the healing that came before them and their parents. The trauma on this continent is very new in the sense of human evolution, incredibly new and if there isn't a generation over generation commitment to working to identify that trauma, recognize it, heal from it. It's something that fortunate to be able to have some of the conversations we here, because there's a resiliency and a tendency to thrive that is within all of us out here on the prairie and I get to really lean into that ability and tendency to thrive, the resiliency, the embodiment of being able to support narrative change in my time on this earth because of the work that they've done do you have much of an idea of how they went about that?

Kelsey: 7:30

I think a lot of it had to do with um mindset and an appreciation that, yes, the glass is always half empty if you choose to look at it that way, but you can always also look at it with a glass half full perspective. And also, you know, there's on both sides, my mom's and my dad's, there's a smattering of public servants, from educators to healthcare professionals, to individuals, you know, working within the city or county municipalities and really just a desire to help somebody if you can. My grandfather used to. One of his many phrases was and in kind of teachings in life was if you can help somebody, then goll darn it you better. And I cleaned that up just a little bit from what he used to say he believed it.

Kelsey: 8:26

He believed it and, yeah, he left behind kind of that mantra for the family to consider If you can't help somebody, then why don't you, why wouldn't you? You should help them, and that can be anything from stopping alongside of the road to help change a tire or, you know, going out of your way beyond that, and you know committing your career to trying to leave the earth a little better place than what you experienced.

AJ: 8:52

You've described yourself well as a fourth generation cow producer and a 125th, 125th sorry land steward. What do you know of the 125?

Kelsey: 9:04

generations. Yeah, what I know is that in my DNA there are teachings that I'm still learning. There's been a really recent severing of connection to the deeper 80% of the teachings, right like there's, there's some that that surface level teaching that still exists, that's still prevalent in the cultures that I get to learn from, from the generation before me or the generations before me that I still have the privilege of being able to communicate with. But what I feel as I continue to deepen my awareness and my connection to the natural systems around me, is that there's more of an awareness than we realize in our dna and as we continue to open ourselves up and be willing to learn from the natural systems around us, that that dna, just like with epigenetic expression, it awakens back in life with us a deeper awareness and appreciation for the world that we're a part of.

AJ: 10:07

This is something I think about a lot, yeah, and as much because of relating into experiences like yours, where there was that severance in the stories, the narratives that had seen through that amount of time, that duration on these lands. But even for me I was talking yesterday with an Irish heritage that nobody really knew anything about, having been five generations in Australia and its own severance by other means, and perhaps some similar ones and then some other ones just a forgetting after that, not such a conscious trying to remember even perhaps. But but that's changing too, and in my case it was dad doing the genealogy research, and but it still makes me wonder what remains in us that even, I mean, in a sense transcends the severance. Or perhaps it's just because the stories may have been lost to some degree, the direct connections to some degree, but in this case being embedded for a hundred and let's say 121 generations or whatever that that has an effect, clearly.

Kelsey: 11:19

Yeah.

AJ: 11:19

Yeah, the gene expression and probably a whole bunch of other subtle levels that cannot be erased or even disrupted so easily. So hearing you say that's really slotting into something I've been thinking a lot about, and I wonder for you then how that manifests, or even perhaps go a step back further how did you start to key into that and then how have you practiced keying into that?

Kelsey: 11:44

yeah, I, looking back on my life, I can appreciate distinct opportunities where I was in a place willing to learn and the phrases or the message that I was able to hear because of my willingness to learn allowed me to start to expand my world beyond where I thought the horizon ended, and it allowed me an opportunity to start to challenge the paradigms that were established for me in some instances, and ones that I established myself. Yeah, there were very distinct moments in studying this systems-based learning curriculum where I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and a pride in my heart swell, because what we were talking about, from most often a purely scientific standpoint, was, for me, connecting directly and overlapping with teachings of our ways of life that I had learned and hadn't quite understood that depth that we've been talking about yet. The very first moment for me, we were in person learning together and we were talking about the bacteria-to-fungal relationship and the ratio that is desired in a system and how that promotes ecosystem function and turnover and growth, and for me, what came into my mind was a depiction of our traditional ways of caring for our loved ones' bodies when they deceased. Uh, traditional ways of caring for our loved ones bodies when they deceased. We had a very specific uh compilation of grasses and forbs and plant materials that we would prepare the body with and wrap them in a buffalo hide and then we would lift them up onto a scaffolding most oftentimes made of wood or in a tree. And what it helped me to realize is, you know, that wasn't it wasn't just that we were placing sweet grass and sage because they were sacred. It was that we knew what plant materials were needed to nourish an appropriate bacterial to fungal relationship to support our loved ones's bodies being able to return back to the earth in a way that was proper and helped to complete that life cycle.

Kelsey: 14:31

In a lot of research or reading that you may see, you know we lifted our loved ones to the sky because our spirit could then escape, and I don't disagree with that idea that the energy of our body was then able to return.

Kelsey: 14:46

But there was a deeper awareness that we had than what remained allowed to be told or what was told about us in a different language. In a lot of ways kind of shifting in my thoughts and my paradigm and my respect and appreciation for the teachings that I had been shared so far and I was like I wonder what else I need to learn or can learn or will be able to learn through this process. And, um, yeah, it's, it's been really great and I look forward to many of these kind of ideas or connections that have been coming to mind. For me, I feel like I'm starting to become confident enough or articulate enough and being able to draw those connections from the science realm into this cultural identity realm, to start to have more of those conversations with the trusted elders that I have in the community here to see what more wisdom they may be able to impart on me as I talk through some of these ideas that I have with them.

AJ: 15:51

Yeah, it occurs to me straight away, listening to you, the meeting of the very pragmatic and practical with the sacred and spiritual, and that that's what it was like. Yeah, so to have one without the other sort of nonsensical yes in that frame. And then also how you end up at a program like nicole's and megan's, and that's where it hits you with well, a new zealander at that, let alone a white rancher as well in Megan. I don't know, does that say something about our shared experience?

Kelsey: 16:29

Absolutely. I mean at the heart of it. We are all the same species of organism and, no matter the lived experiences that we have had and that we descend from, there's a certain amount of who we are as an organism, how we map out on any sort of species tree right that we are humans and our, our brains have similar capacities for connecting and and we have had a you know millennia-long relation of evolution with the natural world around us and we can't dismiss that simply because there's a race or political or ethnic diversity that is as recent as you know the past several generations that we can't allow that to continue to separate us and to let us think that we're so different that we can't have common ideas or learning experiences.

AJ: 17:40

It's interesting to note you end up in that context. You're also telling me on a knife's edge, if that's the right way to put it, like it was touch and go whether you'd end up there.

Kelsey: 17:51

Yeah, yeah.

AJ: 17:52

But you ended up feeling like it was really important and I'm always curious about that too right, it was so important you were going to find a way, by hook or by crook, to get there. I'm curious about that instinct that puts us in context. That will then very often result in sort of a thing, sort of a moment and shift. How do you view that in retrospect now, that process of am I going to be able to get there, am I not? I've just got to.

Kelsey: 18:21

I feel compelled highlight that I I wouldn't have gotten there had it not been for my husband, um, I, and, and then where we've had conversations so far in just the past 10 minutes, there's a unique amount of good energy that has been put out there through the past several generations, in both my husband and i's lineage, for us to be able to find each other and for us to be able to make the the home and the situation that we get to have within this world that surrounds us, um, and, and I think that my calling into the opportunity to come in and learn with the folks that create is a culmination of generations of that energy in the world.

Kelsey: 19:10

I don't I don't think that I can suggest that it just happened overnight, right, um, but there was something about it that really did call me into exploring what I knew this transformative experience would be like through my own lens and having had the opportunity to become friends with both Megan and Nicole through the process and also all of the other folks that were in the CREATE program, and we just had some phenomenal coaches that we got a chance to connect with through one of the hardest times to connect in this generation of covid. You know, um, and, and what a deeply meaningful experience that presented for me, um, and, and I feel like my family too. You know the, the depth of conversation and reflection that we were being encouraged, sometimes forced into through that program, rippled out into the conversations I was choosing to now have with my family and with my friends, and I think it's just really elevated my experience in this life in a new way, and I look forward to figuring out how I can pay that forward.

AJ: 20:30

Coming here onto the ranch. How long has it been DX Ranch and what are you up to here?

Kelsey: 20:37

Yeah, my great grandfather was able to establish a home here and my grandfather, uh, was able to to purchase that from him, and um set even deeper roots here for my family to descend from and call home and that is as a family, your purchase as a family.

AJ: 21:02

Not many will understand how a reservation and its governance and ownership works in that context.

Kelsey: 21:07

Yeah, yeah, so my great-grandfather's allotment was nearby here and that's the actual land that was in question then in purchase in our history. And so we're situated in the Oteti-Shakaoni homelands. The Lakota people were a nomadic people and we roamed as far north as Canada, south to Kansas, east to west, from Minnesota to Wyoming, and we followed the seasonality of production and we were stewards and stockmen of bison herds. And we were stewards and stockmen of bison herds and we would plant and return to our crops and so we had a very in-tune awareness of the nature around us. As recent as my great-great-grandfather's generation, we were forced and located here on the Missouri River banks in central South Dakota and we became a place-based people just that few generations ago, and in that we have come to know my family. My dad's family, my grandpa's family, have just come to know the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation as home. My grandfather was a two-time tribal chairman. My father was a tribal councilman.

Kelsey: 22:32

I oftentimes share that I'm a fourth-generation rancher and a never-to-be fourth-generation tribal leader.

Kelsey: 22:42

Really I don't know if that's true, but, um, I I learned very distinctly from my family's the unique ways that, uh, what true and genuine leadership in the local community requires.

Kelsey: 23:03

And it is. It's a commitment in the local community requires. And it's a commitment, it's a sacrifice in a lot of ways from your family, your passion, your desires, and it's committing your life to the greater demands of local tribal governance. And so maybe we shouldn't put that part in the podcast, but it's true in the fact. I saw my grandpa and grandma and my mom and dad sacrifice a lot, right up to the point of their own happiness, really, yeah, by nature, of being able to commit to the tribe the type of leadership that was needed, type of leadership that was needed, and I think that it's not oftentimes leadership that is demonstrated and definitely, even when it is demonstrated, it's not valued to the level that it should be, because of just the distinct sacrifice and commitment that has to be made in order to be the type of leader that an entire nation needs to be able to rely upon.

AJ: 24:10

There's so much in that, isn't there?

Kelsey: 24:11

Yeah.

AJ: 24:12

Because I think of the nation of the United States and the state of leadership and what might characterize the leadership that's needed in that context. What do you think characterized their leadership?

Kelsey: 24:27

Selflessness. If you can help somebody, then go all darn it, you will.

Kelsey: 24:31

There it is and an appreciation for it's not going to get any better if you don't try. It's not going to get any better if you don't try. There were a lot of ideas or suggestions that I know they would put forth that in many conversations or groups of people the framing or idea would be well, what good is that going to do? How is that really going to fix anything? Well, how is not really going to fix anything? Well, how is not trying going to fix anything, you know? So I think that there's an amount of try and willingness to put in the energy that can be easier to just dismiss and not even attempt, and that's not what our communities need, not even attempt. And that's not what our communities need. I mean, when you think about three generations ago is when we were forced into this structure of existence and place-based reality. You know that's a lot of very recent disruption in our ways of being, in our ways of connection and in our identity. You, you know you talk about like a new mother whose identity shifts right, like that's one person within a family which you know well which I know well, yeah the

Kelsey: 25:53

genetic disruption in shifting my identity, um, but if you apply that experience to an entire people's, think of the massive impact that has um all the way down to like a biological level. You know, our adrenal systems, our immune systems, they're all so taxed because we no longer have access to the plants and the herbs and the ways of physical activity in connection with our spirituality and our ceremonies in these places that we used to, and that goes even deeper to like the energies that we were able to tap into and be able to be a part of and carry forward in the work that we do. And now we are trying to restabilize and I think that there's absolutely a way to do that with the underlying principles and values of our culture here on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. But we have to be willing to be patient, we have to be willing to try things differently than what we have historically done. We have to be willing to evolve in the same way we evolved when we come into horses, the same way we evolved when we, many moons ago, came into fire, right Like.

Kelsey: 27:23

There are these distinct points in human evolution where we evolved our practices and our in our foundational way of going about the day, and that's what we're currently working through right now, I think, in my communities is where we're still evolving to this, this locality based uh way of being and, uh, with each generation, that evolution is going to continue to get to where we're practicing more and more of that cultural way that we can carry through these evolutions, and it's going to be easier for us to identify when an approach or a system or a framework that's been imposed upon us doesn't match well with how we want to be as a people and how we've come to know this world, and we'll revise it and and inform it in a way that that matches better with what our dna is needing us to express I look at you as a kind of an interesting case in point in that sense because with this would-be earlier colonial artifact of the horse you mentioned, it's become so pivotal to native american culture absolutely ubiquitous and and to your life, and not only to your life, but to your father's life at least, and in a transformative way that seems to be, then, pivotal to everything else.

AJ: 28:42

Yeah, it's a really fascinating example of that evolving that you're describing. But while we're on it, how did that happen?

Kelsey: 28:51

in in my father and i's life. Yeah, uh, my grandpa grew up horseback, um. There's a very special place to us here on the ranch, or nearby the ranch, um, it's called Scatter Butte and it was about a two mile ride. If I recall how my grandfather would repeat the story of his childhood, but every day they would keep one horse in and they'd get on that horse in the morning They'd go ride to the top of Scatter Butte. They'd look out over the horizon, figure out where the other horses were, look out over the horizon, figure out where the other horses were, go around them up and bring them in for the day to get the work done. And that later in his life transcended into going up there to find his bearings in life and continued to be a very special place to him and to my family and my own generation. And so much to the fact.

Kelsey: 29:43

You know my son's name is Butte and I think that there's so much to be appreciated in our present day horse herd that we can attribute back to my grandfather's life on the prairie. He learned a lot about what he would want in an ideal horse because of the horses not being that when he grew up, um, and so he had a very distinct idea of what he wanted in his horses. And you know he wanted a solid, boned horse with a good hoof. He wanted quality, disposition. That was the utmost priority. He wanted a horse that wanted to be around you um, you know, color looks things like. That would come afterwards. But he wanted the, the framework of that horse, the structural integrity, the disposition integrity to be there that you could rely upon. And so he, his horse herd, really was his, his pride and joy of the large legacy that him and grant my grandma, regina, left behind, and horses to be such an integral part in our life, because our horses do love to be around us. Our horses are built to help us get the jobs that we need done more effectively, and with so much joy involved in it, I can go jump on that horse in my backyard and think back to the horse that's further up in that lineage that my grandfather used to ride, and to just have that connection and relationship and kinship with the animal and respect and appreciation for all that it allows us to do.

Kelsey: 31:46

It's been a classroom in its own for practicing thoughtful ways of being a human being and thoughtful ways of interacting with another organism that can't understand your spoken word or we don't think they can, and um to to be able to practice your body presentation and your awareness and your patience and your timing in a way that can really contribute to something that's quite beautiful and magnificent, when everything is in time, and you're loping out across the prairie and you know just, the breeze is meeting you in the face and the smell of the sweet clover is washing over you, right like there's all of these experiences that you can't capture any other way than to just live it and to be able to absorb it and be a part of it in real life.

Kelsey: 32:44

And I think that's why for us, for me anyway, that's why horses continue to be such a pivotal part of who we are and how we go about in our day-to-day life. You know, it's become a part of our own therapy, a part of our own identity, and helps to contribute to, like I said, that sense of belonging when I look out here on the ranch.

AJ: 33:14

Yeah, really interesting. Hey, kelsey, I'm gonna get my shirt to drape over my leg. Now they're biting me so much. I'm wriggling in my seat, which is squeaking in the sound. Give me a second. Good, are you okay in the sun still?

Kelsey: 33:30

I'm good, yeah, all right, all right I'll get my shirt.

AJ: 33:34

I should have put trousers on, but anyway.

Kelsey: 33:37

Anyway, now I know why your horses are stomping yeah yeah, nasty bodies you know, with our horsemanship, we talk often about what we can learn from a fly.

AJ: 33:51

Do you really Go on?

Kelsey: 33:53

Australians will be very interested. Flies are some of the most persistent consistent organisms in the world.

AJ: 34:04

If you think about it, who can argue? Totally?

Kelsey: 34:07

And so when we work we have a always have a desire to bring in and to fold in folks having a learning opportunity around our horse herd when they come visit, and so we actually have an equine science internship opportunity here on the ranch.

Kelsey: 34:25

We've hosted longer stints of kind of more apprentice style, fellowship style learning here, and I think that we look forward to really growing and building that upon my father's return from his post in DC. But with that we've had an opportunity to teach a variety of folks that are at very distinct points throughout the entire spectrum of their horsemanship journey. But one thing that really helps to get the message across is we want to try. Our approach to horsemanship is that we want to try to make what we want done the horse's idea and so we're going to offer that this is a good idea. We're going to ask them, we're going to tell them and we're going to make them right. And so when you think about a fly, the fly buzzes around and suggests that it might land, and then the fly lands and then, pretty quick, the fly bites, and so these two we talk about that often because everybody understands those different levels of, like an indication in messaging and in the strength of the messaging.

Kelsey: 35:46

And so we'll, we'll talk, we'll say, okay, well, um, think about it, think about how you want to ride over towards that. You know, sage sagebrush, think about it, think about it, put your energy towards it, see if the horse can pick up on that energy. Okay, start to ride there with your hips, all right, they're not picking up on it. Okay, start to just bump them with your heels, all right, it's time for the fly to bite. Go ahead and really bump them with your heel. Okay, pick up your lot of go, go ahead and just spank them on the butt. You know, make it their idea. And what that oftentimes is doing is it's helping the human re-tap into that energy and that feel of communicating with the horse through their thoughts and their body energy.

Kelsey: 36:29

Um, horses, you know, you'll see a horseman and a horse combo that are well attuned to each other's energies. It will just look effortless, yes, the movements that they make. And that's because their energies are intertwined in that way and we don't have to tell that particular horseman that's well attuned to that horse's energy and vice versa. We don't have to tell him silly analogies like now be a fly and bite them, because they have consistently presented themselves in that buzzing around way, so that the horse knows this. Okay, this energy is coming towards me. This is what I need to do, and it's a practice, it's an art form. A lot of people don't appreciate how much time should go into stewarding that relationship. Any distance or time between two organisms allows for the ability to come unsynchronized, work at it and constantly be building in your relationship with the horse horses that you're working with, in order for that to come off that beautiful and when you see those horses, horsemanship, horsewomanship combinations.

AJ: 37:47

You know that there's hours and hours of time put into that relationship yeah, it's really interesting to think about, because I think about all the ways that I hear similar language across regenerative agriculture, folk in terms of relationship and subtlety and patience and time. And then I think about even for you know, non-farmer folk like myself the almost universal appeal of that site, with horses in particular, over eons and cultures. Humans seem to be able to perceive that, we almost all seem to be able to perceive that, even with no background in it, even if it's just on a racetrack or not even in a like. Recently in a podcast, the man from snowyy River came up, which is a famous Australian thing Do you know this as well, there we go.

AJ: 38:38

There's a famous Australian poem that became a film and I think even a remake, and famous, universally appealing. I think what you're describing is at the heart of it and that makes me think you know I mentioned that term regenerative agriculture, think you know I mentioned that term regenerative agriculture. It makes me think about the ways in which this ethos, if you like that underpins regenerative agriculture as we understand it or as we're coming to understand it and see spread today.

AJ: 39:05

That goes back the 125 generations in your case that start seems to be starting to get its dues and more of us seem to be understanding the meaning and need and essence of connecting with First Nations everywhere. Is this some of your experience here?

Kelsey: 39:30

I think that it is. I think a lot of what continues to slow down that reconnection is it comes back to language barrier Really, so much more brilliant ways of describing phenomenons. I mean, like I believe there's an Inuit language that has 30 ways of describing snow. Yeah, so in certain languages there's like such unique ways to describe what you're seeing, that or what you're a part of, and sometimes the language that gets used to describe, such as regenerative agriculture, is not something that native communities on this continent care to connect with because of what agriculture has meant, right, and so in a lot of ways, the recent eras of agriculture, we'll call it on this continent have very significantly disrupted the foodways of native peoples. You know, you have the damming of the columbia river, which wrecked the salmon runs in the pacific northwest right, and then I mean even the damming of missouri river all up and down.

Kelsey: 40:58

Uh, the central corridor of this country is what flooded my grandfather out of his home down on the riverbed, where they had football sized gardens right, like they had acclimated to a place-based food system on food rations that were poisoning us, but still figuring out how to grow and how to produce and care for their family.

Kelsey: 41:26

And then, in my grandfather's generation, they had to relocate because the Missouri River damming project flooded us out of the river bottom that we were told should be our home now. And so there's all of these like terms that in such recent legislation, in such recent policy, are directly overlapped with continued traumas forced upon our people, and so those English terms can carry that weight for quite some time. And so I think that what we talk a lot about in, depending on the community that we're in, if regenerative agriculture doesn't resonate well within that community because of its recent history, you know, traditional ecological knowledge, traditional production practices, traditional ecological knowledge, traditional production practices, kinship with our food system, right Like these phrases or words, have something that we can better identify with and something that we can connect to. That feeling, that sense of being that we know we used to have native words for but we don't quite have anymore.

AJ: 42:36

Wow, I instantly wonder how much we all might benefit from zeroing in on that sort of language.

Kelsey: 42:44

Yeah.

AJ: 42:45

Yeah, Because I know. Even for white communities in Australia certainly regenerative agriculture can be a divisive term.

Kelsey: 42:54

Yeah.

AJ: 42:54

And in some ways I've just wished we'd get over ourselves and not be so sensitive and it's probably still true too, but in other ways, I think about what we're really trying to say. Yeah, and we use the word kinship there it's a beautiful term. Even ecology, I mean. It says it too, doesn't it? Yeah, so nicole uses, speaking of nicole, agroecology in her case?

AJ: 43:16

yeah, I wonder. But you know I'm also reminded of. Well, speaking of nicole, again, she connected me with a man called mankan in ireland, okay, who apparently had traveled western australia yeah, last year, but nicole was the one who told me about it. Okay, so by the time I get back to western australia I get on the line to him when he's back in ireland talking about aboriginal and ancient irish connection wow that he'd been exploring. It became a podcast too and it, I have to say, like it really triggered some awakening in me of feeling and caring about, really for the first time, yeah, my Irish ancestry.

AJ: 43:54

I feel so Australian in that landscape and in the arid west and all that with the big oceans and so forth. I've never felt Irish, but I felt something. I don't know if it was his first book on this, but the first one that really went big was called how are you?

Kelsey: 44:11

Good, how are you? We're recording a podcast on the deck. Hello, this is my Aunt, colette G'day.

AJ: 44:20

How are?

Kelsey: 44:21

you, I'm good.

AJ: 44:23

Blimey, was that what you said? Crikey Yep, how'd you know that? I don't know.

Kelsey: 44:28

I watch Crocodile Dungeon. There we go, thank you All. Right, okay, have fun. See ya, you too thank you, all right.

AJ: 44:37

All right, okay, have fun. See ya, you too. So I was talking about that book. The title of that book was 32 words for field and interestingly, it's gone crazy.

AJ: 44:48

The time had come yeah he didn't know this when he went about it. He just felt like he needed to reconnect. But then the time had come. The people wanted to know, they were fascinated, and he's followed up more on that front. But just that nuance again it's another case, isn't it? That nuance of observation and valuing, yeah. So, speaking of all this, then, how are you going about applying it in your life, on the ranch?

Kelsey: 45:14

yeah, I think, first and foremost, it's in appreciating that I don't yet know all that I will know and really being willing to be open to constant learning. Um, which requires a consistent approach of challenging my perspective. You know, and one of the ways that I do that is the common commonly communicated about pests or commonly communicated about failures in the beef cattle production system. I'm constantly challenging myself to instead consider to be indications you know to be considering, yeah, yeah, what is it telling me?

Kelsey: 46:09

What does that mean? And first and foremost, when it comes to measuring success, for ours is the measurement of our happiness and appreciation for the quality of life that we have as humans and a part of the system, and I think that that is really key. I think it's in the mindset, and the mindset then guides how we approach problems, how we approach developments here on the ranch, and that's been. You know, mindsets are really hard to adopt and to practice, especially in a production system that doesn't necessarily celebrate or uplift the idea of emotion being a part of this. We've done a really phenomenal job in this country, in my opinion, of stripping producers of their rights to emotion, and I think that that has um surfaced in a variety of ways.

Kelsey: 47:23

Right, but it's it's in boiling a producer down to their balance sheet yeah boiling them down to their cash flow and boiling down their expertise, their knowledge, their asset to the community in the context of lending ratios. And what a dehumanizing approach, right? And in addition to that, you know, our producers don't get the opportunity to know who they're feeding like genuinely. Know, like genuinely?

Kelsey: 48:00

no, they don't get to hear feedback around how nourishing the, the beef that they raised, that they worked so hard for the past two and a half years to raise, how it nourished a single mother and her kids around a dinner table right like and that is such a deeply rewarding experience and that allows you to tap into a whole new set of emotions and gratitude and humility and just a deep reverence for the way of life that you get to live, that we've stripped our producers from that opportunity.

AJ: 48:34

Arguably we've stripped it from the other side of the ledger too, from the people who eat. Absolutely so foods come to mean very little, and we see the results of that.

Kelsey: 48:44

And there's a lack of culture around the food anymore, you know, celebrating all that went into the production or growth of this particular food item and then making a ceremony around preparing it so that we can nourish our bodies with it. It's, it's so severed in our consumer base.

AJ: 49:08

Is that sacred with practical connection again as one and in there is health and quality of life and so forth, as you say, and and for us all to think that for us all that's on offer too. It just yeah it speaks to more possibility of how we might all connect on it. So for you, you started a beef business too. Dx beef yeah I'm assuming this is partly why you wanted to start it. What's that journey been like and how's it going?

Kelsey: 49:38

Yeah, I didn't know that this was a part of why. This was a hidden perk. To be completely honest, my journey into the beef business was driven by listening to my dad and uncle back and forth talk about the price difference between a pound of beef in the store and a pound of live calf that we were selling and communicating around it from the standpoint of there's a profit margin there that the food system is stealing from us as producers and it's, you know, in america one of four that are really gaining the profit off of us yeah, which is extraordinary yeah, yeah and not healthy, not healthy yeah, yeah, and so the I was in a master's program through colorado state university that allowed me the opportunity to put together a final project versus a master's thesis, and so the project that I pitched and you know was able to graduate with my master's on was the design of a business plan for DX Beef, and there was an undertone to that initial plan that proposed the idea of like wanting to be able to give back within the community.

Kelsey: 51:03

But my appreciation for the different ways that we are giving back to the community not just in the people that live in the local food system but in the plant community, in the soil community, in the ecosystems communities, right has really gotten a lot deeper in since, you know, over the evolution of the food business and also the humans right here on the ranch that are responsible for stewarding that effort on the ranch, that are responsible for stewarding that effort, I've just come to gain such a greater appreciation for how critical it is that their health and well-being is to the success of our desire to give back to the community. And so that's kind of shifted and helped us to adopt the business model and approach that we have at DX Beef, and so it's been a unique journey. It's been one of those moments, several one of those journeys where I've had several moments where I've been like, wow, none of the transitioning to the direct to consumer market books that I read helped me prepare for that experience.

AJ: 52:14

Really.

Kelsey: 52:15

Yeah, I've been able to deliver beef to homes that don't have windows and allow those customers to purchase using supplemental nutrition assistance program dollars, because I've jumped through the hoops to become USDA certified to accept electronic benefits for folks who need extra support accessing food dollars. And so it's. You know it's never been. You know, profitability in the sense of getting that profit margin that my dad and uncles were talking about has never actually been what has informed any of our decisions in the business model. It's been much more about trying to make a functional contribution to repairing the food system. Functional meaning yeah, we do have to be able to make a profit to stay in the business, and we do need to be able to make a profit to stay in the business and we do need to be able to cover our costs and be able to do it year over year. Right, it has to be functioning in all of those ways, but we're not going to exploit the local consumer base for profits in our pocket, which comes with its own challenges for sure.

Kelsey: 53:38

Um, you know there's there's only so much growth that you can push for if you're not exploiting certain systems right I mean there's a reason we'll never be able to grow our business, to be one of the four right but I don't think that food systems should have that anyway. I think that, um and it's never, ever going to be my desire to have all of south dakota eating dx beef I want to see every beef producer feeding some families to me. That's, that's what I want to try to model and and help help other folks replicate in their own way.

AJ: 54:17

I mean hearing you really a roll call of some of the value that you derive from doing that is enormous, yeah, yeah. And the fact that you are viable, great. Who wouldn't want that Great outcome? But having said that, you were talking before about, you know, not necessarily taking on the leadership roles you observed cost family members so much, but you've taken on others of sorts, and ones with the inter tribal agriculture council, yes, and interesting that there's that word agriculture, yeah, yeah, given what we're talking about. But there it is. And you were talking about some of the programs that have seen extraordinary shifts in margins and those dynamics might be worth telling a story or two about that here too yeah, so my, my involvement with the intertribal agriculture council is a a family tradition as well, if you will.

Kelsey: 55:15

Um, and I didn't know this when I first started exploring employment and volunteering with the organization, I've come into learning it.

Kelsey: 55:24

My grandfather was one of a handful of tribal leaders at the time who presented to Congress the need for increased who presented to Congress the need for increased support amidst a series of disasters that were weather and economic related, where our communities were struggling, and that resulted in Congress commissioning a report on why does Indian country need more support than other areas of the country?

Kelsey: 55:57

Indian country need more support than other areas of the country, and what was found is this historical lack of service and underutilization by tribes and tribal producers of the Department of Agriculture's offerings that would support conservation infrastructure which would allow you to withstand the disasters which you know, and the trickle down effect of what infrastructure and lack thereof creates.

Kelsey: 56:20

And so the Intertribal Agriculture Council was born out of the expressed resilience of those tribal leaders, and my grandfather was one of those tribal leaders, and so I say I'm third generation IAC, hoping to create, help create and foster for IAC a remote, national working culture that invites in my son to want to be of the fourth generation right and so thinking truly about this organization as a multi-generational force in improving Indian lands for the benefit of Indian peoples, and doing that through a variety of ways.

Kelsey: 57:07

You know we have our technical assistance network, which is our on the ground boots, onground liaisons and switchboarders for opportunities out into the communities. We have a variety of more specialized programs that are more subject matter specific. So we've got our natural resources program, which works to host field days and coordinate learning and professional development opportunities in distinctly increasing access to knowledge through a cultural lens of connecting with the ecosystems around us and understanding much of the bureaucratic structure that oftentimes limits our ability to steward the lands in a unique way that our non-native, non-tribal counterparts don't have to navigate with you know Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal ordinances and things like that.

Kelsey: 58:20

We have our youth programming and professional development programs that are intended to foster that next generation of leadership in this space.

Kelsey: 58:24

We have our regenerative economies program, which is focused in on the business planning aspect and the business viability and supporting in refinancing and restructures and disaster mediation needs of businesses to be able to stay in business. And we have our American Indian Foods program and this is our program that predominantly focuses on market access and increasing awareness of food product made and produced by American Indians worldwide. So we have an international market space that we help to stand up, where we feature all of our producers that carry the made and produced by American Indians trademark that we monitor and manage and with that we're not only helping folks tap into those niche markets worldwide but we're helping them to explore ways that they can creatively then invest their profits that they're able to make by tapping into these niche markets worldwide back into their home community in their regional food systems. We're standing up right now the Intertribal Food Business Center, which is one of 12 of the regional food business centers that the Biden-Harris administration has established and charged with the responsibility of creating a successful model for regionalizing food systems.

AJ: 59:48

GULP, I couldn't just let you go on. But 12 centres across the country, this is some of. I was telling you yesterday, wasn't I? This is some of what the general whispers we would get in Australia about the money coming into agriculture with this administration that otherwise, you know, I've certainly seen, particularly before Biden gave up the reign. So he's just lambasted, and sure he's older now, but the administration has done some remarkable work, it seems to me.

Kelsey: 1:00:22

And here's another instance the Department of Agriculture, specifically, has done a tremendous job of getting investment into rural communities and has, to a great extent, ensured that Indian country was not left behind in those investments. And I think that that comes by way of many things, several of those things being, for the first time ever we've had in an administration Indians.

AJ: 1:00:55

Yeah, there's what? Two in Congress, is that right? Yeah, several in Congress in positions of power.

Kelsey: 1:01:02

We also had a Native American director of the Office of Tribal Relations. We had an enrolled tribal member also as the Farm Service Agency administrator.

AJ: 1:01:13

That's your dad.

Kelsey: 1:01:13

That's my dad, yeah, and the first ever Native American Office of General Counsel, right? So I mean you actually have Natives represented in the administration that's charged with deploying this call to creating an equitable reality for America, and with that then they're able to help inform their colleagues who are rolling out these billions of dollars of investment, with a reminder that Indian countries cannot just be perceived as an ethnic or racial category. There is a legal and political classification that federal Indian law has imposed upon us, which creates additional unique, complex, nuanced realities and complexities that have to be thought through when we're standing up these efforts for equity, because true parity and access to programming, true equity in being able to pull these resources into the communities, has to appreciate all of the distinct barriers that are imposed upon certain groups of people, and that's extra in Indian country.

AJ: 1:02:31

Yeah, it's probably worth mentioning, too, the massive achievement that your dad has managed to pull off in this term.

Kelsey: 1:02:40

I'm quite proud of him.

Kelsey: 1:02:42

Yeah, julie, I would have never looked at the administrator of the farm service Agency role and thought that role was made for my dad.

Kelsey: 1:03:02

But having been able to see him take on this role and this responsibility at this distinct time in history in the making, I can very confidently say my dad was made for that role.

Kelsey: 1:03:10

He has taken it on in its own unique, its own unique way through his own unique vision and leadership. You know a, a college dropout Indian boy from the res, who was born into parents that barely survived the farm financial crisis of the eighties, and now he's guiding and shaping and helping to inform farm loan policy, farm program policy, in a way that helps me rest assured, knowing that my son isn't going to be up against the same exact barriers and institutionalized how do we get to know approaches as what myself or my dad or my grandpa did? Yeah, I'm just. I'm quite proud of the work that he and his team have been able to do. The thing about it is he's a dreamer, a visionary. He comes up with some phenomenal ideas and having been a business partner with him here on the ranch, I know that sometimes it's not always him doing the work of implementing those ideas.

Kelsey: 1:04:19

So I know that he's not done this all single-handedly, and he'll be the first to admit that he's just been surrounded by a tremendous, tremendously skilled, passionate crew of folks that have grabbed on and said this is our idea, not just yours, zach, and that's what you need in a leader in that position is somebody who can rally the folks to also agree with that vision, to help to bring it to fruition.

AJ: 1:04:52

Yeah, there's so much in that in terms of just how we approach each other in life.

AJ: 1:04:57

Yeah, as well yeah, yes, and his broader story is evidence of that too. Summing to this role and what he's done, and yeah, as you said yesterday, it'll be very interesting what he does next. I'll speak to him at some stage too. Yeah, I wonder, having just been on a reserve, the american prairie reserve in northern montana, and seeing their efforts with restoring buffalo to the great plains and connecting in with various tribes as well in supply and other collaborations and hearing, just I mean now that it's in my view seeing it come up everywhere, and even monty was telling me now that it's in my view seeing it come up everywhere. And even Monty was telling me yesterday it's sort of an ambition he's got in his mind to bring them on here. But there's also an intertribal bison council. Is that right? Is there a connection between the Agriculture Council and the Bison Council?

Kelsey: 1:05:48

Yeah, and there's also an intertribal forestry effort, right as well.

Kelsey: 1:05:58

Yeah, so what?

Kelsey: 1:05:58

I think one of the unique things that our intertribal efforts bring to light is the fact that, even though there's so much diversity and uniquity from one tribal community to the next not even just one, you know tribal peoples to the next, but the swift bird community 20 miles that way and Laplante 10 miles that way, right, like there's so much uniqueness in our sub communities here on the res, not even comparing just this tribe to the next one, the neighbor next door, but there's still a common platform that we as groups of tribes can come together around, and it's that we need to be able to have a government to government relationship that our treaties said we would have.

Kelsey: 1:06:45

We need to be able to have an Indian education system that is reflective of what we want taught to our youth, of what we want taught to our youth. We need to be able to have access to the foods and the food systems that are built upon what our bodies need and what our nourishing, our spirit and our soul needs, and so I think that the intertribal alliances that exist across the country carry so much power and in a way that it brings together that sense of diversity that we need to inform systems change, not just like. I need diversity out in that pasture to support the ecosystem's robust, full function. We need the diversity of those voices and opinions and power and locality and place-based kinship to inform positive shifts in the right direction in our existence, in federal Indian policy and in the ways that we're deploying these resources and dollars out there within our communities.

AJ: 1:07:47

And that's happening too, that it's having that effect at a government level.

Kelsey: 1:07:52

Yeah, absolutely.

AJ: 1:07:53

What are you really looking ahead to now?

Kelsey: 1:07:56

I'm looking ahead to spending the next few years standing up, deploying a lot of the phenomenal projects that our team has come together in thought partnership to build to design to frame out, build to design to frame out and using them to model what a different approach can mean and look like, and communicating about the impact in a way that feels right to us, rather than having impacts tabulated about us, which happens too often in Indian country.

Kelsey: 1:08:34

Hopefully we're using those models of success to inform the 2028 Farm Bill and we have the data on display to be able to storytell with, and we're going to be able to uplift and demonstrate to Congress and to other decision makers in the future administration an awareness around how approaching these types of investments in in rural america through an indian country informed lens can have a resounding impact far beyond the reservation boundary yeah, you mentioned education.

AJ: 1:09:11

Yeah, it's something we've talked about as well, that you feel very strongly about, and now you've got a child too, so you're thinking doubly hard about it. What is the crux of an education that you've come to think more about? When you say an education that's appropriate for us, what does that look like, as distinct from what you've been siphoned into? Yeah?

Kelsey: 1:09:39

I think, especially in indian country, where we're currently at in this on the continuum of time. Right now, we need to be exposing our youth to an education that helps them to navigate chaos, and I mean that in every sense of the word. We need our youth to be able to be in an emergency.

Kelsey: 1:10:03

We need them to be in a situation where the natural system around them is chaotic, where the political system around them may be chaotic chaotic where the political system around them may be chaotic, where the safety in the home may be chaotic, and we need them to be able to deploy thoughtful, practical knowledge base in those chaotic systems. And one of my biggest gripes about the kind of institutionalized, you know desks, all forward facing in a row, you know, sit down in the quiet, do your test. It's great if you can learn that knowledge and apply it in that setting. But how are you supposed to apply that knowledge in a setting that has perpetual chaos in it and with so much of the recent forced assimilation and trauma that continues to be imposed in our communities?

Kelsey: 1:10:56

There will be chaos expressing itself by way of the energy of the world trying to figure out how to resituate and to rebalance, and so we're doing our youth a disservice by not embracing an education system that allows youth an opportunity to learn through the chaos and to practice through the chaos. Now, that's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about our youth programming is getting youth out there in the natural system, exposing them to weather patterns they can't control, exposing them to a thousand pound equine, horse right Like, and then asking them to still work towards a desired outcome is the perfect way to simulate for them a safe exposure to chaos, where they get to practice critical thinking, practice hands-on learning and gain that confidence, really, that we want our young people to gain, so that they're coming face to face with chaos and grounding themselves in a confidence that they can navigate it yeah they can get through it rather than having it be what what tips them over and and has them fall through.

Kelsey: 1:12:13

In Lakota we have a, a phrase. It's Dayan Omani and it's uh, it's a teaching of walking in balance and appreciating that you, you know there's. There's a balance that you have to create in your life in order to to walk forward in a good way, and if you are walking in balance and you're, you've been offered an opportunity to learn how to care for yourself so that you can walk in balance that chaos is going to be real easy to withstand yeah, geez, there's so much in that.

AJ: 1:12:45

Yeah, that could be a whole other podcast, but but this is project help is that what you're referring to?

Kelsey: 1:12:50

yeah, yeah.

AJ: 1:12:51

Which has been a family program for what? Nearly a decade as well.

Kelsey: 1:12:54

Close to. It's crazy how fast time goes. Yes, my uncle came home from working at the local education system as the IT nerd on staff and he was working on fixing a computer and he'd heard what was about to be a conversation that would unfold between a teacher and a student. That would just really wreck that student's day, you know. And he was able to see it coming and to kind of intervene in a way that instead empowered that student to turn an already bad day around to be a good one, by how he proposed to the teacher a different approach and kind of like we do with horses, I think he kind of made it that teacher's idea. Well then he came home that day and he was watching my father work with a young colt who'd kind of gotten a little bothered about something I don know if it was a, the flag by his legs or what it was, but my dad helped him, helped that colt work through it, and my uncle, watching from the fence, saw the same shift in that horse's eye as he saw in that kid's eye at school and it really resonated for him that you know, horses, humans, it's humans, it's all alike, it's not just horsemanship, it's lifemanship. And so he started down this idea of being able to build out a curriculum, house that curriculum at a nonprofit, be able to create a vehicle for connecting with the local community and beyond through our family's you know, joy of horses um to hopefully help to simulate that exploratory learning opportunity where where youth are able to to learn through chaos.

Kelsey: 1:14:49

And so we've we um partnered with some local schools and other nonprofit kind of summer camp programs. We had to kind of put things on pause when COVID hit and then, with Zach taking the post in DC and just some other needs, to kind of focus our time here on the ranch on a few other things. We've we've kind of paused it but we do look forward to really launching it, having it be a mainstay, consistent offering of what we do in our, our summer to summer activities, because it was some of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had on the ranch that's really interesting and brilliant and I noted that you really have a mind towards the lifelong relationships with these people and it almost comes back full circle to talking about create and the same sort of objective there and indeed where we met was at a reunion of folk who'd gone through the program, these different ways of learning education that we're coming up with.

AJ: 1:15:54

that just gets straight to the heart of what really counts and matters and builds that capacity. It's very cool and I wonder did covid disrupt that or did you already get a sense of the potential of that network project help and what that could be?

Kelsey: 1:16:10

yeah. So, um, we we've kind of, through our conversations, formed kind of different phases or or growth periods, if you will, of how we think folks can be able to eventually navigate project help offerings, and our hope is to have that lifelong relationship with youth. You know, having them come in for a day, camp, explore, learn, having them want to come back so much that they take up an internship, they spend a more extended period with us, learning, practicing, being immersed in it. Eventually then they become mentors of the future interns, right? So it's that teach and learn, uh scenario, learn by teaching scenario as well.

Kelsey: 1:16:58

Uh, our hope being that, you know, we we've come into learning and and having gained networks in places or with people that are in places all across the country, and we'd love to be able to have a like a curriculum or a a common knowledge base of what these youth are going through or have been through through our program, instilled in these networks that we have all about the country that are especially located around prime, you know, post-secondary education locations, because we want our, we would love to see our youth go out, get an education, bring that education back home yeah but we know, by way of our own attempts and doing it, how hard it is to leave home and be in a place that is so foreign, so warped in comparison to the reality we've come to know.

Kelsey: 1:17:58

And so if we can try to create you know, tio Shpaye in Lakota is extended family, and so if we can create these extended families to be the soft place to fall that's just down the street from South Dakota State University in Brookings, right. It can be the soft place to fall that's just down the street from University of Minnesota Twin Cities Doesn't require the youth to pack up and come all the way home six hours, eight hours home, right but gives them a reminder right there in the community where they're. At that they can succeed, they can continue to practice this approach, this mindset, and then, ideally, they will be champions, lifelong champions, of bringing more youth back into the program. So it is a lifelong relationship that we hope to establish with folks and it's one that we believe any phase or any level involvement in the different phases can create a lifelong impact for that particular individual.

AJ: 1:19:09

Individual needs to get out of the day, or wants to get out of the day, rather than coming in with a prescribed or preconceived notion of what success would mean for that individual yeah, as I listen to you again, I always go back to what we were talking about the language around regenerative agriculture and traditional economic, ecological knowledge and all that that there's so much to gain by coming together, extending our view out. And I think there's so much to gain by coming together, extending our view out. And I think there's so much to gain by looking at the model that you've just described as motivated by all those factors to do with this community. But how we could all gain so much in our, in the systems of learning that we set up, by such an approach. It's just epidemics of loneliness yeah start.

AJ: 1:19:57

Yeah, I wonder to close, kelsey, what you imagine or envision in general for you and your community and these lands. What's the sort of things that feel like they're possible?

Kelsey: 1:20:12

I think there's, you know, the obvious things that I hope are possible and I hope that we're creating a lifestyle that my son wants to come into and raise his kids in eventually. But you know, really beyond that, I hope to see food systems and realities of producers in this country shift significantly. I recently saw a report or a map that had displayed statistics around access to healthy foods in the United States and there was a map and each state was colored based on if they were below average, above average or average of food insecurity and just the notion of I think it was like 11% is the average for food insecurity rates. But the fact that we are accepting that as an allowable average means that we're willing to say over 10%, over one in every 10 people, is acceptable to not have access to food.

AJ: 1:21:27

Millions of people.

Kelsey: 1:21:28

Yes, and so I would love maps like that to just be called out for. How much of a disgrace it really is to our people that we don't have this appreciation for access to quality food, to safe homes, to quality education, to gainful employment, like all of those things to not just be a natural reality you know like.

Kelsey: 1:22:02

So to me it's. It's just quite humiliating to think that we're accepting of coloring half of the country with an 11% food insecurity rate and saying, but we're doing pretty good and that's not true we're, we're morphing the data and accepting less than what we can do. So I, I, I think that I'd love to see more of our food systems continue to be regionalized and I'd love to continue to find ways for this little piece of paradise that I get to enjoy to serve as a demonstration site for that. You know, welcoming folks in when they are inclined to come in and to share in time and space and energy together, and figuring out how we can communicate in our messaging to inspire more folks to look to their backyards and to figure out who's producing in their backyards and who they might be able to support or learn from or help to inform in their communities around the need for better alignment and kinship with their food system I think about.

AJ: 1:23:19

Earlier in that conversation we talked about the merit of giving it a shot, yeah, and believing it to be possible yeah and then just going for it. And yeah, why wouldn't we go for what you've just articulated? So here's's to that, and thank you to you for playing your part in it. I never close an episode without talking about music. Okay, I'm wondering in turn has there been a piece of music in your life that has landed with you at a particular moment or been significant to you throughout?

Kelsey: 1:23:53

Yeah, music's a big part of my family's life, actually, um, in a couple of different ways. I mean, there's the more um, traditional or ceremonial songs that you know for me take me back to my childhood, growing up, um, at my family's sun dance, you know. Or, um, I used to sing on, uh, the school's drum group which would go around and perform at local ceremonies or local powwows or culture celebration days and things like that. But you know also, there's just so much joy that can be brought into any day where you, you know, just turn the radio up and and enjoy dancing in the kitchen while you're cooking with your husband, right?

Kelsey: 1:24:41

or? You know, butte loves singing and I have a guitar in the house and he just loves strumming it, and so it's already very present in his life. Uh, you know an inclination towards it. Cool, my poppy, who I've talked a lot about throughout this podcast, um, he used to off tune and off beat, sing uh and strum in the in his office in front of the computer. Uh, certain songs and some of my earliest memories are back in that office learning to sing with him a song by Ricky Van Shelton called Life Turned Her that Way and it's.

Kelsey: 1:25:23

It's a sad song really if you read the lyrics, but I've. It's kind of come to be. The name of the song has come to kind of come to be a. The name of the song has come to kind of be something that I really appreciate in the fact that. You know, life has turned me in the direction where I'm headed and there's nothing that should be dismissed or or frowned upon in the experiences that I've had in this life, because look at where it's helped me to head and that's really been healing for me to think through in many unique ways. Folks who end up going and listening to the song are going to kind of giggle when they listen to what the song's all about. But I can remember my grandpa teaching me that song really early on in life when he died. As a tribute to him I actually got that name of the song with his hat and mustache logo tattooed on my foot.

AJ: 1:26:25

Get out Because it's so meaningful to me Really.

Kelsey: 1:26:28

Yeah, and I think about it, you know, in the context of every step I take in life. You know it's helping me turn in the direction that I'm supposed to be headed towards.

AJ: 1:26:39

A hundred percent. And another universal message too, I reckon. Kelsey thanks for the welcoming.

Kelsey: 1:26:46

Yeah.

AJ: 1:26:46

And thanks for speaking with me today. Power to you. It's amazing to behold what you're up to and I look forward to continuing the conversation.

Kelsey: 1:26:53

Absolutely. What I've been taught is that we don't have a phrase or a word for goodbye in Lakota. Really we say, and it means I'll see you again.

AJ: 1:27:06

Here's to that.

Kelsey: 1:27:08

Thanks, absolutely Thank you.

AJ: 1:27:12

That was Kelsey Scott at the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation by Lake Oahe in South Dakota. As usual, you'll see links in the show notes and a few photos on the website, with more for subscribing members on Patreon. That's with great thanks for making this episode possible, and if you'd like to join us, that'd be great, just head to the website or the show notes and follow the prompts. Thanks, too, for sharing the podcast wherever you can. Soon after this conversation, kelsey took us out on a little tour spotting up some of the awesome regeneration of land, culture and kin happening out there, some of which she noticed for the first time with us. That'll feature in a very special extra to this episode later in the week. Oh, and we tried some wild rice pancakes at the ranch too, produced by Red Lake Native Foods. Delicious. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden and at the top, green Shoots by the Nomadics. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.