Thread by @rbgibbfarms, 2020 has been a year for sure....Here’s a little summary of what [...]

2020 has been a year for sure....
Here’s a little summary of what I’ve been up to for the year.
About a year ago I was in Texas for @Ranching4Profit seminar (which was amazing!) I decided to go do some farm touring while there.

I met up with an amazing farm, toured it, and we talked about me working there. Now at this time I wasn’t sure about that, but went home and talked to my wife, her first response was hell no!
Now you might be asking why would you even entertain that thought if you were farming?

I’ll give a little back story. I had a deal down in Montana with a farm, it was all going great, until one day he broke our deal and contract. In short we had set ourselves up to move there, so we were already geared up to leave. This guy broke our contract a few weeks before

We were going to move to Montana, I was devastated, my self confidence was shot, my mental health went on a downward spiral. I instantly got attorneys involved and went after this guy. This was back in 2018. So all of 2019 was spent trying to figure out how to make things work

Luckily I started seeing a mental health councillor, and that was such a crucial decision and I’m glad I made it! There’s a lot of details in the middle but this platform is hard to give everything.

So 2019 I looked at lots of options, what could we do to rebuild our operation, is it worth rebuilding? Did we want to stay in our community any longer? Did we want to sell out and move somewhere else? Or maybe sell out and stay? There were hundreds of scenarios going through

My mind. And all of them were viable, and none of them were viable at the same time. While this was all happening my father in law passed away, and my marriage was on the verge of collapsing. I really was in the toughest mental space I had ever been in my life

And lots of that stems from this guy breaking our contract and throwing our lives upside down. And during this time I went through a major faith crisis (I was raised Mormon) and went through what I have heard described a darkness of the soul it was devastating to have this happen

So January 2020 my wife and I flew to Texas, we spent 4 days at this place, and my wife and I both knew this would be a good for us and our family.

We went back to Canada and continued to weigh out our options.
And we decided it was the best thing for us. If I wasn’t running and owning my own farm, why stay? We needed a hard reset on our lives, our marriage, and our spirituality!

So we put the farm up for sale, the original plan was to move down in June of 2020, but we both were scared. Not scared of moving, but scared the same thing would happen and our agreement would be broken. Plus I wanted to be there for the beginning of the season

So I went down, left the family behind. My wife took care of finalizing land sales, and getting the house ready for sale. My dad helped me out a ton, and so very grateful for him!

My family and I are we’re apart for a few months, and we decided this covid thing wasn’t calming down. I went back up, picked them up and got back to the states as quickly as possible!

So now we’re in dell city Texas. I had people ask me, what if this doesn’t work? Where will you go? My answer was, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. I had people tell me my grandpa would be so upset I was selling family land (which I had to buy at market value)

People telling me you had to stay close to the church (Mormonism) and raise my kids close to family. I only had a few people that told me they were excited for me, and that this would be a great opportunity for me (my dad being the biggest supporter)

So here we are, we settled our lawsuit, sold our land and houses, and had some extremely big learning curves farming here. Looking back, 2020 has been and extremely stressful year, but it has been a great year!

I share this not to brag, or try to gain any sort of clout but rather to just share. We love living in Texas, I love farming here, and love the freedom that has come from not owning a farm or owning any debt. 10 years ago I would have told me that I was stupid

But things change, people change, owning land isn’t everything, do what you’re good at and enjoy your family and life. #HappyNewYear2021

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