Cassandra Row, joining Arlene and Caite from Nebraska, describes “growing” three children (ages nine, six, and four), an accidental homestead (garden; chickens, guineas, turkeys, ducks; a milk cow and calf; summer pigs and butchering), and two businesses: her husband’s ag-service trenching/welding/fencing work and her rural-focused marketing business. With a lifelong ag background (K-State animal science; master’s in ruminant nutrition), she explains how multigenerational financial issues, poor transition planning, drought, storms, irrigation expenses, and losing land leases led her family to file Chapter 12 bankruptcy in 2024 after beginning liquidation in 2023, a process not finalized until 2025.

She discusses identity shifts, explaining liquidation to kids, the importance of supportive friends and family, using coaching/counseling, getting blunt financial and tax advice, and continuing involvement in agriculture by helping her parents farm while maintaining the homestead.

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