Selling the Farm and STARTING OVER? Stressed... Overwhelmed, Tired and Lonely

Life throws us curveballs and life throws us change and it's always going to throw us change and it's always going to throw us curve balls and it's how we deal with that that matters the most. Merry Christmas, guys. Welcome back to another gorgeous day here on the Stony Ridge Farm. A merry Christmas to you and yours and your family and the people that you love and the people that you care about. I hope everybody here is getting to spend some time with family, with friends, and with fellowship. If you're not, pick up the phone, call them, talk to them. If you're having troubles right now, if if your life is tough, if there's turmoil in your life, just know that you're blessed. Every morning you wake up, you're blessed you to take the next breath. So, please guys, celebrate life today. Celebrate uh Christmas today with your family, with your friends, and I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas. And I also want to talk about some changes that are coming about here on the Stony Ridge Farm. some big changes that are coming about here on the Stony Ridge Farm. So, let's have a little bit of fun, have a little bit of talk, a little friendship, a little fellowship, and a great, very merry Christmas here from the farm. So, folks, merry Christmas. Merry Christmas from me to you. Thank you all so much for sharing your joy with me and thank you so much for watching the channel and enjoying this journey with me. All around us is a 150 acre firstg generation farm project. And what does that mean? First generation means I'm the first generation to build this farm. This was an overgrown tobacco farm that had been neglected for around 40 years. We're on about 150 acres. I've been building this farm for somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 years now. I guess since 2014, something to that effect, 2013, 2014. And things are changing. Things are evolving. You guys have probably, if you've been here since the beginning, you've seen this as a brush pile and then this start getting cleared off with tractors and trucks and and heavy equipment and coming in here and doing construction projects, building this gigantic shop back here. I call it the mega shop. Building the outdoor kitchen right here, the timber frame. Such a beautiful place. Such a beautiful time. And the other morning I woke up and I had I don't know what you'd call it, a moment of clarity. Maybe maybe that's what you call it. I have been feeling overwhelmed on the farm. And you guys might see it a little bit in the content here and there, but I've been feeling overwhelmed. overwhelmed with the big shop building, overwhelmed with getting things organized, overwhelmed with the cattle, overwhelmed with keeping the grass up, keeping the pastures mowed, keeping everything fertilized, overwhelmed, just absolutely overwhelmed. And I think we owe it to ourselves as human beings to kind of question the things that we're doing in our lives. You've seen this go from an overgrown brush pile to something that's absolutely gorgeous with a view. We can see 50 miles from the top of this hill right here. 50 miles I can see from the top of my ridge. That is so awesome. So beautiful. And I don't have a family to share it with. I have friends and I have family. And I am dating a young lady that I really think a lot of right now. She is great. I hope that that progresses on to something truly wonderful in my life. So far, it has been something truly wonderful in my life. Now, all this being said, I'd anticipated I you guys have seen me go through clearing the land, making this place a farm, building the fences, and you've seen the struggles of a man being crushed by divorce. You've seen my family busted up literally 16 times. So, my ex-wife and I got back together and broke up literally 16 times. We never got remarried or anything like that, but 16 times, multiple times before the divorce, multiple times after the divorce, and we just couldn't seem to make it work. Life throws us curveballs, and life throws us change, and it's always going to throw us change, and it's always going to throw us curve balls, and it's how we deal with that that matters the most. So, I woke up the other day from a a good night's sleep after working my butt off here on the farm. And I got to thinking, what am I doing this for? Who am I doing this for? And am I am I finding enough time in my world, in my life to really live, to enjoy what I'm doing? And don't get me wrong, I started doing all this because of joy, to bring joy to my life, to my home, to my family. And what it's doing right now is absolutely overwhelming me. It's overwhelming me with work. I can't seem to sit down and just enjoy it. I love building things. I love putting things together. If you missed it, we just put a septic system in for this shop building just the other day. I'm down in the ditch putting pipe together. And that's what I really love to do. I enjoy the ride and the build. And I've almost gotten to the point where the ride and the build is taking away from what I really want in life. And what I really want is joy. I have a newfound passion for aviation, and I've been flying and learning how to fly for about a year now. I don't have my pilot's license yet, but I'm working on that. And you guys have seen some videos around the airplane. Right now, the airplane is down. I can't fly it. Uh, we hit a deer, believe it or not. [gasps] But long story short, that was me taking some time out to enjoy myself, to learn something new, to grow, to learn. I love to absorb knowledge and I love to work with my hands. And I feel like I've reached a point here on the farm where I've done what I came to do. I've built it. I built it. And it's kind of like building a hot rod. You see a lot of guys that work so hard for like 10 years building this awesome hot rod, right? And at the end of it, what do they do? They drive it around for 6 months and then they sell it. Well, that's what where we're at right now. I do believe I am looking at another piece of property that's just a few miles away from here that's much smaller and much more affordable. In other words, when I fertilize this or line these fields or put anything on these fields, it's costing me $20,000 to take care of just these fields every year. It's costing me $10,000 in hay just to take care of the cows. Everything is so monumentally huge here on the farm that it's sucking the life out of me and sucking me financially. Now I'm earning a good living, but it takes everything I make just to keep this up. And it's killing me. It's wearing me out. I'm feeling down. I'm not feeling inspired like I once was. And I don't feel like I'm growing and learning as a person. And that's the reason why I made the decision to downsize a bit. I will be showing you guys some videos here very soon of the new homestead. I have not closed on this new homestead. It is a beautiful piece of property with a beautiful home. It is overgrown. It is a mess. It is a bit of a uh it is it's a project. And even the person that I'm buying it from knows that it's a project. It's a beautiful homestead with many structures that are already in place, places I can make a wood shop out of, places I could put a wood stove in, sit down and enjoy myself just a little bit more. This 150 acre piece of beautiful property is going to end up going up for sale if it's not sold by the time that I talk to you guys. Um I at least I think it is. [laughter] It's so hard to let go of something that you love this much. But I'm I'm being swallowed whole. And I just want to talk to you about this. This is Christmas time. This is the time of giving and forgiving and caring for your fellow man. And I feel like it's a time where I need to mention this to you guys. It's been coming on for about a year now. I just have felt so absolutely overwhelmed that it's taken the joy, some of the joy out of my life. I could be happy pretty much anywhere doing pretty much anything, [gasps] but I need more time. I'm 48 years old, pushing 50 years old. I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my life. Really, I want to build something else. I want to move on and build something new. And I might move on and build something new at the next place. And I might move on and build something new at the next place. I think it's fun. I enjoy it. It's what really brings the spark to my life. I have everything that I set out to build here aside from a nice big gigantic home, which I don't want a nice big gigantic home. I live in a 12,200 ft mobile home here. So, just want to let you guys know in 2026 this farm will probably still be here and some of the content, maybe I won't let it go. Maybe I'll rent out the mobile home and maybe I'll continue to build this as well. But there going to be some changes and I'm looking at a homestead with about 11 acres that's just right over the hill from me. And I think it's going to be a wonderful change and an inspiration for you guys and an inspiration for me. This is a monumental undertaking. And it's so hard to do this not knowing the reason why. And I've lost the reason why. I don't have a family. I don't have a wife. I don't have kids. I'm not building it for somebody. I don't even know who I would leave it to if something were to happen to me. And that's an odd place to be. It really is. I want to downsize my life. I want to think more on a smaller scale. And I want to rebuild another beautiful homestead just like we have here, just a little bit smaller scale so that if I want to go on a vacation, I can go. Right now, I can't go. I just can't go. I can't do anything. I'm stuck here and I feel like I can't go anywhere and I feel like I can't leave. My animals are my priority. My home is my priority. Keeping this place beautiful takes 50, 60, 70 hours a week. And it's tough. Guys, I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas. And I also wanted to let you know that there are going to be some changes. And it's not going to happen right away, but there are going to be some changes. and I'm gonna start rebuilding another beautiful piece of property. We will take you over there to that property and we'll walk you around. We'll show you the property. We'll tell you what what it needs and we'll get your input and we'll continue to build another beautiful homestead. Guys, I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas, a happy holiday season, a happy new year, and get ready cuz we're going to start doing some really fun stuff at a brand new place. and I'm going to take you over there and we're going to show you from zero to hero how we build the next Stony Ridge farm. Maybe we'll call it the Stony Ridge homestead or maybe we'll call it I don't know. Tell me, Stony Ridge number two. We'll see you, guys. Thank you so much. Have a very merry Christmas. Thank you for all your support. Hit that like button down there and hit that little bell. It'll tell you when I post a new video. I'm getting ready to go grab the log spplitter and make some firewood. See you. Woo! Come on down to the Stony Ridge. [music] Bring your wife and bring your kids. We're living life pure and sweet. That's the way [music] it's supposed to be. Stony Ridge. [screaming] Y'all come back now. You here?