Melissa used $430,000 of her settlement to purchase the Wiebe property. The little farmhouse needed work, the barn leaned slightly to one side, and the fields had been neglected, but she saw something beyond the repairs. It was a place where Abby could grow up without being reminded every morning that she had lost her father. Melissa wanted the property to become their new beginning.

She invested much of the remaining money in a used tractor, planter, seed, and fertilizer. There was one enormous problem: she had no crop insurance. If the harvest failed, there would be little protection from the loss. Still, Jeff had taught her more about farming than his brothers probably realized. Melissa knew the land, understood the books, and had spent years watching how decisions made in winter affected everything months later. On the morning she climbed into the tractor alone, she wondered whether she had made the biggest mistake of her life. Click continue reading below