I'm up late at night/early morning, worried about losing my family farm. Its my biggest fear in life. No matter what I do on farm, how hard I work, how unique I approach farming....still the fear is very real that it all can be gone as soon as tomorrow.

My dad is youngest sibling and only son of a clan of 4 children. My dad's older three sisters all had kids before me so I'm the youngest of my generation by 8 years. While the youngest, I am the most tied/connected to farm. Not a good look when it comes to heirs property.

I grew up not knowing my Great Grandfather, Julius Tillery, who I was named after. He died in 70s before I was born. He was the first grave in middle of our home area of farm, so I always looked at that grave and said to myself that I'm responsible for everything around it.

I'm the only first cousin of my family farm that has the name Tillery. I always felt I had a responsibility to my farm because its my namesake farm. This has always made me feel like my cousins don't care as much to me about farm, because their name isn't behind it.

My mother who is my father's high school sweetheart and been with him almost his whole life it seems now, she could give 2 craps about our farm. We never lived on the farm as a family because my Mom never ever wanted to live on farm. She holds that over my head constantly.

I constantly worry that if something happen to my Dad, my Mom would promote to my father's sisters to sell farm. She never cared, and always wanted to live a better life. She doesn't see a good life for me in agriculture in general. She constantly tells me to find a better job.

My http://BlackCotton.Us  biz is basically an intervention to save my family farm. I like advocating for farmers, I like talking farming culture, history and such....but to keep it real, I just hope this biz catches on so it can help keep my farm in family another generation.

I would love to be rich, maybe even famous, but more than anything...I just want to keep my family farm going. It has my name on it, so I want to die on it in peace that its still going. At current rate, I don't know if that will happen. This is the fear that keeps me up at night

So I give my biz, http://blackcotton.us , all my energy, funds, time, etc. on faith that it will save my farm. In a way, the business has given me hope because all the youth of my family a generation below me, truly believes in the business. All of my little cousins has helped.

This gives my first cousins also faith in my business, because for the first time in family, the youth of family actually cares and enjoys part of farming. I personally believe young people will care about something if they can be proud of it and have $ in their pockets from it.

Most of my first cousins say I promote fake news when I attempt to make farming cool. All they remember is hard work and little pay. I see our farm so different because I never cared what I was paid, I just cared to get job done so I could carry on with my life outside farming.

I've always looked at farm as a responsibility I couldn't get out of. My 1st cousins all see the farm as a chore they couldn't wait to get away from. I know some of them would love to get paid from selling farm. Hence why having their children see value in farm so important.

In 2017 when my Grandfather passed away, if I didn't take the last two years before his death to truly pushed idea of a business that used our cotton crops, my father and I would've been outnumbered in family ready to get rid of farm. Its hard to quit on something w/ potential.

So I push http://BlackCotton.Us  all the time, everywhere with everything I got. I'm not a crafty, or even super business savy....but for my farm, I will give everything I got to make it work to save all what my grandfather, his father, and his father worked for our family.

There is so much more that could be said, but I've got enough off my chest through these tweets. End of thread. Hope everyone enjoys Thanksgiving! Even tho I have these fears, I will be thankful for all I have today with my family. That's all that matters right now.