We live by losing, leaving, and letting go. Many times it seems like the pain will never go away, but the support of loved ones helps us deal with loss. Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern is an inventive and emotionally affecting documentary about one Iowa clan's struggle to hold on to the farm that had been in the family for 125 years. Although Russell Jordan always managed to pay his bills in the past, the new owners of a bank want him to pay off $220,000 of accumulated debt.

Members of the Jordan family come up with an idea to keep the farm and help pay off the debt. They decide to sell the cow herd, the farm machinery, and household goods. Then Russell will retire and move with his wife Mary Jane to town. Jim, one of their sons, will take over the farm and try to make a go of it.

This documentary written and directed by Jordan's youngest daughter Jeanne and her husband Steven Ascher chronicles the difficult series of changes her parents must undergo. She whimsically intercuts their battles with the bank with film clips from her father's favorite Westerns. Troublesome Creek is a soul-stirring account of one family's process of adapting to the losses of life.