Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.

Category: community (Page 6 of 7)

A House – Update XIV – Building Truss Amongst the Brethren

The next big step in the house “adventure” was to try to start putting up the roof. The design was to have the roof free-span (without support posts) the entire width of the house, and use a gabled roof. I had originally wanted a hip roof, mostly because I liked its old-fashioned (at least to me) look; but with its complexities, and in further consideration of heating and cooling, decided to go with the gable design.

As I mentioned, I wanted to face the gables in a way that would best serve the temperature considerations inside the house during the Winter (for heating) and Summer (for cooling) months. I did some extensive research, and from my findings, decided to face the gabled ends (the vertical sides) to the east and west, and face the roof slopes north and south; and here’s why — it has to do with the position of walls or roof lines in relation to the direct light of the sun:

  • during the Winter, the sun is lower in the southern sky, and facing the slope toward it allows for more direct-angle sunshine to hit the roof, which is what you want when it’s cold, so it will help thermally heat the house
  • and during the Summer, there are two considerations:

    • when the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, having the roof slope facing those directions will have direct sunlight on the roof for nearly all of the day, whereas having the gabled ends facing east-west only has direct sunlight on the walls at the beginning and end of the day
    • and during the majority of the day, when the sun is more directly overhead, sloping the roof north and south will have the sunlight hitting the roof at an angle rather than more directly, thus deflecting the light and subsequent heat

Actually, the decision on which way to face the gabled ends and slopes of the roof needed to be figured out when the foundation piers were being built, so the beams would run in the direction of the sloped sides of the roof, supporting the walls that would be holding the weight of the roof.

Finally, in order be able to free-span the width of the house, I decided on using trusses, because that’s what they do. 🙂

For expediency sake, and to make sure they were designed, hopefully, properly, from an engineering stand-point, we ordered the trusses from a local truss company; and here they are being delivered:

House Roof Trusses on Delivery Truck

Here you can see the brethren work-crew eagerly waiting for the trusses to be dropped off:

House Roof Trusses on Delivery Truck Next to the Brethren Crew

Once the trusses were off-loaded, we started with one of the end trusses:

House Roof Trusses First End Truss in Place

Before being able to move the trusses into position by sliding them across the top of the walls, we figured it would probably be easier if we had one of the internal cross walls up in place so we could walk on it and help move over the truss from the internal middle of the house, not just from the ends; and so, we raised one of the internal walls that had been built but not raised:

House Internal Wall Raised to be Able to Move Trusses into Position

Here’s a truss being moved down the length of the house into position (the two fellows in the middle are walking along that interior wall):

House Roof Truss Moved into Position

And then hoisted up:

House Roof Truss Lifted into Position

And then the process of securing them to each other using 2x4s would begin:

Standing Between Two House Roof Trusses

We needed to pull in the walls to get them to be the proper distance from each other; and for that, we used a come-along and a rope:

Walls Pulled in Using a Come-Along to Properly Install House Roof Trusses

Not only did the folks who walked along the internal wall have to balance on it, but they also had to negotiate that rope:

Moving House Truss into Position Under Cross Rope

Here’s another truss being hoisted up:

Hoisting Roof Truss into Position

And then in final position:

House Roof Truss in Position

Even young Robert was out there helping hold and secure the trusses (we were quadruple careful to make sure he was always holding on to something solid and not playing around):

Stabilizing and Securing House Roof Trusses

And here’s the final end truss in place:

Installing the Final End House Roof Truss

Lastly, to further help prevent the trusses from tipping over because of winds, the ends were secured to the porch roof fascia (please see the last picture on the next house blog post about the house main roof for further bracing that was added):

House Roof Trusses Bracing

And here’s a video of some of the truss work throughout the day:

After a day’s work, here are all of the trusses in place:

House Roof Trusses Finished - Slope View
House Roof Trusses Finished - End View
House Roof Trusses Finished - Inside View
House Roof Trusses Finished - Full View

We are thankful to the Lord for His mercies in the safety of the crew, and grateful to Him and the brethren for their help with this part of the house; and we thank Him for the provisions to continue the house building process.

— David

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving 2011 Candy TurkeyOnce again, we were able to gather in the name of the Lord in thankfulness for His provision, spiritual and temporal, around the Thanksgiving table. This year we had the most folks participating we’ve ever had, I believe; and it was probably one of the most pleasant weather-wise we’ve had.

Here are some of the sights:

Before the meal:

Thanksgiving 2011 Inside Preparations

The men:

Thanksgiving 2011 Men Before the Meal

And the ladies:

Thanksgiving 2011 Ladies Before the Meal

These are the meal tables:

Thanksgiving 2011 Main Course Table
Thanksgiving 2011 Dessert Table

And then the gathering of the brethren to break bread together:

Thanksgiving 2011 Meal Time Around the Table
Thanksgiving 2011 Meal Time
Thanksgiving 2011 Children During Meal Time
Thanksgiving 2011 Timothy Eating

After the meal, we sat around the tables and sang from our Psalter — a joyous time of praise!

We are grateful once again to the Lord for granting us this time of fellowship out here, away from the world, gathering in His name, in celebration of His glory and provisions, both spiritual and temporal.

— David

Fall Ranchfest 2011

Twice a year, the community, along with visitors sometimes, gather together to work as a group in service to our teacher, Michael; it’s also a time where people who follow the ministry or otherwise come down and visit and meet the folks here and work with us — something we call Ranchfest. We just finished up one last week, and I thought we’d share once again a few of the goings-on around the Ranch during that time.

We usually have a kick-off breakfast during the weekend Ranchfest starts:

Ranchfest Kickoff Breakfast

And then it’s off to work during the week! Here we are gathering in the morning for coffee and a breakfast dish in preparation of the day’s events:

Ranchfest Gathering in the Morning to Start the Work Day

The men this Ranchfest were continuing to help build Michael and his family’s new cottage, putting in windows, doors and putting up siding:

Ranchfest Men Working on the North Side of the Michael's Cottage
Ranchfest Men Working on the South Side of the Michael's Cottage During

We also typically meet as a group for lunch break for delicious lunches provided by the ladies, and here we are gathered at the Community Center:

Ranchfest Lunch Break Around the Table

The group has generally been moving toward wearing more Amish-style clothing. Here is a picture of the progress for the ladies:

Ranchfest Ladies in Their New Amish Clothing

And so, while the men worked on the cottage, the women were helping out in sewing new outfits for Michael’s family. In the end, there were several pairs of Amish broadfall pants and dresses, and other items, completed or at least started:

Ranchfest Ladies Working on Sewing Projects for the Michael's Family

Even the young ones were helping and learning the “ropes,” so to speak:

Ranchfest Jennifer Sewing
Ranchfest Sarah Sewing

All in all, it was a wondering, even joyous, time of fellowship and community here at the Ranch. We are thankful to the Lord for the teacher He has granted us, and for the opportunity to do a little something back for him and his family; and we pray He glorified Himself through this, in the heavenly realms and here on earth, and in demonstration of what we pray is God-granted love for Him and for each other. We’re also grateful to God for granting the provisions He has to Michael and his family for allowing their homestead to be furthered, we pray for Christ’s glory and the benefit of His Church.

— David

Our First Longhorn Feast

With the drought this year, we’ve had to be liquidating many of our own personal herd of Texas Longhorn cattle. We’ve been trying to sell as many as possible, but we also raise the cattle to eat. With one of our cows, Catalina, there seemed to be no interest in someone buying her. She also was also one of our more rambunctious cows, in that, if she wanted to jump a fence to go eat something wherever, she would. And so, given that we couldn’t control her anymore, and that she was getting into areas we couldn’t have her, and that no one bought her, we made the difficult decision to take her to the butcher, even though she might be pregnant.

This was Catalina:

Our Texas Longhorn Cow Catalina

And so, after getting her back from the processor, Sue began the preserving process. When we use the butcher, we have them cube a lot of the meat into chunks all ready to go into the jars:

Catalina Our Texas Longhorn Cow in Jars Ready for Canning

And here they are ready in the canner:

Catalina Our Texas Longhorn Cow in the Canner Ready for Canning

Here are some of the hamburger meat packages:

Catalina Our Texas Longhorn Cow Hamburger Meat

And Sue browns it before putting it into the jars to can, which apparently helps get extra oils/grease out which could overflow if not removed ahead of time:

Catalina Our Texas Longhorn Cow Browned Hamburger Meat Ready for Canning

And here she is preserved and ready for the root cellar:

Catalina Our Texas Longhorn Cow Preserved in Jars

One of the benefits of the Longhorns is the use of other parts of the animal, include the horns; and so we had the butcher cut them off of the head, and hopefully I’ll be able to turn them into something mountable some day:

Horns of Catalina Our Texas Longhorn Cow

And so, after the processing, it was time to partake in the first one of our personal cows to be eaten!

One of the joys of living here is the fellowship, and we wanted to share in the further joy of the providence of the meat with the community. And so, we had Catalina burger night at our place!

Here are some of the grilled burgers:

Grilled Texas Longhorn Burgers

And the trimmings and side dishes, with which several of the ladies graciously helped:

Grilled Texas Longhorn Burgers Fixings and Side Dishes

We are very thankful for the grace and mercy the Lord has afforded us in this general time of peace to be able to fellowship together, after enjoying His direct provisions:

Grilled Texas Longhorn Burger Fellowship Night Around the Table
More Grilled Texas Longhorn Burger Fellowship Night Around the Table
And Still More Grilled Texas Longhorn Burger Fellowship Night Around the Table

We are grateful to the God of all providence in allowing us the healthy food from this organically raised, grass-fed cow; and we are thankful to Him for allowing us the fellowship and community He has here.

— David

A House – Update IX – Exterior Walls

After the house’s porch posts, it was time to put up the exterior walls. After all of the other much slower-moving parts of the house, like the concrete piers, etc., it’s nice to be at a point where things move a little quicker.

Here is the first wall framed. The window headers, which sit on the cripple studs to which the sides of the windows are attached, we made by “sandwiching” 2 pieces of 1/2″ plywood between 3 2x6s; and the window sills sit on smaller cripples, forming the rest of the window frame. The doors, not a part of this wall, we did similarly. We will double the top plates, using the upper top plate to overlap and tie the corners together:

House Outer Wall Frame

And here is the wall with the fire blocks in place. The distance that the OSB siding would be lowered down the wall to attach to the floor joists header determined where these went:

House Outer Wall Frame with Fire Blocks

This is how we did the corner, to be able to attach another wall to it and to allow for internal siding to have something to which to be attached:

House Outer Wall Frame Corner

We set a chalk line 5 1/2″ inches back from the edge of the floor, lined up the wall frame to it, and tacked the bottom plate to the floor every 4-6 feet to keep the wall from sliding when lifted into place:

House Outer Wall Frame Base Plate Tacked to Floor

We attached the OSB siding while the frame was on the ground, because placing the 4×8 foot panels when the wall is vertical is much more difficult. I chose OSB because it was cheaper, and I figured would work just about as well, although there are discussions on the Internet that using plywood is better:

House Outer Wall Frame with OSB Siding

And then, we cut out the windows using a router, which made it VERY easy. In the end, even with the siding on, especially with the windows and doors cut out, it wasn’t really too heavy to lift into place:

House Outer Wall Frame with Windows Routed Out

Here’s the video of the raising of the walls. We thank the Lord for granting us the brethren to help and be a part of this as part of a community:

Raising of the House Walls

With the diagonal braces on the outside holding up the walls, we had to come back in later and add a few pieces of the OSB siding. Once placed, the windows had to be then cut out; and here is a video of me doing that. The router is REALLY nice for this process. Judging from the video, this is why we try to do as many of these while the wall is on the ground 🙂 :

Routing Out Some House Wall Window Frames

As always, we are grateful to the Lord for granting the provisions to be building the house, the strength to do so, we pray guidance and safety in doing so, and for the brethren to help in its construction; and we pray one day the house will be used as a place of worship and fellowship of God’s people.

— David

The Great Black-Eyed Pea Adventure

Our neighbor, Mr. Bunker, planted his large field (about 5 acres) in black-eyed peas this past Spring. It was no small amount to purchase the seed and pay to have the ground plowed and planted. He had every right to keep it all to himself for his family and to have a cash crop. Instead, he graciously opened up the field to our community to come and tend it and reap its harvest together along with his family. We greatly appreciated his offer and spent many hours over several weeks in the Summer sun weeding and then picking the beans when they grew to maturity. It was a great opportunity for our community to learn what it means to come together for a common cause and share God’s bounty as a group. It was also the first major crop for the community to cultivate, so this was a new experience on multiple levels.

I learned many things through the experience. The women and children devoted several community work days towards weeding and tending the field, which turned out to be rich times of work, fellowship and getting to know each other better. Working in the field introduced me to the joys of blisters from the Blister Beetle; and I received my first wasp sting, not to mention the potent burning sting of the Stinging Nettle plant. It also forced me personally to come out of my own little homestead world to focus on a larger cause, and required additional discipline to go out into the field even when I didn’t “feel” like it or when I was really busy with other things.

The Lord did a little weeding of my own heart during this process as well. The Bible says we are to mortify (kill) the flesh (Rom 8:1-13), the carnal (non-spiritual) man of sin, which means we need to examine ourselves for sins of the flesh. At times when I was tired or really hot and sweaty wanting to quit, I had to reel myself back in and remember to be thankful for this opportunity and provision, and to work for Christ’s sake and as unto Him and nobody else. Just as with God’s grace, this provision was being offered undeserved as a gift; but I still had to beat down the flesh and submit myself to what was required to persevere to the end (the harvest). The field was so big it felt very overwhelming at times, when the weeds were growing so fast it was impossible to keep up with them. I could usually only get through one half to one row in a one to two hour time period. During the times when it was just me in that big field, my flesh would say, “It’s just too big. You’re not making a bit of difference. The weeds are going to take over this field, and there won’t be any beans left to harvest.” It was easy to forget that other members in the community were out there at different times doing the same thing, and we were all in it together. I also found myself at times to be even a little resentful that the entire community couldn’t put in more time and were jeopardizing the crop and some deserved more than others because of the different investments of time. The Lord had to remind me (strongly) that this was a REALLY good opportunity to step outside of myself and practice meekness and selflessness. I had to repent of that and remember it was not for myself but for the good of the community. I was saddened and surprised at how quickly my flesh had wanted to take over my spirit.

When it came time to harvest, there was plenty for everyone; and I learned the beans that weren’t picked could be turned back into the soil to nourish it. So no part of the whole process was wasted — another reminder that even when I don’t see the big picture, God does, and is in control and all knowing of every aspect of the situation. I believe the spiritual weeding of my heart truly paralleled the physical, and I praise the Lord for His patience with me to teach me these things. It was a valuable lesson in so many areas of my life, and I’m grateful to Mr. Bunker for his personal sacrifice in order for our community to grow spiritually and physically on individual and corporate levels.

I had not eaten black-eyed peas much growing up in California; it seems like more of a southern food. But I am now sold on growing them to harvest and preserve. Did you know it is a three-for-one crop: in that the first harvest produces long, tasty green beans; the second when they are a little dry, the moist bean could be shelled and preserved; and then at the end of the harvest when the bean pods have all dried up, you can go through again and pick the dried pods to shell and keep the black-eyed peas as a dried bean until you’re ready to cook them, or use them to re-plant. Wow!

Here are a couple of five-gallon buckets from the first green bean stage harvest:

Black-Eyed Pea Green Beans

I was able to pressure can over 20 quarts:

Canned Black-Eyed Pea Green Beans

And here are the dried beans we harvested. It doesn’t look like much, but this represents a lot of food for the two of us:

Dried Black-Eyed Peas in Jars

We thank the Lord again for His direct spiritual and physical provisions and lessons from the experience of this first community crop. I hope I will have grown in spiritual maturity the next time, Lord willing, and pray for God’s blessing on Mr. Bunker and his family for their sacrifice and love for the community.

Susan

Community Singing – July 2010

In a past blog post about fellowship activities around here, I mentioned the singing we do together on the Lord’s Day. We had recently gone through our “hymnal” (which is just a collections of hymns we had put together) and removed probably 2/3 of the hymns as they were either doctrinally incorrect or just fluff pieces with no real spiritual meat; and now, it seems over time we’re leaning more toward the singing of the Psalms from our psalter as our preferred song choices, given that they are based on God’s Word, where we believe God has dictated how He should be worshiped (see the regulative principle of worship).

In our singing of the Psalms, we’re also trying to learn them by heart so that when the Psalter is not around, either at times during the day now, or perhaps if we’re ever prohibited from having it, we will be able to continue to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.

We’ve recorded our Psalm singing a couple of times now (which we hope to continue to do), and since some of you might be learning from the same Psalter we are, or even if you’re not, I wanted to share them with you. I look forward to listening to them myself as hearing songs repeatedly helps me memorize them:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

(This is not the performance-oriented “worship” that occurs in most “churches” today; it is just simple a capella Psalm singing.)

It is our prayer that God glorifies Himself through us, at times of singing His praises, and throughout our lives in any way He might.

— David

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