Each year we gather together at this time as brethren around a meal in fellowship and thankfulness to the Lord for His spiritual and temporal provisions. And so, by God’s mercies, we were able to meet together for this once again!
This is before the meal time:
And here are the tables decorated very nicely!
The Lord graciously supplied the meal provisions in the main courses:
And drinks:
And desserts! YUM!
And then it was time to break bread (and turkey and all of the trimmings!) together:
After the meal, the Lord granted, and we enjoyed, a peaceful and very pleasant time of continued fellowship and hanging out together, here with the ladies:
…and here, the men:
It is our prayer that we be and continue to be a candlestick of the Church here, for Christ’s glory (Rev 1:20,11:4):
We are grateful to the Lord for granting us this time of gathering together for His glory in thanks. May we be ever thankful for His perfections, love, condescension, forbearance, forgiveness, and the multitudes of His other graces and mercies; and by His graces and mercies may we be willingly obedient and faithful servants of Him, out of love for Him, with our hearts focused on the person of Christ, as a purified bride (continuing to be purified by Him even now, individually and as a group), with love, faithfulness, service, and forbearance to the brethren, in humility and meekness, with His continued faith unto the end, wherever that might lead. Amen.
Well, it was that time of year again around here — Ranchfest! This is a time where folks can come to visit (in a more formal way — visitors can come out at most any time) and fellowship and help support our teacher, Michael, in working projects for his homestead. We had several folks from Pennsylvania come by for the weekend, and a couple of fellows from the southwestern U.S.
Ranchfest usually starts on Friday, but the Lord granted over 2 inches of rain on Thursday, which effectively rained us out. But we are so very thankful for those graciously given provisions as they filled many of the ground-water tanks and almost fully one side of our cistern! It’s amazing the difference for living things when God grants the water of life!
On Sabbath, Michael had everyone over for “tapas,” using foods they grew and processed here on the land. Yummy!
We usually have a Ranchfest kickoff breakfast at a local mexican establishment:
And then we participated in our normal Lord’s Day fellowship activities, including singing, our fellowship meal, and the holy reading, which is currently (John Owen’s The Glory of Christ).
I believe we received a little more rain on the Lord’s Day, and so we started after lunch time on Monday working on the various projects. One of the projects is a rock-walled, 12-foot high water tower. The previous week, the telephone poles were put up and a concrete base was poured:
And then Monday, the men started in on the framing and siding, including cutting into the framing and posts and attaching diagonal braces to help prevent “racking”:
Another project was to get the west side of Michael’s cottage hooked up with gutters and piping to harvest the rain into his cistern:
We had another special meal for Monday’s lunch — a meal of mostly food grown or raised on the land, where the whole community participated, from Michael’s recently-butcher bull, to vegetables, to goat milk cheese, to cactus juice, and more! We’re thankful to the Lord for His provisions to be able to do that:
Another project was to install new cabinets in the kitchen of the cottage:
The ladies of the community got together to process and preserve the butchered bull:
And do some sewing on a sewing machine run by foot treadle:
Here are some of the children fellowshipping too, although the new-born is just trying to relax:
Here, the girls are hiding from Sue:
And then listening to some reading:
Back at the cottage, the piping of the catch-water gutters were completed, with a roof washer…
And the connections to the pipes on the other side of the cottage that then run into the cistern:
Over at the water tower, once the siding and rock wall connector tabs were in place, it was time to start placing rock. We just happen to have nearby a stone mason, who graciously granted his time to help teach and direct folks in this project. Here are a couple of the guys carving rock:
And then the “mud” was mixed by hand — 9-12 shovels-full of sand with 1/2 bag of type N mortar cement and 1 shovel-full of type S portland cement (I believe that was the formula). The mixed consistency is apparently supposed to be where it slides off a trowel cleanly:
Here is the placement of the all-important first corner-stone (Isa 28:16; Matt 21:42):
And here is most of the first row of rock completed. After only a few hours, the joints were scraped out with a handle or stick to just behind the edge of the adjoining rocks and then wire brushed:
Well, there had been a sickness moving through the group since before Ranchfest started, and Wednesday night it hit several of the rest of the group; and so, sadly the last two work days of Ranchfest were cancelled. But, we are thankful to God for granting the healing and help through the sicknesses that He has.
We are also grateful to Him for granting this time of fellowship and service, for the new folks we were able to meet, and for the work accomplished on the Michael’s homestead. We are thankful to the Lord for the teacher He has granted us in Michael, and for his family; and we pray the Lord continue to provide for them and grow us into continued and more service to them, and each other, in love for each other, motivated by love for Christ Jesus.
Twice a year we gather as a community for a week to work on projects for our teacher, Michael, and his family; and to provide an opportunity for guests to come by and help out and meet the folks here, etc.
And so, it was that time again for “Ranchfest” — Spring 2012!
The men had two projects they were working on throughout the week: building a cabin for the community’s betrothed couple; and doing finishing work on the inside of Michael’s cottage.
The Cabin
For the cabin, we started on Friday with a concrete slab pour. This was the group’s first real concrete pour on the land, and the guys did a lot of study and prep work in getting things ready. Here is the area formed with the rebar:
And here begins the concrete pour:
And more of the pouring and after “screeding” (or spreading) it out with the long 2×4 that spanned the whole width:
Here the concrete is tamped lightly by what they call a “jitterbug”, and a “bull float” is used to smooth out the concrete surface:
And then it was edged so the edges are rounded, to help keep them from chipping. One fellow also went around the sides with a hammer, lightly tapping the forms to help keep the concrete from “honeycombing”:
Here’s the groom-to-be and his improvised concrete texturizer:
And finally, the betrothed couple thought they’d mark a memory of the event:
Friday Night Sermon
On Friday evenings, Michael is going through in an in-depth way the last chapters he included in a book he wrote, which was an article series he wrote called “What is the Gospel?”:
Passover
Ranchfest times are often planned around the Passover time, which we observe as a teaching method for the children (and as a memorial for the adults) of the types and shadows used in the Passover feast representing Christ.
Here is the Passover “ceremony” time:
And the seder plate, with each food element representing some part of the event of the Passover time of the Hebrew people in and leaving Egypt:
We also sang Psalms 113-118 from our psalters, and here is a video of a few of those psalms being sung:
The Cottage
As I mentioned, the other project was working on the internals of Michael’s cottage, putting up insulation and siding.
And here is some of the completed work:
Here are the men cutting the siding:
And here is some staining work of the siding being done:
More Cabin
Once the concrete slab was completed, it was time to build and raise the walls. Here’s the cabin with two of the walls raised:
And then with all four walls in place:
Apparently, the plan is to have a second story; and so, they are using a 10 inch I-beam spanning the width, which will be the support for the upper level floor:
More Cottage
Back at the cottage, after the siding was in place and stained or painted, the window sills and trim were cut, installed and painted with a clear wood protector:
And here are a couple of final pictures of the cottage work for the week:
Ladies Work
Besides all of the group meal preparations the ladies did for the week, they also had other projects, which this Ranchfest included sewing for the Michael’s family and snapping mesquite pods, which they use for their mesquite coffee.
The main sewing project was for curtains for the cottage, although there was some clothing-making worked on. Here are some sewing preparations being done for some clothing:
And here, even the younger ones helped:
Seems to be a fun time too!
And here, one of the mothers is functioning as a seamstress and a lounge chair 🙂 :
And finally, here are some of the ladies and children helping with the mesquite pods:
All in all, it was a very nice time of fellowship, community and work. It’s tiring, but rewarding as well. We did have a few guest families that visited this year, and it was a pleasure to see them again or meet them, and we thank them for the help and work they provided.
We are grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to gather in His name to work together, and we’re thankful for the teacher He has granted us.
Once 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:
The men:
And the ladies:
These are the meal tables:
And then the gathering of the brethren to break bread together:
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.
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:
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:
The men this Ranchfest were continuing to help build Michael and his family’s new cottage, putting in windows, doors and putting up siding:
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:
The group has generally been moving toward wearing more Amish-style clothing. Here is a picture of the progress for the ladies:
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:
Even the young ones were helping and learning the “ropes,” so to speak:
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.
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:
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:
And here they are ready in the canner:
Here are some of the hamburger meat packages:
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:
And here she is preserved and ready for the root cellar:
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:
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:
And the trimmings and side dishes, with which several of the ladies graciously helped:
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:
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.
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:
Heb. 11:8-10 - "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
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