A Fine Filial Farm

Tweet, Tweet!

2012-01-24T23:17:00.003-05:00

Here lately the idea of blogging has taken the form of a few short snippits akin to the twitter realm. I am toying with the idea of merging with my other blog and trying to meld my reformed leanings with my agrarian bent...Radical thoughts me thinks...
Hopefully soon there will be something worth reading.
Finally got high speed but now realize that my 6 year old E-machine is NOT going to get better with another defrag and revamp of the registry.Sorry E-machine,but I really tried to paint your product as the frugal choice in my mind.
I will be looking at a new system within the next 2 months and maybe I will be able to get at least 5 words typed per minute.
Seriously.
This machine is the worst product I have ever owned. Loads of wasted time and money trying to upgrade.
I finally figured out that it will not matter as long as that 2nd string vowel is still on the tower.

Coming Soon

2011-12-03T23:48:00.003-05:00

It has been quite some time since we have bothered updating. This has not been because of a lack of interest or desire, but rather ability. Since moving to these parts we have been pretty isolated. This is one of the great things about living in a 'holler of West Virginia. Life really does move a little slower here.
Even so, we are glad to say that by the end of the month, we will have a high speed connection that will finally enable us to begin doing a little update on the blog. It has been an amazing journey since coming here and I can't wait to share some of the things that God has done in our lives. Be prepared to be amazed.
Until then...

What a year!

2011-05-31T00:05:00.002-04:00

It has been a long time since I have had either the time or ability to do something as frivolous as blog about my little dreams of getting to the country. It still will be a while before I am able to do any serious catch up since there is nothing but dial-up in this part of the world. Still, I hope that I will find the time and inclination soon. For now it will have to suffice to say that we are alive and well in the wilds of our new land. If there is still such a thing as a modernized society with all the neat gadgets like electricity and computers around next month, I may try and play catch up....
Looking forward to sharing how God took a family of TEN with ZERO income and moved them out of the city and into a bountiful estate by His grace and our earnest prayer. I encourage those of you still on the fence about the how and when to get out of Babylon to PRAY. Really. Don't just think about it, but pour out your heart's desire to the Lord for His mercy in helping you get as far away from the coming crisis as possible.
For my confused and confessional friends, please do not think I am suggesting giving up our mission to proclaim the gospel in all the world. I am not. I am saying that you should wisely consider getting your family safe from the influence of the world system and then teach them how to evangelize like they are in the days of Noah, with an Ark ready to be used of God for the protection of His children. The plain fact is Preterism is just wrong and Futurism is just as bad, but the absolute greatest danger to the Church right now is the Post-Mill fallacy that is abounding in Protestantism.
So much for the diatribe. See you soon, Lord willing.

Country Roads, Take me home!

2010-06-17T00:40:00.003-04:00

After many months of questionable preparation and self-doubt, we have finally decided that West Virginia is going to be our new home.
In actuality, we decided some months ago but with all the excitement in our daily lives I simply had no time for something like blogging about my move. Now things are different. We are excited!
And we are leaving very soon.
July 5th is the day when we will roll up the rugs on the old homestead and pack the wagon down Florida Hill-billy style for the long trip across the Blue Ridge Mountains and seemingly back in time a hundred years, to the still very Wild and Beautiful mountains of West Virginia!
Near to the inlet of the fertile Ohio Valley is where we are headed. However, being a man destitute of all of the means and ways of this world's fortune, we will be stopping a bit short of that rich, loamy land long known for it's tendency to triple even the most haphazard labors of it's blessed inhabitants. Instead, our little caravan of pilgrims will end our trek while still within the Gilpin-Upshur laden range of the Allegheny foot-hills, where man's best efforts to yield his daily bread are most assuredly, by the sweat of his brow!
The locals call the sloping mountain-side of slip soil that I am stopping upon a holler', but being ever the romantic optimist, I prefer to describe it as a hamlet-on-high! It is nearly 11 acres nestled between two peaks of a very long and expansive ridge. The road of sorts, that leads up to the entrance of my property was at one time the access point where mule driven well-men climbed to the ridge top to travel along an odd shaped, winding path in the forest heights in order to reach the various wells of natural gas that still dot the area. Of the several times that we have gone there to prepare our little cabin, most afforded motorized entry to the actual living site. A few occasions where too wet and slippery, and resulted in a rather long and steep walk to get to the shelter among the trees where our beds are housed! This is something that we hope to correct in time, but is perfectly in keeping with the one, most prevalent difference between the aforementioned Valley of ease, and our given plot of life's toil...MUD! If there is one thing that we know about our new life, it is the sure and certain fact that we will never again have to worry about sand getting tracked onto the carpet. In fact, we are glad to announce that the whole expense of carpeting is another thing that we will be able to fore-go in our new domicile.
What an adventure!
I will be updating as often as possible once we get there, via the local Public Library computer since we are 100% off-grid and about 10 country miles from town and I expect that gas will still cost money. We will be working tirelessly to get a water catchment system up and running, along with finishing the Atlas Ram Pump which I plan to build. As you can imagine, water is pretty important, even in West Virginia ;), and we have none coming to the property by the "normal" venues. My long term goal is to have a deep well drilled and attach a solar outfit, coupled with a 10,000 gallon cistern which will gravity feed the property just like a water tower used to do in towns across the country. This runs between $4-$7k from what we have gathered in our research. Research is about the only part we have gathered....I am still disabled and show no improvement from all the latest medical wisdom that I have received this past 12 months. I had a period where it seemed that the spinal injections and my inversion table seemed to be working, so being a father of a large family I figured that, if these things were working, I should be too! That lasted about a week and I ended up pushing around my old rolling walker, and making nightly visits to the local E.R. because of the pain. End result...another disc herniation and a few new neurological twitches that I have learned to deal with. Lesson learned: Degenerative Disc disease is a part of me. I am learning a new argument for my quiver-full theology! Large families are very practical, AND are always mentioned as a blessing of God! No complaints here. We are amazed at the goodness of God in supplying this estate to us! Until we get the well system, we plan to make use of the Ram pump by utilizing the huge seasonal spring volume on the property. It is enough to provide 100% of our needs when things are wet. We have figured out a few ways to deal with the changing locations of the wet-weather springs and to "trap" the run-off into a few main areas for use. This will involve a week, or two with a ditch-witch trenching machine and a few hundred feet of concrete in places, but is still doable for around $1200 we figure. I got the idea while driving through beautiful Virginia along the Interstate. They really do a better job of managing the water run-off by the roads there, and I noticed that they did this by installing long sections of concrete lined ditches right down the side of the mountains! The idea is to find several areas where a lateral ditch is cut that will catch the whole mountainside at the foot of each landing, and then cutting in several main branches for the water to escape, thus forming a man-made drainage system that can easily be converged at some points to provide a usable flow of several gallons per minute, and VOILA! You now have enough water to pressure a Ram-pump for cistern storage. I have walked the land and drawn the plans. This is a very achievable system and I can't wait to be able to start. All in the Lord's time and provision. One thing that I have learned, is that God delights in answering prayer. I can't wait to see how He answers these!
What an adventure!
God has blessed in so many ways and through so many people as we prepare for this new chapter in our pilgrimage here below. We look forward to the next few years of learning new skills and developing a fuller Christian understanding of the agrarian lifestyle.
I am not calling it "Christian Agrarianism" anymore because this title has become a stumbling block for some of my brothers, but I will still say that we are consciously and joyfully seeking a life of simplicity and one with an agricultural basis as part of our understanding of living an obedient Christian life in this current time. Not that some wealthy, city dwelling brethren may not be able to properly prepare for the next 20 years where he is, I am just saying that for a financially destitute individual like myself, it seems that the wisest path for me, is to develop a comfort with sustenance living now, rather than having it forced upon me after years of soft living and fattening up on the Food stamp system. I have had that most of my life and will be well prepared if American Socialism pulls-one-out-of-the-hat and we all get free EVERYTHING over the next 20 years. I will need little survival training to figure out how to choose a PIN number and load up the grocery cart with frozen Chinese food and potato chips! BUT, if things don't exactly turn out that way, and the next few years begin to look like the facts of today indicate instead of like the Information Bureau, ( News Agencies), suggest, I will have absolutely zero real knowledge of how to survive even a few months without the current system of industrialized food and travel unless I start preparing now.
God has forced the preparation upon me by bringing me into poverty. I praise the God who has always cared for me.It will be exciting to see what He does in our lives over this next year.
May we be found faithful. In lean times, or richness.
What an adventure!

Been a while

2010-05-25T00:51:00.003-04:00

Glad to be home from the hospital for the moment. Look forward to catching up while there is still a grid around...
Seems like the Lord is being very gracious with all the warning shots lately.
Hope to update soon on the West Virginia happenings and some related news.

December 16th,2009

2009-12-16T15:01:00.002-05:00

As some of you know I have gone through a series of spinal injections in recent months that has left me in fairly bad condition. Lately, the bad effects have started wearing off and I have even wondered if the shots might actually be doing some good. But, as each day brings the same thing i am more convinced than ever that these injections have permanently damaged some new areas of my nerve centers in some way. Still, they say that the vast majority are greatly helped by these procedures and that I am one of those 'few' that 'do not respond well'.
For me it has been a nightmare of paralysis and pain in the lower portion of my body. Thankfully, i have regained use of my left leg but the weakness is pronounced and the p-a-i-n is bad stuff. Several nights were spent in local emergency rooms getting sedated that I might rest some. The last few days have been a needed break in the cycle and I am very thankful to the Lord that I am still able to think and remain free of the constant influence of narcotics. This has been a serious concern as I have entered into official training as a ministerial candidate within denomination. I continue to seek God's will in these matters and have filed for S.S.D.I. as a result of being out of work for almost 2 years now. it is not the best situation and I certainly tend to rant against abusive watse of programs like S.S. but I have little choice at this time. I am seeking to keep my family afloat and our nearly $16,000 mortgage from defaulting. actually, this is my Pastor's motgage and that is all the more reason i want to fight and save his property. His land was paid for and free until I was hurt and he bought a mobile home for my family to move into. The guy has paid my lights as well, every single month since my injury. Well, except for the blessing I received last year from the Piper family which kept us afloat for over 6 months!
Just continue to pray that God will help the SS process a fast one as healing seems unlikely at the moment.
We are not wanting to complain alot as there are too many pro's out there doing that now. Rather, we hope to convey our trust in the Lord and our gratefulness for the mercy we have been shown. Most any one else would have been sent to a homeless shelter a long time ago. We even had some one buy us an 8 month supply of toilet paper about 7 months ago! It is amazing what you become thankful for in hard times!
I think many more of us will have to learn this in the coming days as our judgement continues nationally. We will pray for one another and fulfill the law of Christ.

Time flies when your busy

2009-10-07T08:25:00.002-04:00

Well, today we are packing for our return trip to WV and I still haven't posted the first trip! I guess I'm a pretty unreliable read, but I will try and get better when we return.
I plan on doing some study on blogging to learn a bit more about it, so hopefully it will have been worth the wait.
Also, please continue to pray for my health situation. The doctors are now leaning away from surgery and have recommended full disability. As you can well imagine, this doesn't exactly fit into my worldview. While many of my countrymen would be thrilled at the idea of getting a disability check from the govt. I am not one of them. Here we stand on the very end of the Empire, and they are trying to encourage me to sign on for a bigger role in the pillaging of my fellow man before they finish their song!
I am hoping that a modest adjustment can be made that will allow me to live and work on our land without the need for drugs. And without the governments involvement with any part of my existence. Please pray with me about these things as you have opportunity.
Many thanks, and see you in a few weeks.

The pause before the storm

2009-09-24T23:34:00.002-04:00

We have made it back from our recent trip to WV but we won't be home long!
We had a very productive time during August and most of September as we did some serious preparation with some seriously raw land! There will be quite a few photo's and tid-bits about logging, saw-milling, and chiggers...LOT'S of chiggers....coming soon!
My hope is to post a bit over the next couple weeks because we are returning to WV for the month of October so that we may complete a pole barn and 2 16X12 foot rooms on our humble abode!
The Lord is always gracious, and there is a lot to share with this new adventure and the things we are learning.
We actually made it through a month of no running water, and no electricity, with 9 children and 4 adults covered in chiggers and poison sumac for most of the time! We are talkin' serious lessons learned about WV wilderness living!
Thankfully, no bears have been encountered and everybody left with the same body parts they came with. And that, after dropping some 30 large diameter trees along with a hundred scrubs and bushes.
Yes indeed! We have much to be thankful for!
Well, as you can imagine there is a ton of catching up to do before we turn around and do the whole thing again! We also have two children that we will be teaching to read over the next few weeks, so ...busy, busy.
I promise that I will try and steal enough time to share some of the amazing times that we have had lately.
P.S., Did I mention our week long trip to Monticello and the surrounding area!!!
Hope to share soon.
Grace and Peace, Bob

A brief update and needed pause

2009-08-02T05:44:00.002-04:00

I wanted to let my vast readership know what is going on in my little slice of the world.
Since last blogging, our new baby girl has been doing well and the family is adjusting to the new pecking order! Her father ( that's me!) however, has taken a turn for the worse. My health has become much worse than we anticipated. Mostly, it is related to general pain and the need to take large doses of really nasty medicine. For those of you who are not familiar with pain medicines let me tell you that they cause as many problems as they solve.
The upside is that they have completed a few successful, albeit, painful tests that have determined the level and extent of the nerve damage. This will allow them to see exactly where and how the spinal cord is injured and come up with a long term treatment plan. For this, I am very grateful.

For the past month I have been in a virtual whirlwind of pain and/or delirium from the medicine and the associated problems. I am planning a few blogs on this whole process and what you can expect from our new socialized health system, since that is what I have been on for the last 12 months to get to this point. A very long year to get a few answers that could be achieved in a few days if the right procedures are applied! Anyway, that will have to wait because I will be out of commission for the next month as we are planning to leave for a trip to the mountains for the month of August. We were originally planning on going back to West Virginia and felling trees and saw milling them into lumber for this whole month but my health has changed our plans! Instead, our gracious hosts will be taking us on a tour of our national landmarks and do some general resting. The day before leaving I will get a spinal block that is supposed to numb all nerves in my injured areas so it will be a pain free/drug free month!!!!! I will post the updates in the second week of September, just before my expected surgery dates.
All prayers are appreciated and I thank you for your patience in my delays answering your comments. There have been few lucid days lately and I look forward to being pain/drug free as soon as possible.
Until then...

A healthy home-birthed baby girl!

2009-06-25T21:33:00.002-04:00

Praise the Lord, for He is good!

We are happy to welcome our new daughter into the family! Mary Elizabeth wass born @4:10 am on Thursday in the comfort of our bathtub. 9lbs 2oz, 22" long and a head full of hair!
We are pleased..and tired.

The Lord is gracious and we are thankful.

2009-06-09T00:30:00.002-04:00

It is a wonderful thing to look outside and see a couple of young dairy calves grazing in the yard!
Yes, as unbelievable as it seems to us right now, there are a pair of Jersey bovine in our back yard! The Lord is good to His people at all times, but sometimes we have a special blessing that really reminds us of that fact. Our friends recently surprised us with this 4 week old Jersey heifer calf and a 5 week old Jersey mix bull calf! We have always dreamed of our own Jersey milk cow but at around $1000.00 a piece in these parts, we did not expect to procure them this soon. We are overjoyed at the kindness the Lord has shown us!
This is Bessie! Our future little cream maker!
And here is Buddy! Proud future Papa!

It turns out that there is a Dairy farm about 50 miles south of here that uses Jersey cows. Usually they seem to use Holstein cows in our neck of the woods. Holsteins are copious milk producers, but there is not enough butter-fat content in the milk to make a good supply of cream products like cheese and butter. Jersey cows on the other hand, produce less milk but the most cream of any cow. This means that a Jersey would be a good homestead cow in most situations.

The really odd thing about the dairy industry here is that they will almost never let any heifer calves go for sale. One farm that I contacted in the past even said that they would cull, (kill), the heifers before selling them because it would be hurting themselves to have people keeping their own milk cows! The bulls are not so hard to come by. Bulls are a burden on a dairy farm so they are usually glad to sell them for $100-$150 just to get rid of them.

As it turns out, this heifer was nursing from an older cow that was once a regular industrial milk cow but had recently been moved to the 'nurse' cow category. The mother cow was not only rearing this calf, but had 2 other orphan calves that it was feeding. A week ago we had a huge storm system moved through the area and the venerable nurse cow was killed when lightning struck a tree that she was under! This left all three calves without any milk. The farm had planned on culling them, but a worker asked if he could have them as bottle calves to try and save and the farmer said yes.

The worker bottle fed them for a week and then decided to go into the cattle business himself and placed them up for sale. He was planning on making quite a pretty penny of the two heifer calves and a modest $150 on the bull. Apparently though, there was little interest in the calves and he was stuck rearing them and buying milk to feed them!

The fellow posted a couple ad's offering to sell them for $150 each to the first comer. As soon as our friends heard of it they came and got us to go look at the heifer. The thinking is that this will be a good investment for our future homestead in West Virginia.

Upon our arrival the fellow said that he was willing to let the bull go for $75 if we bought a pair. He even dropped $25 on the heifer! So, in all we got both calves for $195 !

Our friends paid the man on the spot but since we were all crammed in our vehicle it was decided that I would come back with my little pick-up the next day and get them.

Saturday morning had me and the two older boys loading old hay in the back of my truck bed and setting off for a 100 mile round trip to get our new little blessings! We were thrilled to get them loaded up and back to their new home. The only thing wrong was that we had no where to shelter the animals and more rain was coming.

We have been told that rain could kill new calves because they just stand out in it from pure ignorance without a mother cow to teach them. We needed a cheap shelter and quick!

Enter the many purpose pallet! Recycled pallets were the obvious choice to build a little barn for the protection of our new beasts.

Below are the photo's of our new two stall calve 'barn' done Poor Man style! I think that you will agree, they came out even better than my chicken tractor! That is a 16oz waterproof canvas tarp on the roof, and it was a gift also. In all the building cost $129 with the $100 tarp and nails and feed. Pretty good for a two stall barnette!

Here is a good shot of Bessie's new room! The open slat walls are perfect for the hot Florida weather! Here we never worry about warmth or snow. It is the lack of cross ventilation that kills all the livestock here. Also, having the inner/outer wall keeps the rain out very well.
Here you can see how we made the 'doors' by driving in a trio of free fence posts to allow for the pallet doors to be slid in and out! We even got his and her milk buckets hanging on the posts to dry!

I told ya that the Lord is good and kind!

Hope you get some ideas for cheap building too!

Poor Man's attempt at a chicken tractor.

2009-06-08T22:39:00.002-04:00

Or perhaps, a man's poor attempt would be better.
After much procrastination, I am publishing my recent project for the Missouri Rev, and all the world to ridicule!

Since I have been forced to put up these photos I might as well share the story of just how this contraption came to be.

If you have read the previous post about my new bath-tub brooder chicks , then it will be obvious what motivated the need to get my new little chicks out of my wife's birthing tub!

Unfortunately, the Lord has chosen to keep me humbled by literally breaking my back about a year ago, which means that I have no job and no income for the purchase of material to build a 'real' chicken tractor like the one's all over the Web! Hence the need for my innovation.

A fellow that I know, had recently contracted to clean up an old nursery business that is now closed down. He told me that there were lots of pallets and old 4X4's at the site which needed removing. This fellow said that I could have the material if I would pick up the pallets and dig the 8 foot 4X's out of the ground. Voila! Prayer answered!

My strapping 14 yr. old and 12 yr. old quickly 'volunteered' to help old Dad gather the material! So with shovel and sweat, we soon hauled a goodly supply of new, (to us), construction material back to the junk pile that my wife allows me ;) to keep in the back yard!

This 'tractor' was the first of a few projects that I had dreamed up for my little homestead. It was a crude endeavor but if you tune in later this week, you will be quite amazed at what some old pallets, and a gracious God, can do when you have needs.

So without further excuse....I mean ado, here is my infamous chicken tractor done Poor Man style!

This is an overall shot showing the open front 'coop' along with a run made from my rabbit cage wire roll. The wire will be used to build more cages after it is done working for us here. The run design was from my 14 year old. He used some pallet wood and some old lumber salvaged from an old headboard we threw out last year. There wasn't enough wood to box the thing out properly so it was a little wiggly, but it did fine work for the time it was used.

Next, is a pic of 'siding' we used to attach to the 4X4 pole frame. We tore these pallets all apart and reused the decent pieces to make a building. As you can see, the wood was a little rough and we couldn't drive new nails without splitting it to pieces, so we had to pull the old nails and beat them straight before nailing them back in the old holes. This worked pretty good since we didn't have any new nails anyway! We did find an old box of screws that I had though, so we used some of them where needed for extra security.
Everyone knows that chickens need to roost, so we cut out a few stair runners, and measured some limbs from our yard! Don't listen to folks who say that chickens can't roost on round limbs, or pipes. They have done so since creation, and do just fine.
The runners split in a couple places because the wood was so brittle, but we just pieced it together on the wall and ran some screws in to hold it together.

This was the tricky part! We had to figure a way to keep the run fairly secure to the box so chickens didn't escape, yet it had to come apart for moving around the yard because there wasn't enough quality wood to build a movable, sturdy frame that could be permanently attached to the coop. What we decided on was to jigsaw the pieces so they would interlock without having any metal latch. The idea came from some old Amish furniture that I had seen where they used the wood to bind some bunk beds together without fasteners. It worked great as it had the added benefit of giving a little needed stability to the run by forcing the sides to stand up straight. You can also see how we used the wood to sandwich the wire for attaching the support legs. We just used small chock blocks of wood on the outside and nailed through them, past the wire, and into the wood leg. This kept the 'legs' attached to the sides pretty good.

Here is how the poor man was able to , in clear conscience, use the term 'tractor' when describing this little experiment!

While it was not easy, it did work. We were able to carefully slide the contraption to a new patch of grass when needed. There were a few escapes during moving due to the run separating from the coop, but nothing major. We still have the same amount of chickens we started with!

The chicks are now in the big chicken yard and this coop has been converted to a nice dog house for our new American Bulldog puppies that are waiting to be sold. The run wire has been modified to give the pups a yard while allowing the mother to jump in and out to feed them.

In all, I am very pleased with my chicken tractor. Yes, I can proudly call it a chicken tractor! Though I am sure we will not be featured in Mother Earth News anytime soon, I am very satisfied that we did our best to be good stewards over the little flock that God has given us! And that, is my chief goal as an agrarian, and as a Christian.

Hope you enjoy the laughs, and do stay tuned for the next project. I think you will like it.

Some changes I am making

2009-06-04T00:01:00.003-04:00

I have decided that I will be adding 2 new blogs. This blog will focus more heavily and less frequently on homesteading and Agrarian Economic Theory, as I learn more about the subject.

I am separating most theology on a new blog titled Eternal Truths Applied and most news/political commentary on a blog called The Pundit's Folly which already has one post for now.

My reason for running 3 blogs is simple. I am not at all organized enough to run 1 blog properly!

What I mean is that I have tried to plan a couple of series that really pool all the current debates about Agrarianism into one concise yet systematic standard of confession. This is a daunting task for a learned man to accomplish properly, and I am not learned in these matters.

What I have learned about myself is that there are some core interests and areas of experience that I have, and I would like to share them.

These areas include homesteading and the need for modern families to consider this as an alternative to the current system which keeps Dad away from home

Agrarianism may be an economic outgrowth of this primary goal of re-uniting families.

I cannot yet say that it is the only biblical model.

I see much of the problem with modern industrialism to be misuse and sin within the component parts. Not exactly the whole system being inherently evil.

I know that many will disagree strongly. I am not getting all snuggly with the 'world' here. Rather, I am sincerely attempting to be a faithful steward of God's word in these matters.

I will post more on this later.

For now, I hope to establish 3 basic blogs dealing with the 3 things that most interest me;
1. Homesteading and the return of fathers to the duty of training their children full-time as the scriptures require.
2. Speaking out against the apostasy of our leaders in church,state, and culture.
3. Edifying and exhorting the Church to holy living.

I pray that God may be pleased with my efforts to Glorify Him in these things. I also hope that they are a help to others.

Help needed

2009-05-20T11:19:00.002-04:00

It has been an unusually long absence from the web for me. It has been a profitable break with a lot of learning. I am updating my small holding series later this month and researching some new possibilities for a better blog format that will be a little easier to manage. I am also right in the midst of researching several different review papers and study guides for the training of my children on various subjects ranging from the differences between a Revolution and an Independence movement to Covenantal faithfulness in their own future child-rearing. Did I mention that my wife is having our 9th child in 5 weeks and I just returned from an impromptu trip to the flood-ravaged regions of West Virginia, harvested 55 pounds of potatoes, built a new poor man's chicken tractor, a few new rabbit hutches for the 17 kits (bunnies) that were born and am helping our little Millie whelp and care for her new 12 hog catching champion American Bulldog/Pit pups that were born a couple of days ago, steam cleaning the chair that she tried to have them in, and getting ready to can about a gazillion Amish Paste monster size tomatoes for the first time ever! Yeah, life here is just as smooth as peaches and cream!

Today what I need is help! We have a very good crop of various dry beans that are close to early production dates for harvest. Right now the Pinto beans are the closest at 63 days and have 60% yellow mottled pods with large seeds. Just right for getting ready to dry. The problem is that we have torrential rains moving through this past 4 days and no signs of it slowing for the next 10-15 days. After a season long drought we are thankful for the Florida of our youth to come back around and look forward to the effects that the rain will have on our Aquifer system, but it looks like the dry bean project is in dire straits. This morning I had the older two boys pick a good bit of the yellowing pods from the Pintos and am going to attempt drying them in the pods somewhere inside. I have never done dry beans before and am needing a little direction from some of you veterans. My primary questions are as follows:

Can I pick selectively like my Roma's, or do I need to rip the whole plant up and sacrifice the smaller, younger pods?
Is it safe and wise to pick now, in the middle of this rain, or should I just wait an extra couple of weeks and hope that the weather clears before all the beans are ruined?
Is it better to dry this way in the pods, or should I shell them?

I am not so much interested in getting a harvest for consumption this year. Our main goal with the dry beans has been to plant the little that the Lord allowed us to purchase and harvest as much seed as possible for replanting a much larger crop next year. I am hoping that we will, at the very least, have about 5 times as many seeds for future gardening as what I bought this year. Is this a reasonable goal?

Any help from the more experienced will be much appreciated.

Using a small -holding to maximize your productivity

2009-04-19T12:43:00.001-04:00

Of late I have been putting a lot of thought into what a fellow can do to maximize his stewardship. The simple fact is that many of us do not own, or have use of, enough land to build an ideal hobby farm. We simply don't have the square footage available to make our own bread AND wine! So what are we to do?

Are we to simply give up the fight for better stewardship and turn our attention to increasing revenue production, in the hopes that we will outpace the inflation/deflation cycle of the Federal Reserve?

I have been in that rat race for too long! No thanks.

While there is some truth in the old adage that, "it takes money to make money", I do not want to spend the rest of my life slaving for a dream that I will be to old to build upon when I finally get there! I want to start now! By God's grace, I want to do everything that I can to maximize my stewardship of the trifle that I have been given.

Not so that I can amass more and then 'buy out' the neighbors...that is only falling back into the same old trap of modern 'gimme-gimme' anti-Christianity. There is no lasting hope or peace there. As Paul told Timothy when counseling him , "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." 1Tim 6:6-7

No, I am not interested in stirring up the covetousness of this world in my children. I am not interested in teaching them to stop craving new sports cars and designer clothes, only to replace that with the sin of craving more land and cattle than we can have reasonable use for.

Not that there is anything wrong with a large estate. I pray that God may be pleased to train and equip me for the right use of one some day. It is the place and station of some to have all these things and more. And it is their responsibility to realize that they have it for the relief of the brethren... It is fitting that God has given much to some men, that the needs of the Church might be met. " But by an equality, that now at this time of your abundance may be a supply for their want,..."2 Corinthians 8:14 . That is really a great passage to think on some time. It clears up the whole debate over how we can best minister to one another without becoming communists, or envious of a wealthier brother. The false teachers today have misused this passage greatly to scam the flock and this has hurt us all. If you look up these verses, you will see that the 4 or 5 verses before it, teach that a man is never to be so charitable that he enriches a man into being a gluttonous bum while making his own family destitute! Good stuff in that old book.

The thing that I am seeking is not so much 'more', for the sake of more. But, stewardship in all that I have been given. Becoming a profitable servant, both spiritually and physically, by utilizing what God has given to the absolute best end that I am able and equipped for. This is an extremely important issue that has been twisted and nearly lost with most today. Redeeming the time has a lot to do with it. Not just because bad days are upon us, but because God exhorts us to this lifestyle at all times throughout history. I want to be a frugal, wise, charitable, and diligent servant, along with becoming a holy father and husband!

It is with this in mind, that I am starting a series on Small Holdings . This will be a rambling series of what we have done in our little place to try and maximize our potential. They will be rather 'raw', in that I am by no means an expert on all things agrarian! There will be sad looking pictures of crudely built animal houses and an ever- present back drop of junk in the yard! Sorry. It's not from a lack of concern for our animals, or from laziness. It's just really hard to build stuff with no carpentry skills, left- over scraps, and 9 children running to and fro with all my hand tools scattered between them;) Add to that the fact that we never really had the foresight to plan ahead for exactly when, or if the Lord would supply some additional material, and you have a kind of build as you go approach that utilizes stuff as it comes!

I hope that some of it will be informative. Some through my trials, and much through my errors...

Finally, West Virginia

2009-04-18T00:16:00.005-04:00

About 6 months ago our mid-wife finally brought her husband along for a visit to meet our family. She has been our midwife for awhile now, but up until now we had never met her husband.

During our previous pregnancy he had come along but refused to leave the vehicle as a standard rule to ensure patient privacy and HIPPA regulations. We had understood at the time and made sure to keep him company in the yard with tea and cookies while the ladies talked inside. We had no idea at the time that we had made any type of impression on him. The practice that our mid-wife owns is one of the largest in our State and they see many families. We figured that we were just another patient as far as he was concerned.

It was not until this meeting 6 months ago, that we realized how the Lord can use normal acts of every day kindness to soften the hearts of men and make allies for His children where least expected.

Our mid-wife had been around during some of the times when our former landlord, Ms. T had come around, and she had heard the gracious offer that we had received. She also heard much of our discussion about how concerned we were that a dying lady with only months to live was trying to make her peace with God in this manner. Our mid-wife said that she understood our concerns, but that an offer like this was too hard to pass on. We then became very close to our mid-wife as we explained that the importance of a good name was more important to us than any amount of land. We spent many weeks discussing this with her and explaining to her the situation with the children and the certain accusations of 'spiritual manipulation' that they would make if we accepted this offer. As related in the post on that subject, that is exactly what happened to the person that eventually accepted the offer. Thankfully, we have been in a position of speaking with one of the children involved in the estate battle, and because of our refusal to accept, we have been able to give a clear testimony of only love and a clear conscience to that child. After much prayer and reflection, our mid-wife said that she understood our decision. Little did we know that she had been sharing some of these issues with her own husband, and that he had finally decided that after 15 years of never entering a clients home, he would break this rule to meet the family that had turned down what turned out to be a multi-million dollar estate in a commercial zone!

So, we finally met the husband of our dearly beloved mid-wife and had a wonderful time hosting him for a few visits. Shortly after these visits, he called and told us that he and his wife wanted to invite us to their home for a dinner and discussion of a personal nature. We were excited and a little nervous, thinking that perhaps they wanted to ask us some 'religious' questions about our unorthodox life-style. ( Note: Our life-style is unorthodox only compared to main-stream evangelicalism, we are a poor example of puritanical followers of Christ, though we strive to be).

I will speed up to the present now, or I'll never tell you about W.V.!

At this meeting, we were shocked to learn that Mr. &Mrs. B (Husband and Mid-wife), owned land in rural West Virginia that they planned on retiring to soon, and they wanted us to move there as neighbors! They had not been Church goers in many years, but professed faith, and were so glad to see real Christianity in action that they wanted to be near it more! They then told us that they wanted us to consider allowing them to give us 2 acres of their land to homestead and that they would even pay for us to go up and visit the area for acceptable churches if we were willing to consider it!

Wheels within wheels! That's all I could think of folks! Who could imagine that in the space of a year, a man with no money and a broken back, (no prospects), could be offered, NOT 1, but 2 estates! For free!

We were shocked to say the least! They went on to explain that they understood how important our Church family was to us, and how 'peculiar' our doctrine was, and that they had been in touch with a few locals in West Virginia that were keeping up an old abandoned church building from the 1800's who wanted a Pastor that could come and take it over! This old church is a local landmark in the hills there and still provides a hand powered well-pump for a few local families to haul there water from! The locals, had upon the testimony of this couple, agreed to allow me to come and begin a Church there whenever I wanted to!!!

Now, to be clear, I am not an ordained minister of the Gospel. I was formerly a 'Youth' minister in an Arminian church, and attended a Bible college along those lines in our old home. I am currently seeking the training needed in my denomination to become ordained, but we have one little hurdle....Financial Accountability. We are not spendthrifts mind you. But, we do live at the charity of my Pastor since my accident, and he has personally paid for our light bill while allowing us the use of an extra home he owns. Not the picture of most Presbyterian theologians out there... The Church, rightly so, wants men who are above reproach. And while I have been assured that I fit all spiritual and moral qualifications, the financial issue is a stopping point right now. I will not comment on this further now, except to say that I am trying to be careful in my study of past 'poor' preachers, to make sure that no resentment builds for my denomination. My Pastor is in general agreement with this thinking and he has shown himself to be a man of exceptional wisdom and a deep desire for the purity of the ministry. I yield to the godly example that he has set forth. I have witnessed it first hand.

Still, we were thrilled at the possibilities that now lay before us! If we can gather a 3 family minimum of like-minded believers that are indigenous to that area, we can request our Presbytery to send a minister that is already qualified by their standards, and establish a new congregation there!

My Pastor is not very excited about this prospect. He has made several good points about this still being above my place and station, as I cannot live upon an open field with a family. Very true. However, as the Lord continues to work there, we met a neighbor that has just purchased an adjoining 30 acres with his young family. He is planning an off-grid homestead and is a faithful father, demonstrated by the behavior of his wife and children. He informed us of a local Amish group that will build us a 2 story, 24 by 24 gable roof house for just under $10,000! Yep, that's right folks! If you are looking for cheap land under $1000.00 an acre, and a 2 story 1200 square foot house for under 10K, then check out West Virginia! ( I have the contact info for any that may be seriously interested). So, now we are just wondering how in the world the Lord is going to do this next part! I know that it is nothing to Him, but from our side it might as well be 10 million... It is just another reminder of a great adage that I read in the biography of John G. Patton, Missionary to the New Hebrides..."Duty is ours, Results are God's"! We will wait on the Lord, and stuff the penny jar!

Further, it seems that in West Virginia, I will not be barred from trying to use my Plumbing license to scare up work. Here, in Florida, I am forced to comply with VERY stringent Work- Comp laws to 'protect' myself and my gimp back. The State of West Virginia will approve my Comp-exempt license and let me go out and take the risk of my back upon myself, ( I trust in the Lord, and work s-l-o-w-l-y), so that I can actually move toward our home-stead dream!

Well, just pray that the Lord will continue to make His will known, and that He will motivate the local Taco Bell to call so I can start supporting my family and saving some treasury bills before they are worthless! Really, I applied at Taco Bell. Duty is ours.....If this is the Lord's will, I know that He will provide. There is actually a 16 by 16 off- grid cabin there now that I have full use of, but convincing my Pastor that this uninsulated shed is acceptable housing for my family isn't really working right now;) Pray, pray, pray, my friends! We will do the same for you.

Here are a few shots of our week in off-grid West Virginia..

This is taken from one of the acceptable building sites on 'my' land. Down in the ravine on the left there is a 4 foot wide creek. We saw many deer drinking there, and over 35, (no joke), on the road to this property.

This is a poor picture of our friends cabin that we all stayed in. If you look hard, you will see the white pop up building, (privy and shower area), and the blue 'kitchen area on the right. Just behind was the sleeping quarters. It is an uninsulated 'shed' that we heated with one open flame propane stove burner! It snowed 2 days and rained a chilly 35 degrees for a few days! This was a great day of around 65 day temps! Perfect.

This is a shot from about 20 feet in front of my building site, looking at my truck. Believe it or not, that was as close as the truck could get because of the incline. 3 different 4X4's got stuck on that hill. It is a quarter mile drive from the road to this point. Can you say, Off-Grid!

This is a small spring, one of over 15, on the property that we saw. It measures about the same as each of the others...2 gallons per minute! That's 800 gallons a day...per spring!

This is the ridge that separates us from our 'neighbors'. The large dead walnut tree just right of center was cut down by us while there. It was nearly 4 feet thick at the point we felled it at, and that was almost 4 feet high! Loads of firewood were chopped and stacked by my boys.

This is a shot of my wife and two of the children heading down to the creek area to hunt for some wild rose hips. They are high in vitamin C and make a superb tea. There are loads of wild roses all over the hillside!

This shot does not really do justice to the scene. If you will notice the evergreen trees on the ridge ahead, you may be able to pick out the tombstones underneath! That is an old private cemetery from the late 1700's. The entrance to my property is just over that hill! The cemetery access shares an easement with us, so every time we come in or out, we drive right by it! Pretty neat to me. You can also see the clay churned up into mud at the first drop through the valley between us. My two wheel drive Suburban made it fine, but the 4 wheelers got stuck and we had to dig 'em out! We have laid $1500 worth of large gravel there now that our friend purchased. I also cleared a large garden spot down under that slope in a spot that gets the full day sun. We cut down many 100 foot walnut trees to make way for it. There are hundreds of walnut trees here! It took the better part of a day to get the fire wood cut and brought up to camp. Several chords are stacked for next winter.

The Lord is gracious and kind, He has pity for His people....

Until next time

The Road to West Virginia

2009-04-16T14:14:00.004-04:00

Alright, I am back on the trail of exactly how the Lord has led us to the point where we currently are.

In the last post on this trip, I left off by telling you that I would share the story of how a sweet lady had offered our family a 81=/- acre farm in Northern Florida about 2 years ago, and why we felt constrained to turn that lady down.

As unbelievable as an event like this seemed to us, and probably to the majority of you, we were sure that it was only a test of the Lord to see if our real desire was to live a life that was faithful to His calling, or if we just simply were interested in worldly security and prosperity.

The lady in question was the mother of our landlord, and she was quite a real estate tycoon by most standards having amassed several large properties in different regions that she was using to secure an inheritance for her children. It seems that she was quite taken with the 'picture' of our little family that she had witnessed in the various meetings with us. This is an important point because, as you will see later, those pictures soon faded when the reality of our lives began to intersect with that of her own family.

This sweet lady, had seen my 'Amish-looking' wife and daughter, on several occasions, and had closely watched our family interact in both public and private on a daily basis. She was apparently attracted to some facets of our life and approached us one day with a cryptic offer to help us live the life style that she 'envisioned the Lord' calling us to. We later found out that it wasn't so much envisioning, as it was visioning. What I mean by that, is that this sweet lady was receiving 'visions' from God about our lives and what He intended for her to explain to us. She did not share these 'visions' immediately, but soon they were to become the backbone of much of our interaction with her and her family.

At first, it was an unexpected joy to think that God had heard our prayers to live a more sequestered and agrarian-sufficient life!

By sequestered, I mean a physically separated life that would limit the interaction that we, and our children had with the daily masses of Babylonians around us. By an agrarian- sufficient life, I mean a life that is lived in closer dependence on God, as we literally look to the blessing of increase from the land, mixed with our stewardship of it, as our chief means of living as the only alternative besides an unexpected inheritance!

A little more explanation, considering the current discussion surrounding agrarianism.;

I really want to pause for another moment on these two important parts of our understanding of Christian living.

For those of you who don't already know, I am theologically aligned with a segment of the Church, visible, that is very diligent in doctrinal studies, and takes great pains to root out any heresy, along with the false teaching that leads to heresy. I am in agreement with every major reformed confession, (by reformed I mean those that commonly arose during, or out of the Calvinistic reformation period), and I am an unabashed Puritan in my theology. That said, it is with the deepest and most sincere love to my brethren, that I state that, I am in almost universal disagreement with them on the issue of physical separation .

I am NOT speaking of spiritual separation unto personal holiness in our daily walk. This IS the primary lesson of many of Christ's teachings, and parables...internal righteousness, as opposed to only external legalism and a false sense of righteousness based on our own works. What I am speaking of is the need to get our children out of the bus ministries, and schools, and playgrounds of the enemy. It is a faulty theology that teaches us that we should send our wives and children into the hot bed of anti- Christianity as evangelists and teachers. We, as the men and women of God have a very difficult time standing against the modern age, and yet we willingly send our babies in to fight these battles. Please don't send a bunch of references about the chorus that 'the beasts of the wild shall be led by a child'. Tennessee Ernie Ford had a fine voice, but the theology of such arguments doesn't work out! If we would just take an honest look at the culture around us, we would easily conclude that during the greatest time of American so called 'evangelicalism', this nation has become the most perverse and debauched society in history. The examples abound and anyone that cannot see this just isn't paying attention. My fellow Presbyterians have been some of the worst defenders of an 'integrated' society. I can only assume that this is because we do strongly believe in biblical reformation of every part of civilization. We do not want a pure church alone. But, pray for a pure society at every level. Religious, political, education, economics, etc. We can point back to the great Puritan experiments in many places and prove that it can work! The problem here is that the people around us do not want it to work. The people themselves are not interested in living the Christian life. They may like Joyce Meyers, and even donate to the Osteen corporation, but they DO NOT have any interest in real Christian laws and government. They enjoy the shady bookstore at the edge of town. It helped revive the romance in their marriage. They have many 'gay' friends, and they are 'good people' who deserve respect.
Folks, this IS our country today. They HATE your Christ and His Law-Word. They love freedom and lawlessness. They choose it at the box-office and in their bedrooms. They even choose it in their legislators and magistrates. They have codified wickedness to ensure that they can live outside of the influence of the Gospel. Unless God chooses to send the Spirit of repentance to these people, our efforts to reach them have no meaning.
Therefore, I choose to remove my family to the safest physical place possible to train them for the battle that God may call them to one day.
It is not that I don't realize the potential mission-field in the urban areas of our land. I do. But, I am not interested in taking my children into a whore-house to hand out a gospel tract. That is not what God has instructed us to do ANYWHERE in His word! We are to set no evil thing before our eyes. Now, how can you take your child into modern day America and avoid that...
The only answer that I can find for my family is to physically remove them, as far as I can, and THEN make sure that I teach them the importance of heart-holiness, and reality with Christ as opposed to pharisee ism. For us, that naturally means trying to live as much of a self-contained 'farm' life as we can, while choosing wisely when and where to expose them to the bitter winds of this land. Perhaps God will surprise us and bring the harshness of this world crashing down upon some of our children before we have been able to fully prepare them, and then they will be like lambs to the slaughter... My only question to you is, do you pray for mercy against such a thing, or do you secretly accept the ultimate failure of purity in your life before you begin the battle?
O.K., sorry for the rant. It's a habit I am trying to break...

So, our new benefactor was now offering to us an old hog-farm of 81 acres with an orchard of 40 Jerusalem Apple trees, 20 Persimmons, 30 Raspberry bushes and two-houses and an underground fallout shelter complete with a bicycle powered generator! NO, I AM NOT JOKING! The only problem was, that of her 3 daughters and 1 son, they all expected that property for themselves!

You see, our new friend had terminal cancer and has since gone on from this world to what we truly hope is a better existence in Christ Jesus, where she will never have to rely on 'visions', or private communique again. We quickly learned that she had lived a pretty rough life up until shortly before the 'cancer' news, and now wanted to make sure that she did some things right before leaving this world. We could see the disdain in the children's eyes every time we were around them and knew that they were not happy. So, we decided to do what any Christian would, and abstain from even the appearance of evil, by taking advantage of a dying woman with a bunch of money-hungry children that would be sure to drag the name of Christ in the dirt after her death.

But we did not tell her that. We instead, accompanied her to the land. The land that she had purchased, it turns out, as her own personal Shangri-la. Not to be sold like the other property, but where she would grow old learning how to tend the garden and pick the berries. Before she knew she had cancer. While there, we labored night and day to transform the effects of years of neglect back into the once radiant place that had brought her a little earthly joy. We still have photo's of Ms. Stewart, (that's what I'll call her), walking through the 45 acres of berries with my children, and picking apples that she did not even know existed anymore. We even went down to the local nursery and bought a few annuals to plant around the door of the house so she could sit and enjoy her last few days here. Then, we told her that while we were very grateful, we felt that God wanted us to stay where we were. ( Another factor was that moving here would mean leaving our Church and there was not any Church around the Farm that was acceptable). We explained slowly and gently how God had blessed us so much by giving us a faithful Pastor and that we had prayed for years for a Church that did not add man-made worship into their teachings, and that raising up children in the Lord was our greatest concern.

We smiled and thanked her again by telling her that the love expressed in her offer made us the richest people on earth. She then slowly turned around....and left!

The next few days she happened to have another 'vision' of the Lord that involved 12 rusty folding chairs being set up in the house there and a female prophetess standing on the mantle of the fireplace yelling some gobbly-gook...There you have it, obviously! Why did I not see it sooner? God had really wanted her chain-smoking prophetess friend to divorce her sissy husband and move here to start a church that would call back the 12 tribes of Israel! ( In respect and sincere love to Ms.T, she had a very aggressive cancer that had encompassed her entire being), so that is what happened. Today the children are still in court fighting the prophetess, each other, and one of their own husbands for control of the estate.

Lesson:
Obedience to God, faithfulness to the Church, and kindness to dying old women are more important than lands, or riches. Even if it is a lot of land...

Next up, How our mid-wife came to offer us 2 acres in West Virginia. And our new dilemma...

Last of the update.

2009-04-16T00:00:00.002-04:00

Here is a neat pic of the trial we performed with our Seedsaver Pinto beans. The row in the fore ground was simply planted right out of the package. The back row was from the same pack and was soaked in water for an hour before planting. Both are 20 foot, wide rows. Notice the better germination rate in the soaked bed. You can't really tell here, but the back row plants are almost double in size from the unsoaked bed. We'll be soaking all our bean seeds from now on.

Here is a shot of the labor camp here at the 'farm'! We try and get all the help we can get around here.

This shows some of the progress that a few willing children can make in keeping the homestead moving along. This is the 'army trench', aka; future underground root cellar in the making! In the background you can see one of our smaller tire compost stacker's doing it's job.

This is the bunny factory! All materials are recycled/scrounged/gifts, etc. The bunnies are attached to the inside of our chicken run fence, (also all free items). There are currently 8 kits fattening, and 2 pregnant does. We have an average of 12 bunnies per litter, so we are expecting to eat a lot of wabbit over the next few months. These critters breed back a week after dropping a litter and wean each set in 4 weeks. Obviously intended as food stuff! On top of the roof you will see my homemade version of an automatic watering system. It consists of buckets and drip hoses fitted to specially designed waterers. Before we watered twice a day...now once every 2 weeks!

And last, but certainly not least! We answer the question of where best to start that next batch of layers?! If you can read behind the 'plug' then you know that he's saying, "somebody bring the wash cloth over here! These rubber duckies are filthy!"Thanks for letting me update the happenings here. We will resume the West Virginia trip next time.

Poor man's follow up..

2009-04-15T23:45:00.003-04:00

More of the garden...

This is a pic of my wife training the main stalk by twisting around the twine.

Here are a couple prime beauties waiting to be canned!

This is a remarkable start of lettuce for so late in the year! Salad anyone?

And this is how to use bamboo that you acquire for 'free' when you help a neighbor clean the yard. Those are Edisto 47 heirloom cantaloupes growing at the bottom, and the netting was all tied by hand from some old twine we had. My son helped in the tedious webbing, and knotting of each square to be sure that they could support the heavy melons that will trellis on them.

A little more to come...

This road is full of turns; Garden update

2009-04-15T18:35:00.004-04:00

Just a little update on the homestead events. I really do promise that I will finish, or start.. the West Virginia description soon! For today, I want to discuss a very important topic:

What can a poor man do with a small piece of rental property, and no income?

Well for starter's here is a short list.

This is our potato garden that we planted just a short time ago! They are now in about 25% bloom and should be ready for harvest of early potatoes soon. Next we will start working on some under house root cellar experiments to deal with the high temp and humidity here. We will be using recycled, ( scavenged junk), materials to house our harvest. The variety we used was Norkotah, from Ronniger's Farm. We are well pleased in that we had 100% of our seed sprout!

These are some beautiful St. Valery carrots that we got free from the fine folks at Baker Creek seeds when we ordered from them. I have never gotten carrots this far before, and am very happy to see a little late cool night weather here that is helping to keep them going. Winter is when we were supposed to plant these, so there is no telling if they will actually develop into some real roots, or just bushy tops! So far, we are lookin' good!

This one almost got me in trouble! My wife hates to have her picture snapped. It probably doesn't help that she feels REALLY pregnant right now! Still, I wanted to get a shot of our little bed of late blooming lettuce in the lower right corner. Paris Island Co. variety/ Baker Creek. You can also see my redneck tomato trellis system! We grew an indeterminate variety, ( Amish Paste/ Baker Creek), so we needed to stake them well. As you can see, we are VERY happy with Amish Paste Tomatoes! As we realized that we were going to soon need the trellis, we started looking around the homestead to find some material to build with. All we had was a few trees and some twine, so there you have it. We buried the side supports about a foot deep and used some cotton string to run down to the plants. My son cut 12" pieces of stout limbs to tie the bottom of the string to, and then buried those in the ground to give a nice 'anchor' to the string. Then you just keep the suckers pulled off and twine the main trunk around the string every few days. What you see is not a big, bushy, fruitless vine, but a massive wall of tomatoes!

For some reason I can only post 4 pic's at a time so following will be more of the Poor Man's Plan for making due with what the Lord has given...

A wild and wonderful time! With a little historical detour...

2009-04-14T23:38:00.004-04:00

Above is my daughter, Abigail, enjoying the first experience of snow in her short lifetime! Taken at the property that our friends have offered to sell us...for $1.00 ! Yep...

( Thank you for the prayers. My wife is still down, but much better and the baby is doing well)

After years of trying to explain the beauty and majesty of God's handiwork among the more northern climes of our land, the children finally get to see first hand what a wonder and joy the wilderness really is! We are thankful that they have had this opportunity. It might as well have been Alaska in the 1800's to them! So magnificent was their joy and awe at seeing the mountainous land of West Virginia and the Blue Ridge area going up, that we thought it almost cruel to bring them back to the land of sun and oranges...at least during the beginning of summer! Summer time in Florida does not start on any particular calendar. No, no! Summer here is best judged by when you begin to see folks making their way to the Mart, or any other public venue, in bikini's and underwear...Sad, but true. Anyhow, I digress. Rather than discussing the sad state of life in a populated area of Babylon, I want to tell you about the glee and adventure of rural life!

We were quite nervous about our trip. To catch some of you up, I will briefly tell you how this nice diversion came to be.

For some years, my wife and I have lamented our decision to leave rural North Carolina and return to our native Florida. At the time, it seemed like we were being forced out of our adopted home in the Smokies. My little business had failed, we were behind on all our bills (including basics like rent and lights), and I had recently dropped out of my fundamentalist, independent, Baptist college and church of 5 years to start attending a small group of puritan minded Presbyterians who practiced 'purity of worship', ( also known as the Regulative Principle of Worship), . Our world was in a bit of a tail-spin! Our landlord was also the old Sunday school teacher at our former church who had, for a time been very gracious concerning the rent situation. But now that we were 'presby's', things started getting rough.

It probably didn't help that I had been involved in the Law Enforcement community and was dabbling in the worst circles of society. It was having quite an impact on my life, and I began to lead a double life, like the worst of hypocrites and infidels. I cannot imagine how great the grace of God is, in that he did not strike me dead over some of the abominable situations and sins that I got into during this same time. Still, His grace is an amazing thing and having a wife praying night and day for my soul , ( despite my dereliction), was a blessing that I will never forget again.

It was in this time, that I went to a Gun-show to buy some 'research' materials. I was heavily involved in the State's Rights movement, and we had several notable 'groups' throughout Carolina that were leery of Mr. Clinton and his friend, Ms. Reno. Being a member of the Law Enforcement community meant that I could easily, and without scrutiny, obtain a variety of 'stuff' that might be fun to play with at some of our more out of the way gatherings. Nothing illegal mind you. Just, good old patriots keeping their skills sharpened. Contrary to the current reports in today's news cycle, most of these 'right wing extremists', did NOT want to do harm to any innocent citizen. It was at one of these gun shows that I saw a fellow with a League of the South booth set-up with all sorts of literature. Naturally, I wandered over and gave the customary glance toward the govt. guy that is always sitting at the end of each 'questionable booth', pretending to read a paper, while trying to listen for any 'code talk' between the seller and buyer. NOTE TO READER: While I no longer attend Gun Shows, and have never been a registered member of any 'group' other than a local church, I can tell you from experience on both sides of the table, that you should always expect that there are MANY federal employees at EVERY gun show, or like event in America that you will ever attend. It was true in 1996 and is sure to be even more true in today's world.

Anyway, getting back to the point of this post... It was while here that I saw some religious material for a Publisher by the name of Sprinkle Publications, along with a funny green book called the Westminster Confession of Faith. As I began to ask the booth attendant about these books, he directed me to a nice fellow who he wanted me to meet. This fellow was a kind gentleman who had come along and placed these materials for his church as a draw to try and rescue a misguided fellow just like myself, and to help them see that true Government reform would never happen without true Christianity becoming the cornerstone of the people of said government. ( There will be a lot more on this in coming posts, Lord willing).

To speed things up, we began attending his church, learned about the doctrines of grace, embraced the regulative principle of worship as the biblical and historical mode of worship, and almost joined the church. I say almost because when I came down to Florida to visit my mother for one of the Roman holidays that every one celebrates, I found her in the midst of a cancer battle with an older brother in a rehab center, and living on welfare with a hospice nurse taking care of her. After a short discussion with her, it became evident that she would not move to Carolina, and with some of my more 'adventurous' former associates still lurking around to see if I would return, I immediately moved my family back to Florida to care for my mother and start a new life without the old connections of my militant days.

For the next year and a half we felt like we were wandering in Egypt! We had left Florida so that I could pursue a ministerial degree in the Arminian branch of the independent baptist church, and now we were returning with all the baggage of a misspent decade as head-covering, psalm signing Presbyterians, in the heart of Central Florida, aka Sodom! We briefly attended a few churches before finding one almost identical to the PRC church that we left in Carolina. After months of driving 6 hours round trip every Lord's Day, we moved to our current locale and have been happier than we could ever imagine at how God works His wheels within wheels to bring us to obedience and grace.

Since coming to the church that we currently attend, the Lord has completely restored the joyous christian marriage and home that we once had! No perfection yet, but lots of grace and learning. During this time we have budded into novice agrarian minded homesteaders who have lived in an almost paradise of sound teaching and biblical worship...except for one thing. We are still in a pretty metropolitan area surrounded by a way of life that eschews a stay at home mom and a one income family. No matter how hard we have tried to get ahead there was always some roadblock to our goal of a more family integrated economy. Enter the Agrarian Dream!

I know that there is much angst out there about even using the word, agrarian, right now, but bear with me. I don't have any better terminology to describe to you the direction that God has been leading us. You may call it homesteading, farm life, back-to-the-land living, or whatever. The fact is, for us at least, that God has opened our eyes to the reality that I need to pursue a more sustainable way of living, that is not so materialism driven, if I hope to help my children avoid the plague that is coming upon this nation. Indeed world! I know that a new economic theory of life is NOT going to replace home evangelism! I know that many folks feel that they should just focus on personal holiness and devotion to the Lord, and trust Him to sort out the next 20 or so years. I also know that there are plenty of jokes about how debauched "farmer's kids" are, and that there are a whole handful of folks who are just waiting to see us homesteader types fail and crawl back to embracing the 'modern' reality. I am caught between two worlds and I am not yet ready to embrace either! I do not mean the world of Christ, and the world of he Anti-Christ. I mean the world of those who say that the agrarian way is the only biblical way, and those who seem to be adamantly against allowing a discussion of it into their churches. I am not yet ready to declare that it is this way, or no way, for every christian. I can only tell you that it is this way for us and our longing for our children to grow up as holy and pure, both internally AND externally, as possible.

Again, I will try to continue the current topic. Hang in there! There really is a lot of neat news to share! I will try and get to the point soon. But first, I have to tell you about the lady that offered to give us 81+/- acres last year... and why we turned it down.

Stay tuned....

III John 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

Back to Civilization...er, sort of.

2009-04-13T11:58:00.002-04:00

Friday afternoon we returned from our trip to West Virginia. Most of this weekend was spent resting and cleaning up from what turned out to be a very exhausting and rewarding week. Most of my family is experiencing varying degree's of sickness ranging from a severe croup like cough in the 17 month old to a serious stomach bug which is plaguing my wife at the moment. The condition of my wife is of the most concern and I would like to request that prayer be made on her behalf. She has lost two children in the past, both precipitated by a similar stomach attack. Before, we were barely in the first trimester and now we are at the end of the pregnancy with only 10 weeks to go and in expectation of our second daughter. The Lord is good and has been faithful to us in all our experiences, and we are confident that He will continue to be so no matter what the outcome of our daily struggles are. We are very blessed in that we have been given a wonderful opportunity to know Him and raise up a quiver of arrows for His glory. As we overcome this series of bugs, I will be posting updates on the adventures that we faced in Wild Wonderful West Virginia, along with the continued reflections of my study on separation and reformation.

It has been a solemn return for us as we have found so much changed in the blogosphere while we were gone. With the cessation of Herrick Kimball's blog and the nasty turn of discussion concerning how best to proceed with a more family oriented economic system, (a.k.a. christian agrarianism in some circles), along with several changes in direction by many of our blogging friends, we are considering how best to proceed through a highly charged personal atmosphere in a charitable and Christ-like manner. It seems that there is a lot of name calling and anger out there and we do not want to be a part of such an atmosphere. Even so, we still have a desire to engage the discussion of how a christian can best proceed in their own particular place and station, to glorify God in the midst of an apostate era. I hope that we are able to add to the discussion out there and help those who are interested in learning more about God and more about why the current system of man is so antithetical to the aid of christian growth and happiness. As a hint, some of it is the economic system that we are in, and some of it is the 'paradigm' that modernism has created around us, and MOST of it is men and women who have trodden under foot the precious blood of the covenant, wherewith we were made holy and acceptable before God. For those of you who are now ardent enemies of 'agrarianism', I would ask that you stay tuned and not join those who are breaking fellowship with all of 'us' that might use the word to help define concepts. We are moving toward a unified theory of economics that will encompass some of what the more stringent agrarian writers advocate. And, along the way we will certainly learn and adapt to a more biblical pattern of economic theory. More importantly, we will be learning how we each can work to restore a christian vision for our own individual communities, whether they be separate, off-grid cloisters, or the attempted mass excursion of Christians to certain state's to 'reclaim' a certain belief in what Christian government should be. They are all similar attempts of fallen man trying to best work out the calling that we see in our own lives. We are brethren and should lift each other in prayer and love before the throne of our Lord daily. Most of this should be taking place internally and deliberately as acts of seeking to cast off the all 3 enemies that are listed in the bible...not just 1. The world, The Flesh, and the Devil, are our common enemies. I pray that we may find a way to move toward the desire of Christ, as recorded in John 17..."that they may be one, even as we are one..".

Pause and Reflection: West Viriginia Bound!

2009-03-30T12:16:00.003-04:00

I have yet to post part two of my ramblings on separation and reformation because we are making final preparations for our visit to West Virginia. We will be leaving around 2- 3 a.m. Wednesday morning and should be back around the 8th of April. It is a very exciting time for us as most of our children do not remember the years that we lived in Western Carolina. They are used to the flat, sandy plains of Florida. The closest thing we have to wilderness here is a few coyotes and Spanish moss in the trees! We can't wait! Our love of the mountains runs deep and we miss the scenery of a change in seasons.

The second reason that I have delayed my post on reformationism, is that I have been listening to a series on the Underground Church by Michael Bunker. I am trying to make sure that I have a proper understanding of the various views in Christian agrarianism out there. I come from a reformation and reconstruction background, but am not a modern post-millenialist. Therefore, I am stuck in a small world of folks who think that we need to take dominion of the world around us while realizing that at some points in time, Anti-christ will be allowed tremendous scope in this world, that will require some practical wisdom on the part of the Church if we are to continue as we should.
One thing that is really resonating in the Bunker series is the desire to not just sit back and wait on the return of the Lord. At the same time he gives a really balanced, and may I say... reformed view of the church in this age.

Can't wait to get back and finish the series.

Separation, or Reform; Do I have to pick just one?

2009-03-18T00:38:00.004-04:00

I am doing a little reading when time permits. It seems that there is always some new issue out there that calls our attention into the focus mode and forces us to clarify our statement of belief. It can be daunting at times. As I look at all the modern news and the ever advancing pace of the decline in the world, I can become overwhelmed with the sheer volume of topics that need to be examined. Add to that the various doctrinal debates in play among the ecclesia, and you gain a good deal of respect for certain folks who seem to have a knack for prolific involvement of these issues. It seems that I never visit visit my fellow bloggers, but that they have already written whole treatises on nearly every 'hot topic' out there! It really is enough to make a fellow consider his own insignificance. No whining here. Just stating the facts. I chose the moniker, Pilgrim Pundit for that reason. It helps remind me of two important points;

1. I am, above all else, a Pilgrim in this world. My hope and faith are set above, in Christ's kingdom of eternal glory. I do not want the duties and desires of this world to overshadow my spirit to the point wherein I lose sight of that fact. While I, like all Christians, have a duty to testify of His glory while here, ultimately, we are moving toward a glorified state of existence.

And 2. Choosing Pundit, helps me to remember that my ideas are not overly original. There has always been some shoulder for me to stand on as an aid in interpreting these issues. Many great men have left behind an awesome amount of 'material' for me to work from. Besides, all one has to do is google a topic and there will be plenty of expert opinions on how best to interpret and define almost any subject I can think of. Such is the case for my new post today. There are many opinions from men much more learned and intelligent than I will ever be. For my lack of genetic capacity I plead grace for wisdom. Wisdom is a funny thing. You can have a small intelligence and still possess great wisdom. This is my hope. By obeying the commands and spiritual law of Scripture, I seek to gain a more Christ-like appearance while here. This is wisdom training. It is complicated by the world, the flesh, and Satan. I pray for more grace here.

Of late, I have been compelled to rethink some of my cherished conceptions of things relating to the issues of Separation and my views on Reformation. I have been torn between two very thoughtful 'camps' of ideas. On the one side there are those who insist that the only proper path for a Christian to follow is to leave all attachments with this world. I do not mean only the spiritual attachments, but all forms; monetary, employment, and general daily involvement. I am simplifying the approach of this 'side' for brevity here, but that is the basic idea. ALL attachment to world system is really seen as a hidden love for the sin and vice of this world. There is a great deal of wisdom in this camp. Too often, we have seen the the results of being a halfling.

A halfling is that poor and wretched creature that has had a glimpse of the Celestial City from afar, as it were. They have, perhaps been given some small measure of sight through the portal of another's mind eye. They have walked next to a traveler, who has tasted of the goodness of that Blessed Land, and they have felt the awe that comes when a halfling becomes a changling. Perhaps they were nearby when their former companion was given the sight of that land. It could be that they have felt a part of that cleansing Spirit as it passed by and lay claim to the changling. But alas! For all the peace and warmth that they felt, there was still something amiss. A certain fearful judgement that met them when they thought on these things. So, like all halflings do, they looked around them. They looked at the great multitude who also had daily concourse with the changling, and they listened to these fine, gentle looking folk explain the predicament that the changling was in. "Too much ardour!", said they. "Poor fellow, taking things far too seriously", ... " obviously has had a bad go of things somewhere in the past!" Then the halfing was relieved! He came to find out that all one needed to do was join the club, and show a giving spirit! Then, there would be no need for such extremities as that other fellow went to...

It is sad that this is the commentary on so many in our land today. They are members in good standing of some local congregation. Many of them are involved in the United Way and the local Blood Donation drives! They are overall, orderly and smartly attired each Lord's Day, and often bring donuts and coffee for the Sunday School class. They know John 3:16 and think that God, Guns, and Guts! made America free...and they have never spent a single morning in prayer with their spouse and children, or rushed home from work to get ready for the evening catechism question and Bible study, or asked God for more holiness and temperance in their lives. These tares are a stumbling block to many travelers and should live in a certain sense of dread at the revealing of that great and terrible Day of the LORD. My brethren that teach the Separation side of the argument see the tentacles of these spiritual vampires as being spread so broadly in this system, that there is nothing left for us to do but 'get out'. They have preached the word to them and seen them turn and rend many a young saint. They have pleaded with them to reconsider and been met with threat and scorn. They see that the judgement of God is heavily upon Sodom, and feel compelled to follow the example of Lot, before they too are caught up in this mess. For the separationist, they are simply following the warning of God...The Angel of the LORD is coming to slay, not just the first-born, but everyone who does not have the blood of the Lamb upon the lintel and the door posts. I cannot find fault with the desire of any man to live holy unto God and give due honor to the Blood of Christ that was given that we might be cleansed from the filth of this Sodom around us. Even so, there are other brethren who hold these same desires for manifesting the Glory and Righteousness of the Lord, and yet find that they are compelled to stay and strive with all their spirit against the encroaching darkness! They are concerned that they have not yet resisted unto blood. They too, see the battle but have also heard a call to stand fast.

Next time I will share some of their thoughts...

Wore out!

2009-03-17T00:06:00.002-04:00

That is how we all feel right now. Today was lard rendering day! We finally did it and you know what? It was easy! A little hot, but still easy. not so much physically, but intellectually it was a breeze. I am glad for the Internet in this case. The camera batteries were dead and we just can't afford any right now so you will have to imagine it all. lots of grease and cracklings. good stuff. We are also praising the Lord for new bunnies! Two batches! Good day at the 'farm'. We are thankful.

A little excitement and a little Dudley...

2009-03-14T00:24:00.002-04:00

Below will be a few of my wife's favorite parts of Dudley Farms, followed by a couple of mine. First, I wanted to tell you about collecting lard though!
A brother from church has been promising me that he would let us butcher his large hog for awhile and today he came through! This hog was a cross of some kind that resulted in a large (350 lbs.) strange looking pig. We think there was some pot belly mix in him. One things for sure, he was MEAN! He was cut about a year and a half back when he was less than 2 weeks old, but still got pretty nasty near the end. It made the job a lot easier for all of the children since he had worn out his welcome a while back.
Anyway, my wife and I have been wanting to try our hand at soap making from real lard, but alas...when your as poor as dirt a true lard type hog is hard to come by. Enter Kenny, ( my church brother). Kenny got all excited a few years back when I was on a roll about the advantages of growing your own pork at home. Unfortunately, he ran out and grabbed the first 'free' pig in the paper! Turns out that this wasn't the bacon type he had hoped for! Still, we got over 150 pounds of meat the way we figured it tonight! Not bad for a lard hog! My involvement was strictly gathering fat. Another fellow from Kenny's work came and did the gutting and skinning while I did the trimming of fat with the help of my 13 year old son. We were very wasteful and only took the easiest fat away. We came up with about six gallons and could have gotten triple that at least if we were more experienced and had cooler weather. I have the fat on ice now and Saturday we will begin rendering it for lard! We have never done this before so we are not sure how much soap making supplies we will get. I seem to remember that the Ante family agrarians did this one time and will try to look it up and let you know how it compares. Don't expect much. We are novices.

Here is the follow up on Dudley.
The first pick is the outdoor kitchen. My wife LOVES it. The barrel up front contains water from the catchment system with a screen over it to keep out the bugs. The little 'child' gate that you see in the doorway is to keep visitors out. We took the pics from the doorway.

Here is the dining area and open hearth that the family ate at during the war of Northern aggression. That means the Civil War for all you p.c. folk;) Note the simple cupboard for dishes. Very quaint and practical.

This is the second room in the kitchen. The room above is directly behind the wood stove that you see. Check out that stove! If you have ever been to Lehman's you know what that thing would cost today! It actually glistens like brand new when you see the real thing. Photography is not my strong point...

This is one of the small treasures of the farm, I think. This is not the main well for drinking, but is an original hand dug well complete with integrated rain catchment system!The gutters were all made from wood! This supplied all the washing and boiling water. Wonder if 'acid rain' was a problem for them...

Here is another example of ingenuity. With a simple folding board, the pump water would flow into the trough pictured and travel down to an elaborate system of livestock stations. There are 50 cattle, a mule, a registered cracker horse, and many chickens and turkeys in different locations that are watered from this one point! Some of them are 100 yards or more in different directions and paddocks! Very neat!

Next time we will visit the outhouse! And we will try and get a look into the corn crib that still grows a 159 year old variety of white dent corn that we are taking to the University of Florida Ag center for identification! Cool stuff...

More trickery from the halls of hell

2009-03-13T12:51:00.002-04:00

I had posted a video of this case in the previous post that would allow you to see first hand the Godly conduct of the mother and the horrendous treatment she is receiving. Unfortunately that video has been scrubbed from all news services. It is so blatant that I am searching to find a copy somewhere for dissemenation.

I hope that you are all paying attention.... Coming soon to a home near you.

Updates available in Homeschooling case

2009-03-13T12:12:00.003-04:00

Just a line to let you know what is happening in the recent case of Venessa Mills .

For those of you less inclined to be involved in this case because of the fact that it involves divorce proceedings between Mrs. Mills and her estranged husband, I wanted to include a little information that will help clarify the situation.

First, it is true that there are always to sides to all divorce proceedings. This one is no different. Mr. Mills has admitted in a court of law that he is currently involved in an adulterous relationship and this is a primary reason for the divorce and his desire to change the educational direction of the children.
Please note that we have no desire to slander any person, as this is a sin, but this is public, civil testimony. Mr. Mills has been granted the right to continue living in the household while continuing the 'relationship' with his mistress because it is a direct challenge to the Christian teaching which the mother has reared them in. This is revolting and should not be overlooked when considering the Judges anti-christian motive.

Second, the children have been homeschooling for over 4 years and the father has not raised objections until he began his adulterous relationship. We are speculating, but it seems to be a case of his conscience being condemned. Please pray that this condemnation becomes unbearable and confounding to the purpose of Mr. Mills and his legal team. While we certainly are praying that he will repent and be reconciled to his wife and children, we also pray that God's people will be protected no matter what.

The judge in question has stated that the reason HE wants the children to go to public school is because HE thinks it is important to 'challenge' their christian teaching! This is not allowable under our form of government. Further, while we hold that normally it would be the fathers place to decide these matters, he has confessed to being in sin and is active in seeking to 'convert' his children to the way of Satan. This is morally wrong and the Church has a duty to countenance the mother as the spiritual head of these children, until the father has repented of his ways. The civil branch has a moral and historical duty to uphold the general equity of God's Law, even while maintaining their own sphere of power. This is at the root of all legislative troubles in our land over the last many years. There is a terrible lack of knowledge of the proper roles of Church/State relations that have resulted in the demise of our civil government. It is my opinion that this is the fault of the church. We have not taught the whole counsel of God on this matter. Neither have we adhered to the teachings of our Puritan ancestors who wrote so clearly on this subject. We have simply given up this realm of life as 'worldly' and therefore not fit for a christian study and practice. On the other side we have embraced the politics of a morally corrupt 'right-wing' agenda, thus forfeiting the spiritual heritage that our forefathers gave us.
Perhaps I will write more on this soon. There are many better qualified men to do this, but it must be done. If we fail, there will be no practical alternative left other than going underground.
Please pray for this case. It will effect all of us if allowed to continue as it is. This is NOT about divorce. It IS about the right to train up our children in the way of the Lord. Being set apart from this world system will not be an option in this country much longer if we do not implore the Lord to defend his people.

URGENT HOMESCHOOLING NEWS

2009-03-11T23:48:00.002-04:00

To all who care for freedom, I want to take a moment to post a couple of links to a story coming out of N.C. that has the potential to end homeschooling as we know it. I pray that you will take the time to write or fax the authorities involved to let them know your displeasure.

The case is not being handled by HSLDA because it involves a divorce proceeding. Historically HSLDA has stayed away from these type cases because of the fact that so much mudslinging is involved and because it is too hard to set precedent, which is a major objective for HSLDA. This case is blatanly different and I hope that you will also consider following the HSLDA link on my site to petition them to get involved in this one...
Here are the links to the story and the site that friends have created to help out.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91397
http://www.hsinjustice.com/
PLEASE think of this situation seriously. If this case stands there will be judicial precedent established which determines that the Court can mandate godless, secular, failing, slave-education on YOUR children!
At the very least please pray for this family and for the removal of this Judge. I think you will find the story as shocking as anything that is happening in the news today... Be sure to check out the quotes from the God-hating judge.

Dudley Farm

2009-03-11T14:56:00.004-04:00

Well, here are a few more pics of our recent trip to Dudley Farm.

This is the front of the tobacco barn just as it stood back then. The metal roffing has been replaced and some of the wood has been repaired over the years, but the stone foundation is still as solid and square as they laid it.

These are a few of the tools used in the harvest and drying process. Don't really know what they were used for. The cones that are hanging there remind me of the killing cones that I have for my ckickens! A liitle long for poultry though...

This is a front view of the little potting shed/cooling shed that sits in the front yard. Not really a root cellar but still effective. There is a LARGE sweet potato cellar on the other side of the farm that I will be copying on my property soon, Lord willing, but on a much smaller scale. This building is dug about 3 feet deep and holds most of the potting stuff that the small staff here use to keep things running.

This is a partial shot inside the shed that shows the 'equiptment'. The staff here use only the tools and implements that would have been available to the original family. They even dress in period clothing while at work. It is kind of funny because every time we visit someone will come up and begin to question my family as though we were part of the 'skit'! The staff will even ask us if their understanding of 'real' farm life is accurate! LOL...

Here is the great 'machine' that I mentioned in the previous post. This is a universal implement in almost every 'old-time' farmstead that we have visited. My wife is a huge fan of Tasha Tudor and we often admire the beautiful farm that her son Seth built her.There is a beutiful shot of Tasha trimming out a few cedar shakes for her roof in the book about her life. If you ever get a chance to see it you will be amazed to see a lady her age whipping out her own construction material like it was easy! About 3 minutes into a little test of the one pictured here was enough to give me a healthy respect for the job.

Stay tuned for some more of Dudley Farm! There is still the wash shed, outhouse complete with 'trimmings', the wash area , and my wife's favorite, the outdoor kitchen/dining room!

Until then...

New growth

2009-03-10T18:28:00.003-04:00

I had planned to post a few pics from the garden and share a little more on our modest progress here, but there is more than vegetable seed growing at our home this year...
Our 14 year old son has been asking a lot of questions on the meaning of the Lord's Supper these past few months. He has expressed a desire to partake as member of the Church and has done some studying on the issues. I am very pleased at this new chapter in his life.

I know that there are a lot of opinions on when a child should be allowed to come to the table, and I do not want to start any fires out there. Still, I thought it might be helpful to explain a little on our understanding of the issue to help expound the joy that this event has given me.

While most of the modern Church allows just about any one to partake of the Lord's Table, we have the practice of 'fencing' the table from the ignorant,profane, and scandalous. That is, we have each member that desires admittance to the table to meet with an Elder from the local group and have a talk to make sure that they understand the basic meaning of the Lord's Supper (not ignorant), and also to pointedly admonish them that after this examination it will be up to that individual to discern if he is living with any un confessed sin each time that he/she comes to the table, (not scandalous or profane). We do this because we see a warning of serious chastisement in the Word for any person who partakes of this as though it were just an external rite, or worse yet, has some area where they are being stiff-necked in their sin. After this initial examination we do not become involved in the individuals decision to participate in the ordinance unless they publicly state some error about the efficacy of the meal, ( like the Roman view of trans-substantiation) or have been exposed in some 'scandalous' sin, ( not just some disagreement with the church or common daily sin which we all commit, but one that would do damage to the good name of Christ and His local church if they admitted this person to the table). So, basically we try to make sure that we stay out of the Christian's way in this matter, except where needed on the one hand, and also try and make sure that no one is knowingly, (profane person) or unknowingly, ( child too young to understand the basic meaning because of the warnings and need to be practicing repentance).

That being said, the great news is that it really appears that all those years of homeschooling, family worship, training, and prayer have begun to pay off! For us it is the admittance to the table that we cherish for our children. This is when we finally know that, at least externally, our children are considering their relationship to God themselves. In our family this is a time that we have prayed for earnestly and approached as a caution against the heresy of presumptive regeneration, ( that teaching which states that all children of believers are actually saved without regeneration), which some have mistakenly erred into.
Now, we continue to pray! For new growth and maturity in the things of God, for the signs of concern that every christian parent hopes to see in their children, for the next phase in his life...
In short, we pray that he is seeking God in all that he does, and seeking to make his calling and election sure!
We pray the same blessing for you and yours,
The Mothershed family

Improvements to the Homestead

2009-03-09T09:39:00.004-04:00

O.K., not 'our' homestead! Still, we had a beautiful time last week as we took a stroll through one of our area's best attractions... The old Dudley Farm homestead. This farm is a pre-Civil War era farm that acted as a depot of sorts for travelers through the interior of north central Florida in the days when the Seminole tribe was still active in these parts. The heyday of the farm wasn't until much later, but the ground work for it's place in Florida history was laid by the hard work and ingenuity of some real hardscrabble folk who built quite a homestead! This place became the life-line for many people as it was on the 'main road' through the interior. Below is a picture of my wife and some of the children approaching the outskirts of the farm on that 'main road'. On the left you can see the side of the tobacco barn. This, along with sugar cane syrup, was the main cash crop of the time and area. In a later post I will show a few shots of the interior of the barn and some of the implements that they used in the harvesting and storage of the crop.
Following are some random pictures from around the homestead. There was so much to do and see that we are going back for another tour soon. Many great ideas for simple living can be found here. We were struck with the amount of labor that must have gone into the production and maintenance of such a life. Every detail was important for us. For instance, below is a simple photo of a small bird bath that has a little water bucket beside it along with a gourd water dipper. While we are guessing that the bird bath itself may be from a slightly later time, (seems to be concrete), the interior bowl is an old cast iron. And that little bucket and gourd were from the original farm. Imagine the effort that it took to hand cut each board and plane them to the proper thickness, before joining them to form a bucket! Perhaps, you don't have much experience with wood working and can't imagine what this process entails. Let me briefly explain.....h-a-r-d work! While the original bucket maker probably looked on this simple feat as normal and not an entirely extraordinary skill to possess, it is good to remember that this was before the days of 'homestead skills class' and internet portals. I will try and post a few pics of the actual 'machine' that they used to make these little necessities. And that cute little dipper... they have many like it scattered on the ground in the sun next to the garden where that gourd grew. They first turn the soil with a spade and hoe, then plant the little seed and wait. After disease, drought, pests and nature have done their damage, they would collect any left overs and cure them in the sun before carving them into useful implements...like this one. A simple water bucket and dipper= many hours of hard labor, busted knuckles, and sweat. Don't forget that iron band around the bucket. They made that here also!

Here is one of my favorite things on the farm. It is a little garden cellar. Right here in Florida! This is something that used to be common in this area when I was a boy, but now everyone says that it is impossible to root cellar in our climate. They should have told the Dudley family that before they dug up all those rocks and hauled them all the way over to this spot in the front yard. The temp was noticeably cooler inside.

This is a poor shot of one of the bedrooms inside the main house. It is a 2 story place that is packed with a small parlor and five bedrooms like this one. Note the bed in the middle of the room. They raised a family of 14 in this beautiful home. No bathroom, no kitchen, no dining area. Just bedrooms and a small parlor. Very efficient. The kitchen and privy are out back. I imagine that this was a good arrangement come August in Florida.

Here is a simple shot of the front yard and the kitchen garden. This is not the main vegetable garden, but is the spot where sweet smelling roses and herbs are grown and harvested for medicinal and culinary uses. I miss the times of my childhood when I could walk down to one of the neighbors and find this exact same set-up in their yards! You will never see a kitchen garden in Florida now, but I had 3 neighbors within walking distance that had them. Complete with the little stone potting/cooling shed. We hope to pick up this small idea here in our family. Imagine a cup of rose hip tea from just outside your front door!

This is the final shot today. The small parlor. The fireplace is a pass through that opens to the master bedroom ( where all 12 children were born) on the other side. I don't know much about the religious quality of the Dudley family, but one can imagine that there may have been more than a few times when sitting next to the hearth, Father Dudley might have opened a few lines of holy scripture to his family as they faced some trial or obstacle of their day. Or perhaps, they were more consistent than the average 'on fire' family of today and they actually had a daily reading of the Word here in this place as they lived daily life, complete with it's problems and praises. I would like to think that it was a daily part of existence here. I hope it is wherever you are.

Down a few days

2009-02-27T23:08:00.002-05:00

Due to some unexpected circumstances we will be without internet access for about a week. When we are back we hope to post some updates on the gardening and some pics from around our place. Until then, God bless and keep you.

Potatoes, Carrots, and FROST!

2009-02-17T09:41:00.012-05:00

Our last frost date in North Central Florida is sometime around February 23rd. The Farmer's Almanac is usually the most reliable indicator of this event and is the standard by which all the old-timers here plant the first crops of spring. We are not old-timers. Still, we have enough appreciation for the results that we have seen in some of these folks' gardens to follow the advice and pray for an increase. So far we have been well pleased with the results. Even now we are in high hopes that there will be enough cool weather left to help the newly planted carrots, raddishes and potatoes grow a decent crop. We have been concerned that we waited too long and the hot weather would soon overcome our efforts, but true to the Almanac, we are now having a slight cooling trend that should help get these first crops off to a good start! We are thankful. Below I will try and post a few pictures from our homely garden.

Above is a shot of the wide row method we use. Below is how we covered the rows to keep the weeds down while warming the soil for early planting.

This is a shot of the Master Gardeners at work digging the double-dug beds!

Here is a fine shot of just how deep these beds are before the raking and smoothing, the bed is also dug and turned some 2 feet below the pile.

The logs that are lying around are left over firewood we are using to help keep the row covers on.

We have decided to go with the wide row, deep till method and are hoping for better results than the square-foot method we have previously attempted. One thing is for sure with this method, there can be no excuse for the carrots and other root crops not to grow plenty with all the depth they should have. We have been composting in our home-made tire stacking system for a while, and have also added plenty of organic manure/compost. We are using a cheaper brand than the popular Black Kow brand, but at $1.23 a bag, we are satisfied. We also added a small amount of blood-meal and bone-meal to each row/bed and will follow-up with some diluted fish emulsion as a regular feeding when needed. We are really battling with two issues here in our small patch of the world; one is the philisophical need to limit outside inputs to our homestead, and two, is figuring out how to keep the sand that we are so blessed with here, in decent moisture/nutrient range with just the 'stuff' that we produce. We are not experts at either end, but I can say that we are making good effort. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, is wasted here. We save every scrap and trimming from kitchen to chicken yard. The occasional hay that we scatter for the chickens is the base of our compost and the litter from both the chicks and the rabbits is thourougly mixed in and the whole mess is thrown into the first of 3 stacks of tires. After a couple weeks, we pull each tire down, one at a time, (my back appreciates this method), and move it to stack #2 if ready. By the time this makes it into the third stacker, it is showing some good progress and usually takes a good month before it has turned into that miraculous mass that we gardeners love so much. As for the amendments that we have brought in this year, we figure that with time, more compost, and the wide rows, raised beds and deep-till method, our soil will become a little more acceptable. We try to remember what another blogger once wrote about this fine art of cultivation, that it matters not one bit if you are male or female, American or otherwise, you will get out of the soil, exactly what you put into it. Of course, as christians we see the limits of this thought, but the general premise still holds. We have taken some comfort in the simple fact that we are at least involved with the process. I am sure that there will be mistakes made and lessons learned along the way, but at least we are confident in knowing that there is real truth in this idea. There is so much more to God's grace than mankind realizes! I shudder to think of how much man will answer for in over-looking the simple, every day forms of mercy and kindness that He has bestowed on this world. Even the simple fact of seed germination is a blessing for all of mankind. It truly doesn't matter if you are a Christian, or the most ardent pagan, God in His grace and mercy, has so ordered the events of this world, by His express will, that every being is given the same starting place in terms of this effort. I, for one, am thankful that He has allowed, a boy from the inner-city this kindness of rediscovering the benefits and trials of living this way.

Strength in weakness, Hope for the Church in post-modern America?

2009-02-12T09:31:00.006-05:00

Lately has been a series of difficulties and pains here at our fine farm. First, has been the resurgence of dibilitating pain from the several torn and slipped disks in my lower back, and now I fear a slight touch of the "bug" keeping us sufficiently miserable. Still, even in the midst of trial, there is no darkness. Rather, there is much thankfulness and joy, and renewed hope.

First, due to the kindness of a brother and his family in Christ, we have been able to procure the rest of our seed order for the upcoming season! While we were pleased and thankful to the Lord for the small amount we had already purchased, this unexpected blessing has over-joyed us and allowed us some considerable peace. We have also used the kindness of this unnamed brother to purchase a canner to make our harvest last longer. Our new canner should arrive today! I will give an update soon on the many varieties that we are hoping to produce. Hopefully, it will include some decent pictures as we learn how to post them. There were many other real needs met by the Lord's grace through this charitable brother. We will not seek to publicly praise this brother much, but shall pray that God will bless him by making true that promise that, "the things done in private, shall be openly shown," in that day.
We have also purchased a copy of Suzanne Ashworth's book, "Seed to Seed", at the reccommendation of brother Scott Terry

Another reason for our joy, even in the midst of trial, is the following posting by our dear friend in Rayville, MO:
It is a much needed and very helpful discussion of how we, as christians, can both glorify our Lord and impact future generations. While we have some differences on eschatology, (end-time events), myself being somewhat of an undecided amillenialist/historicist, we are not divided by these fancy terms. Rather, we are united in our understanding of the great Covenant of Grace which has been bestowed on us through the Word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ our Lord. We share a common vision of hope! The hope that one day the Church will again take seriously the call to purify herself in all realms as she seeks to live out her calling as salt and light to this generation. It is a beautiful and real hope, that we as christians will take seriously our duty to stewardship. First, of our own lives, families, estates, and then, of our individual local churches and the relationships to each member thereof, according to our place and station, and finally, to the local community around us as we seek to implement this understanding of just what it means to be an agrarian-minded christian. The idea being, that we could eventually unite and/or replicate ourselves throughout individual communities to develop the vision that we all hold dear, a localized, christian community based upon an agrarian understanding of biblical and economic thinking.

I realize that this is a tall order that many would see as a doomed endeavor. There are many who earnestly believe that the days are waxing worse (myself included), and that tyranny, globalism, increased debauchery, and universal persecution are well on their way to us now. The prevalent thinking is that if things are going from bad to worse, then the studious and intelligent thing for the believer to do would be to get out and go into hiding, or at least to prepare as far as humanly possible to move ourselves to a more defensible position. This is wise and good, and in keeping with my personal eschatological view, however, there must also be consideration given to our earnest brothers and sisters who see a more hopeful view of things, along with our call as they understand it, to go forward in the earth proclaiming the Kingdom in hope. To my thinking, and according to my friend's post, these views are not so diameterically opposed that we must separate from one another and begin to hurl verbal "stones" at one another, as some seem to do. We will choose to work together in the unity of Christ, and our fidelity to the Word of God as defined by our common confession, as we move forward in our efforts to build real covenant keeping, Reformed communities to sustain our families....whatever the future may hold.

Joy and Pain

2009-02-10T22:13:00.002-05:00

I am slowly recovering from several days of bad pain. Seems I have missed quite alot in the blogosphere. Several friends have had their share of trials this past week as well. Here in our little corner of the world, life was too overwhelming to keep up on the blogs. Even in the midst of my bad days there has been much blessing and joy that I will write about soon. To those who have undergone their own trials, please know that we are praying for all of you and can't wait to get back in touch. To those who have been waiting on answers to their comments, please hang in there over the next few days as I get back on my feet. Also, please pray with me about finding the right doctor and chiropractor. It has been difficult just getting out of bed, much less doing anything else. Your prayers are appreciated.

Quick update and Praise

2009-02-05T16:46:00.004-05:00

The Chickens are starting to lay again!!! Just one egg so far, but for 3 days we gave gotten this same amount! Very thankful and excited. It seems silly that a man would praise the Lord for 1 egg, but that is just what I am doing. Also, have Jerusalem Artichokes starting to poke through and so far we have about 30 tomatoes sprouted! This is a great thing to our little clan. We are all thankful and staying warm despite freezing temps of late.
There are so many others who are learning through trials and tribulations around the world and we feel so very thankful for the moments that God gives us encouragement. We are thankful for His people and their love also.
Today is a day of much thankfulness and joy for us. We pray the same for all of you!
Indebted to His Grace, Bob

An easier read: It's Sola Scriptura, not SOLO!

2009-02-02T23:17:00.003-05:00

This is another very good explanation that shows the need for a creed/confession in the Church today. Note this opening quote by Robert Lewis Dabney, renowned theologian, and Namesake of son #7, the bath-tub baby):

"He who would consistently banish creeds must silence all preaching and reduce the teaching of the church to the recital of the exact words of Holy Scripture without note or comment." - R. L. Dabney

He sure did have a way with common sense, didn't he! This link is a much easier read than yesterday:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/Creeds/McMahonSolaScriptura.htm

A.A. Hodge on the Importance of Creeds and why they are needed today

2009-02-02T21:43:00.003-05:00

Just a line to keep the fire stoked. I have been reading the junior Hodge's Commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith and have been stirred up to better understand why it is so important to have a creedal faith. I know that there are many who do not care for 'creeds of men', but I felt that this might be a useful subject to cause us all to think about our traditions.

There are many reasons given by good, moral, and God-honoring Christians, as to why they don't like creeds. I will not try to address these here because Hodge does it so well in the link that I am including.

As you will see, there is no question as to whether it is 'right' to use a creed. It is a direct consequence of being a student of God's Word. The only question left then is, which creed is the right one? Ah.... that's the part we don't like! It is far easier for us to keep our traditions. Defining the right creed from the wrong creed is hard work that reveals to us our errors concerning Scripture. It is spiritual labor that results in being able to digest meat, and not milk only, and to fight against the heresies of our day.

I hope you enjoy the link, it is lengthy, but worth it:
http://www.apuritansmind.com/Creeds/HodgeAACreedsAndConfessions.htm

Calling All C.onfessional A.grarian R.eformers

2009-02-02T03:48:00.006-05:00

When I began this little diary it was meant to be a journal of efforts toward stewardship and agrarian themes from a distinctively Christian perspective. I have been encouraged and enlightened by the writings of many others who have seen a need for the Church to re-think her role in the modern age of Industrialism and Consumerism. The many voices of this movement have caused some within the Church to look again at the political-social-environmental-economic models that we have followed and consider anew where, if at all, these areas fit in to Holy Scripture. Along the way, there has been a wide array of folks that espoused varying reasons and doctrines as the only 'real' basis of underlying philosophy for a lasting movement. Some see Agrarianism as the only real national security system that a country has. For them, it is a duty to revitalize the small family farm and establish locally grown co-ops, to ensure that individual communities are able to stave off the effects of an ever growing Federalism of local governments. Others have prefaced their belief in Agrarianism by the duty to protect the limited natural resources of the Earth, they see a 'dominion' mandate that is closely linked to the soil and our care for it. If we surveyed the whole of the movement, we would find quite a diversity in motivational causes for choosing a 'more deliberate' existence. From those who simply want to slow down the pace of things in remembrance of simpler times, to some who feel that time has run out, and that the apocalyptic days of the Bible are upon us. People from every walk of life are quitting their jobs and trading their patch of concrete for a 'hobby farm' in the most remote places they can find. There are even groups out there that have begun to build 'intentional communities' for like-minded travelers to get out of the decaying behemoth that they see around them!

The Agrarian Age has come!

Well, O.K. , ...that may be a little hopeful, not to mention a little revisionist historically, but it is easy to see that this thing is catching on again in many circles of Christendom. People are waking up to the fact that there is something wrong with the modern world and the unrelenting push that reduces the meaning of life to a measurable unit of production. Much good is coming from the renewed affections of men who want more 'meaning' to their daily existence than the god of this world has given to them. I am one of those men who have seen that there is more to life than riches, or the pursuit of worldly gain and I am thankful to the Lord that he has shown me this truth. I am also grateful for the writings of many others who have helped to shed more light on the movement of agrarianism. These people have shared their knowledge of hard-earned skills, and opened their methods of living to those greenhorns like myself. Most have done it freely, and with good intentions to see others grow and realize life's potential more. They are well versed in this area and have strong opinions brought about by the hard realities that they have accepted along with this lifestyle. They are rugged, and intelligent folk who aren't afraid to engage in defending the 'agrarian model'. I am trying to find my way among them as I contemplate their presuppositions. With all the variance of ideas and philosophies, it is difficult to establish a systematized 'theology of agrarianism'. I am not even sure if it is possible. I know that there are some who are attempting this. I know of one who shall remain nameless. ( Hint: his name rhymes with Dunker, and his theology does too ;).Primarily, because to challenge him, would be the death knell of a would be agrarian fledgling like myself. Secondly, because even though I am in much disagreement with the presuppositional view that he holds of scripture, and therefore of agrarianism itself, I find him to be a very good source of knowledge. he has written much and he is an elder, therefore he deserves the respect of both accomplishment and rank. And for those who are devoted disciples, please don't misinterpret what I am saying to be a challenge! He has a discussion forum for theological debate that I plan on joining soon to discuss these things in a Christ-like manner. It is just that I am concerned about having a solid exegesis of the scriptures and a good creedal position to help gauge heresy by. There are a lot of ideas being flung out there concerning the scriptures, ( not necessarily by the brother mentioned), and there are folks like me moving into the discussion daily. In my short term as a follower of various christian 'homesteader' blogs, I have encountered some statements of questionable doctrine. I am hoping to better understand some of these statements before simply accepting them. My eventual goal would be to work along side of someone to write a 'confessional' view of the agrarian lifestyle. I am hoping that someone else is seeing the need for this. While, there are some opposing views out there, I think that the example of the 3 Forms of Unity produced during the Reformation is a good model that would allow some level of unity while limiting the tendency to develop heretical teaching. I know this is a little to 'institutional', or denominational for some. But surely, there is someone else out there that believes agrarianism is a valid way of life and also grasps the need to make sure that it is understood through the lens of the reformed faith. Maybe there is some great writing on agrarianism from an orthodox, reformed perspective out there and I am just missing it. Maybe we need one before we miss out... Not all of us 'reformers' believe that we can wait and hope the 'post-mil' crowd is right. It just ain't confessional;/

A few days off

2009-01-28T20:33:00.004-05:00

I have been having a blast with the garden chores and my rabbit re-breeding project. So much fun that I let a few more important things slide.
I am taking a needed break from the blog to help out with some revamping of the homeschool. A few years back we came into a little extra change and decided that the best thing to do with it was to purchase a complete homeschooling set for all our children. We had been homeschooling for years and had used every style imaginable. Usually picking up a few new eclectic items whenever a new seminar came around. Sound familiar?
We finally decided on a mix of two that fits our needs. We use Rod and Staff for most everything because we like the style and content of the material and they don't use any idolatry ( pictures of Christ) in the readers or other curriculum as most of my Reformed brothers do in theirs. And we use Christian Liberty Press for all of our basic History, geography and some theology/doctrine with a little mix of other stuff like Christ-Centered Phonics ( Because they're the BEST). It was really hard to find a complete 'reformed' set that had modest dress. So, we have had to make the best of it. Like I am sure many of you have. For us, it is a battle of trying to develop an encompassing, omnibus style of education and worldview, without sacrificing simplicity and purity to high minded academics. We are thankful that the Lord has provided for each of our children every reader, test, study manual,etc., they will need through 'highschool' level and beyond. Now the battle is implementing it all consistently and effectively.
That is where my break comes in. I have to rework some of the scheduling and 'flow' of daily activities. I also need to finish my syllabus that I started months ago. Seems so easy to forget what is important.
A few days should do it.
Until then..

Seed Starts

2009-01-26T22:28:00.002-05:00

This past Saturday we were able to plant our Jerusalem Artichoke tubers from Ronniger Potato Farm. It will drop down into the low thirties for two more days next week and usually we have a week of cold snap in mid-February, but other than that, I think we will have some good sun-chokes next year. We praise the Lord that we were able to get our seeds this year with our current financial situation. We only bought a pound of tubers because they are so prolific. We figured the first year we will simply divide them and replant them. This should give us about a 50-75 foot row of sun-chokes for the end of the second year. Certainly not a bumper crop, but still alot of good supplemental iron in our diets. Sun-chokes have more iron per gram than ground beef! Not to mention the very nice yellow sunflower like blooms that I am sure my daughter will delight in.

We also started our heirloom "Amish Paste" tomatoes (courtesy of rareseeds.com) in some old egg cartons. We did poorly last year with tomatoes, but have learned much since. We've started 36 seeds and hope to see at least 20 or so germinate. We are not advocates of soil-less starting mediums and prefer to use soil from the actual bed they will be planted in. Eleutheros, over at Free Man's Garden, has an excellent post on this subject http://freemansgarden.blogspot.com/2007/05/even-though-we-aint-got-money.html which details the breakfast-lunch-dinner approach to starting seeds. I don't want to ruin the fun of reading the post, so I won't say anymore. For those of you who have never found his three blogs, you are in for a real treat. He does not identify himself as a "Christian Agrarian" , or even a Christian that I can think of, but he has solid writing and is a wealth of information in the best tradition of Appalachian Mountain Folk. I'm probably biased, having lived nearby his neck of the woods for the better part of a decade, but everytime he writes, I can picture myself sitting under a mountain tree with a cool glass of sweet tea listening and learning simple, but profound truths.

The rest of the garden is double-dug with three foot wide raised beds and straw mulched foot paths. It's not as pretty as the pictures in the book, but I am well pleased. When we moved here it was pure Florida sand and nothing even registered on our extensive soil tests. No N, no P, no K! Just sandy, dead, soil. Now, we're at 6.5 on the ph and thanks t0 our fancy stacked tire compost system, we have tons of organic matter ammendment! The only thing left is getting by the last frost and waiting on the moon phase. We are very excited!

Here is a list of what we are planting for our early spring/summer garden:
From Ronniger- Norkotah potatoes and Stampede Sun-chokes

From Seed-Saver's Exchange- Charlevoix Dark kidney beans

And from Baker's Creek- afore mentioned tomatoes, Roma II bush beans, Hutterite Soup beans, Yellow Hickory King dent corn, Sugar Baby watermelons, Edisto 47 American melons, Sugar Cream cow peas, Zuchinno Rampicante squash, and Lemon squash. They included a free gift of St. Valery carrots,which we were truly grateful for since our list was so small this year. Now we have 800 carrot seeds! Since I have many children, I am not really a "broad-cast" planting type of guy. I will make the plans, work up the patience, and sow all 800 of those precious seeds in nice little rows with the hope of a good 600 carrots coming to the table!!! That's the plan for now. 4 to 5 weeks to go, and gardening season is in full-swing in North-Central Florida. And believe it or not, I'm starting very late for most folks here.

Our big garden will be the cooler season vegetables and fruits later this year. For now, we are praising the Lord for His kindness and provision in getting this far!

Lord's Day Sabbath -1/25/09

2009-01-25T18:58:00.002-05:00

We are studying Ephesians right now and have come to Chapter 5:21
We always end our worship time by having a question and answer session along with giving each family a pamphlet that contains various catechism questions and a section we call "Sermon Questions for Family Catechizing".
It is our hope that this will encourage discussion of the day's topic among family members and promote a sense of unity in our individual walk as members of the same local body.
The general discussion was on submission and a it's teaching for the body. I am doing a larger study of the topic in relation to some teaching that Brother Bunker has on his blog and am trying to make sure that we have a proper understanding of Romans 13 and related passages. I will let you know how it goes from time to time. For now I am including the questions that we handed out as a discussion starter. These were answered during the sermon but I don't have the capability to post sermons yet. I hope they help to sharpen someone as they have me. I am not a very submissive type, so it has been a needed study.
Sermon Questions for Family Catechizing
1. Is it important that we submit to earthly authorities?
2. Are earthly authorities appointed by God?
3. Did God appoint Family authority?, Church authority?, Civil authority?
4. Is earthly authority necessary for the good of the individual, the family, and community?
5. What would happen to the individual, family, and community if no one respected authority?
6. What did God say should happen to a young adult child who was obstinately rebellious and cursed or hit his parents?
7. What did God say should happen to a citizen who would obstinately refuse to obey the lawful and moral commands of the civil magistrate?
8. Does allowing such obstinate rebellion hurt the family and community?
9. Does God corporately bless a community that obeys God's commandments and corporately curse a community that disobeys His commandments?
10. Are we rebelling against God when we rebel against His earthly authorities?
11. Mutual submission means that we are to submit to each other based on our several relationships with each other. Can you give some examples of relationships that require submission?
12. What does the word 'reverence' mean?
13. Does 'respect' consist of fear and appreciation?
14. Must we learn to feel respect in our hearts for our authorities?
15. Must we learn to show respect with our words and behavior?
16. What are some of the ways we show respect with our words?
17. What are some of the ways we show respect with our behavior?

It should be noted that the issue of authority is conditioned on the 'lawful, and moral' commands of the authority in question. During the question and answer period my own question was dealing with when we may rightly disobey an authority and the answer was very helpful.
A. When can you rightly disobey your parents?
The same basic principle seems to apply. In self-defence against unjust abuse? By petitioning the magistrate for protection against abuse?
Where does this leave the Christian with a System like the one we live in now?
I am still working through some of these questions. It may be good for many of us to consider them now, while there is some freedom to work out the answers in a way that will allow us to maintain a consistent testimony.

A fine fledgling farm

2009-01-23T23:59:00.002-05:00

There is good news and there is other news...

Good news. The seed companies have all confirmed shipping dates and some have even arrived. Many thanks to Ronniger Potato for the fine Norhkota variety that they sent me! I received them within days and all in beautiful state and ready for 'chitting'. I will plant a little late this year in keeping with the Almanac but have been able to spend the extra time on the bed preparations. I have been using a method known as the W,O,R,D system. Wide rows, organic nature, and Real Deep:) Kind of...
Also, thanks to Seed Savers and Baker Creek for the quick service in getting out a rather good variety of my choices. I will keep you posted with the garden updates.

Bad News: I am not much of a bunny farmer... All our kits (baby rabbits) died. Most were able to keep sneaking out of their cages and later found by either my pit- bull, or my American Bulldog. The A.B. is a Champion Hog dog with over 50 catches recorded between 224lbs. and 278lbs but he likes rabbit even more than hogs! The Pit has learned to stay away from them as she has been raised as my daughters guardian and is very obedient despite her taste for bunny.

Entirely my fault. I was not able to purchase the needed supplies to make a smaller wire cage for them while still young, and they did what all baby bunnies do. They escaped.
I have rebred both my females and expect to start over in a month. These creatures were so obviously designed as a food source and I look forward to finally bringing some to table.

The chickens have stopped laying also. Not good. This is a primary food source for us, and with my being injured since August with no income, we just couldn't buy any new birds this year. We pray though. And we trust in the Lord to prosper our efforts in the long-term.
Bob

Thoughts on segregation

2009-01-23T12:10:00.004-05:00

Just a short note on the current political situation that we all find ourselves in. I am reading various folk on the issue of what I will call 'involvement' of the Church with the world system (political/economic/etc.,). I am sure that many already have settled their own views of how we are to interact, if at all, with the current culture but I have not. I have strong feelings both ways. I see the arguments for segregation, ( some use the term separation, which means holiness in biblical language) and the arguments for some strong involvement in stemming the tide of debauchery that is in this world. I am not on either side fully...yet. I, by nature lean toward the segregation side but am concerned with clear definition because some seem to equate it with holiness. It is not. Some segregation is a mandatory part of holiness and I never want to be on the wrong side of that argument, but neither do I want to abdicate this world over to Satan if the Lord has not ( as some very sound Puritans taught that if God is Sovereign then this cannot be Satan's world, even though he may be trying to convince us that it is, ie; modern America). This gets into the issue of Eschatology (end-times, or more properly Last Things) and this leads to still more complex results of... if we should be involved in the battle of this age, or segregated in all respects. This is not a small, or obvious issue to me.
I believe that this issue is one of the keys to the future of Agrarianism as a way of life. I also feel that it is of vital importance to the mission of the Church in these last days.
Here is a link to a very short article on this subject which must be addressed by all Christians. http://www.covenantnews.com/blog/archives/051420.html
For those of you who are concerned with purity, please note that there are also rotating advertisements on this page and some are a sad commentary of just how little some understand the subject at hand.
If the premise here is one that is in agreement with our views then we must consider if the author was of the mind to segregate or reform. Just some thoughts I am considering.
May God bless and keep us all while we are travelling through...

The Surprise Appearance

2009-01-20T23:29:00.005-05:00

PLEASE NOTE: Contains mild description of child birth.

While all of our children, and all our birth experiences are special to us, there has been one of a unique nature.

The Conspiracy
Although I could never prove it, I have often suspected that child number seven's entrance into this world was more of a surprise to me than my wife.

We've always considered ourselves to be fairly normal people, (though many would disagree) and made the journey to home birthing in measured incremental steps. We read everything we could on the subject, weighed our reasons well, and took great responsibility in becoming our own best medical practitioners. Okay, so we didn't exactly go to a university, but as I stated in my last post, we view birth as a natural phenomenon, so there was no need for me to practice Emergency Arterial Surgery as my army field manual suggested! Still, we read many authors like Shonda Parker (which we HIGHLY recommend) and even more home birth accounts from midwives and mothers on the net. We drank in their encouragement and followed their advice...plan your home birth as you want it to be and it will be just that. Usually.

By the time that we discovered that our sixth son and seventh child was on the way, we felt like veterans at this. We had done the appropriate prenatal visits to determine that as usual our pregnancy was without any obvious problems. We had assembled the normal items, ie.-mattress cover, a couple cheap shower curtains, extra set of sheets from Goodwill, olive oil, herbal tea, comfrey sachets, soothing music list, essential oils for the bath tub (think conspiracy here), and of course the sundry towels, cloths, bowl for the placenta, etc. We were ready. There was just one small issue that my wife and I had not settled upon. Never being satisfied with just a normal home birth ;), my wife had mentioned the desire to have a water birth several times during this pregnancy. Not being one to shy away from adventure, and having a good half dozen of these experiences under my belt already, of course I said no way! I had always suspected that her parents were deeply affected by the hippie movement despite their rather upstanding lives today. I mean not even they understood our various views on things like homeschooling and not owning a television, or some of our other "issues", much less the whole home birth thing. And now, I was having pictures of my wife and I floating around in the deep end of a pool while my children stood cheering us on from the diving board! Water birth? Isn't that dangerous?? Out of the question. Still, I would find the occasional article printed out and left lying around the house from time to time. For the most part, things progressed normally as we anticipated the arrival of our latest namesake. All the normal buzz of activity was taking place in our home. Mother was busy planning the menu that Father would have to follow during her needed time of rest following birth and I was staying active by reminding all of the children once again of the usual routine: Where babies come from and how they grow, what duties God requires in the bringing up of children, how blessed we were as parents to have another soul entrusted to us, and of course, how we would all need to govern ourselves during labor and the recovery period. Everyone had a job to do and they were all an important part of bringing the new baby into the world peacefully!

Since we want our children to be involved as much as possible with the entire experience, but still don't want several unattended youngsters running around the house during a hard labor, we always try our best to give birth at a time when they might be down sleeping or maybe early in the morning as they're waking up. How in the world do we accomplish this? We pray, alot. And then, we have a back-up plan, just in case. Usually this would be a simple helper to sit with the children in the other room if needed. Thankfully, my children from the oldest to the youngest will sit quietly and obediently for extended periods of time if asked to do so. I cannot stress the value of this enough and all the praise belongs to the hard work and dedication of my wife in training my children as easily as she delivers them. Very young children may be an exception, but after 12 months or so they have always known what was expected of them and felt secure enough to know this was the way they were to live.

Excitement filled our home, which wasn't hard to fill considering we were living in a single wide trailer that year. My wife and I took the smallest room in the front. Down the narrow hall was our daughter with one baby brother sharing the room with his crib, and at the far end, was the master bedroom with the walk in master bath crammed full of smelly boys and bunk beds. My wife really loved that place ;) By the time that our due date arrived, we were feeling the stuffiness of being in such tight quarters. Our goal was to remodel and sell to provide a larger home. But as baby day got nearer it was obvious that we would each have to share a little more of our own elbow room when the baby arrived. My wife had never had any unusual incidences in past pregnancies, but now our due date came and went by a full 8 days. We were probably not the most patient people by this point and had spent countless hours walking and praying that the baby would come. At that time, in our state there was a law which said that after the tenth day over due, the midwife must withdraw her services and send the mother to the hospital. We were growing anxious.

Early Saturday morning my wife woke me at around 6 a.m. and told me that she had a miserable night of low back pain and asked if I would go to the boys master bath and fill the large tub so she could soak in it to relieve the pain. I asked her if she had experienced any regular contractions and she told me that she had not. We knew that from our past experience and training that real labor will not let a mother fall back to sleep regularly and she had dozed in and out throughout the night, so we were not overly alarmed. It was the next few moments that caused me to perk up a little. As she started towards the tub, she grabbed onto the doorway in pain and said that she couldn't walk for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, she told me that she had an incredible craving for a sausage biscuit from McDonald's! Note to McDonald's: I expect royalties if this story is used. It was then that I became suspicious. Here was my normally demure wife demanding that I run to McD's about a mile away and grab a biscuit real quick. My wife HATES processed food of any kind. After seeing that she was safely in the tub and waking the older children so they could keep an ear open for her, I slipped out the door at 6:13 a.m. and rushed to McD's calling the midwife en route. I told her not to be alarmed, but that I thought we might be beginning labor soon and that she should be prepared for a possible call mid-day. My wife's labors usually last 5 to 8 hours. Since some children were awake, I took a little longer and got sausage biscuits for the whole household and rushed home arriving at around 6:25 a.m. as I got out of the car, the door opened and my 8 year old son was standing on the top step of our doorway. I have already mentioned that there was a child in my daughter's room in a crib, who was now 15 months old and beginning to climb things . We had been discussing moving him out of the crib into the bed with her so that he did not trying crawling out of his crib and injuring himself one day soon. As I stood looking at my son standing on the steps while I was juggling the bags of biscuits, he said matter-of-factly that the baby was in the tub with mother. I sighed in a tired way and said, "But son, I woke you up. How did the baby get out of the crib and into the tub with your mother?" Suddenly this 8 year old boy seemed to grow 4 feet taller as his shoulders appeared to widen to a man's dimensions before my eyes. Very slowly, and very calmly, he reached forward his left hand, (his mother is a lefty too, think conspiracy here), and placed it upon my shoulder, and looking into my eyes, said in an aged voice, "No Dad, the BABY is in the tub with Momma." The next moments were a blurr of biscuits and abuse as my dear child flew from the steps to the concrete driveway skinning parts of his precious body! I was in the bathroom before I could think and looking at my calm and serene wife lying in the water filled tub. On her chest was a large towel she had soaked with warm water from the tub draped across the completely silent and content little bundle of pink joy which she held against her!! The only words that came to mind amidst my gasp to catch my breath were, "Is he breathing, is he alive, is he okay?" My wife, just as matter-of-factly as my boy, simply said, "Shhh, he's fine, every thing's okay. Calm down or you'll frighten him!" Calm down?!

By this time my dear boy had gathered the biscuits, rubbed the gravel from his elbows, and had sauntered into the room stopping at the doorway, (mother is a modest woman), and was trying to explain to me that everything was alright, he had heard her praying through the wall and was able to take care of everything per her instructions. Here I stood, looking from wife and babe to little man in the doorway, feeling like the only guy in the room who didn't get the joke! Everything was fine, whether I was there or not. Mother was fine. Baby was fine. Children, (sans gravel), were fine. Dad however, was NOT fine! Prior to this experience, I was the rock of Gibraltar concerning emergency situations. Nothing phased me. I was prepared according to my ability and I had faith for what laid beyond my ability. But here, at this moment, I was raw. My son continued to offer calm assurance as he went about the house waking children and giving them the news and instructions, my wife related the tale of how she had felt the sudden over-whelming urge to begin pushing just after I had left. She chronicled how she had tried to cross her legs and began to pray aloud that God would make the baby wait. When she realized that God and baby had their own time frame, she then began to pray that He would give her strength and prepare her for what was about to happen. She described how an involuntary push caused the baby to crown. This is where the top of the head begins to exit, but only the top portion is actually out. She reached down and felt the hair on the baby's head when a second wave of pushing overtook her and the head was now completely out and under the water. Immediately a third great urge pushed our son gently into the tub where mother gently lifted him to her chest and began alternately rubbing his back to expel any amniotic fluid while pouring water from the tub over him to keep him warm. She called out for the boy to crank the heat up and toss a towel to her which she dipped into the water to use as a blanket. And then she waited and rested and marveled at how easily and naturally her conspiracy had worked :) The conspiracy part I have added despite her strong protestations of innocence.

The midwife got a call a little sooner than she expected. She had gotten into the shower when I called earlier and was not yet out when the second call came. Poor thing. She showed up with unbrushed and dripping hair and no jacket on a chilly December morning in record time as she pulled the equipment inside! We sequestered the children in sister's little room so that mother and baby and umbilical cord could make the trek to the far end of the home where her bed was waiting. Some days before, we had taken the needed precautions of making the bed twice, once with a set of sheets for use during and immediately after birth, the water proof cover followed by a clean fresh set of sheets for mother and baby to rest in. This always makes the transition easier,at least for frantic, nerve-racked fathers. The check-up by the midwife confirmed that contrary to the medical establishment's protestations, a home birth baby is quite happy, healthy, content, and right on time!

The author and his wife are the proud parents of 8,and soon to be nine,beautiful and healthy children, many of whom have been born in the comfort and safety of their own home.The Rock of Gibraltar still laughs when he describes the look on Dad's face just before he saw his breakfast hit the pavement.

Home-Steading and Home-birthing

2009-01-18T22:48:00.004-05:00

While we await the birth of our latest child, I thought it would be a good time to discuss home birthing as an alternative to the regular hospital birth scene so popular today. Really, this is inspired by 3 main factors;

1. The upcoming new bundle. 2. The current economic situation and, 3. The recent request of Countryside Magazine.

As we discuss this issue, I will share our personal reasons for choosing this method and also, give a few little 'stories' of our experiences.

First, I have to start by acknowleding that it was my wife that originally brought up this idea in our household. At the time I really thought that she had gone too far! I mean, the homeschool thing was already hard enough and now she wanted to return to the 'dark-ages' of high infant mortality rates and 'unscientific', anti-medical zanniness!

I told you in my recent post that she really has been instrumental in changing our family for the better! Seriously though, the decision to have our children in the comfort of our home has been one of the best things that we have ever done. I know that this may not be for everyone, in every situation, and I want to first state that there are some very real circumstances wherein it would be wise to consider a more 'medical' approach. What I mean is, that there can be some medical problems which require a more non-traditional hospital birth and we certainly support and recommend that any person with such a condition obtain the best medical advice that they can.

That being said, we feel strongly that for the most part medical intervention is not needed and sometimes causes undue stress on the Mother and child.

A little historical perspective

Until recent times, pregnancy and birth have been viewed as a normal part of the process of life and death. Throughout history women have gone through the process of birthing and nurturing children in the same way that every other creature has. Naturally. It is a recent trend to look upon child-birth as a medical 'condition' akin to sickness. While we could go on for quite some time in documenting the medical community's reasons for such a clinical view, it is not of great concern to this article. There are many papers out that already do a sufficient job of explaining this rather recent development. For our purposes, we simply want to illustrate that normal child birth is a completely natural biological event that has been taking place since the beginning of mankind and will continue to the end of time. With or without an epideral! Still, this issue of birth being historically viewed as 'natural' is an important point. To the many families that choose home-birthing ,one of the most common reasons that they give is, "Women have always done it this way!" There is just something about certain folk that feel a strong urge to 'connect' with the meaning of such a significant event without the 'clinical' feel of a hospital room. For us, this is exactly how it happened. We had our turn in the 'clinical' setting and just felt that someting was missing from the experience. We couldn't even explain it except to say that we were sure that the whole medical scene was a part of the problem. We wanted to get great prenatal care to make sure that the next one was a normal pregnancy and then we wanted to be left alone! Without the push-pull of the hospital staff and the removal of our child at someone else's whim. That brings up the next point in our thinking process.

Reasons for choosing home-birth
Different strokes for different folks, right? Wrong! Wrong that is, if you are planning on having a hospital birth. You will have very little choice in anything that takes place in most hospitals today. You are a patient after all!
Comfort, care and control
When we read the accounts of people who gave birth at home, we were so shocked that we questioned everything. These folks talked about being relaxed and eating a good meal as mom started labor! In the hospital we weren't even allowed a glass of water because it might create a problem for the Doctor when mom started pushing if her bladder was full! A problem for the doctor?! He wasn't choking from the dry throat of all that breathing and pushing! At home, we ate a good meal of fresh food to help keep our strength up and kept water available at all times. We even kept a pot of my wife's favorite herbal tea steeping for that little extra boost she might need. The music list we chose was steadily streaming the relaxing songs and the other children were quietly going about last minute preparations. When mommy said she wanted to walk, she did. If she wanted to crawl around on her hands and knees and recite scripture she could. She was at home and she was queen. Our job was to have all the 'stuff' ready for her when she needed it. And guess what. Things went fine. They have nearly a dozen times! (We're hopeful people!)

Economics 101

Recently, a friend had a hospital birth experience. He was telling me the particulars that are expected, ( weight, length, etc.,) when he suddenly told me how thankful he was that his insurance was so good. They picked up nearly the whole tab you see. He only had to pay $4,500.00 out of pocket because they 'chose' a private room and an epederal! That was his cost for delivery alone. The prenatal stuff was about $$3,000 and the total with insurance was over $22,000! I didn't have the heart to tell him that our mid-wife, a l20 year veteran RN, came to our house for every prenatal visit from 60 miles away and lugged all that state of the art equiptment, just in case, and helped deliver the baby, wash the dishes, and played with the other children afterwards so my wife and I could sleep, for less than 3 grand for the whole deal! Considering where this country may be headed very soon, home-birth deserves a closer look for the financial reasons alone.

Stay tuned.... Next time will be much more fun as we tell some home-birth stories! We'll even throw in the unassisted water birth. Well, not completely unassisted, one of the boys was home and heard her praying in the tub and heated some towels for her!

Mia's News

2009-01-06T16:11:00.003-05:00

Just a small update. Wonderful news for a beautiful family! We are rejoicing in the Lord with them. Check out her site on my side bar. She is the Aspiring Homemaker and a model of hope for the upcoming generations! Be sure to check out last year's posts. They are not showing right now but you will be thrilled at so much that this young lady has set her hand to. Cannot recommend her enough.

Busy days

2009-01-04T21:54:00.002-05:00

Thanks to my new friends that have left messages of encouragement,( all two of you know who you are!).

I am already taking a short break from my blogging due to some pressing issues here at the "homestead" and also, due to a need too learn more about blogging. For those of you who are interested in that, I would encourage you to check out this link . http://thepilgrimpath.blogspot.com/ She has some tutorials that will get you acquainted with the process. I am watching them this week during my break.
As you may know from one of my entries, I was diagnosed with Degenerative Disc Disease recently, which is a fancy way of saying that I blew a few disc in my back. As of now, I am awaiting a surgeon's report on how eager he is to operate and considering all my options. This is not the first disc that has been ruptured so I am leaning toward the surgery this time. Normally, I would opt for the decompression type therapy and a few months of healing like I have done in the past. This time we can't wait. As it has happened in the worst economy, we are forced to consider surgery that holds a promise of a one month recuperation. After not working for more than 4 months, we are running out of options. The meeting with the surgeon will be this week so I must decide quickly.
Oh, how I can't wait for the day when I can leave this wretched system behind! Contrary, to what many people write, homesteading, for all of it's hard work is never as abusive to the physical body as the 9-5 world. I realize that I have a relatively, small estate and do not have the pleasure of working a horse-drawn plow, but I remember the day's of childhood, and as hard as plowing is on the back, it is somehow a tolerable ache! I think it has more to do with the rate of work. Somehow, I have been able to get a decent garden ready, sans seeds for now, a great compost pile finished many "freezer bunnies" ready, and of course the normal coop repairs, etc. My sons' will tell you that THEY are the reason I have gotten along so well, and they are largely right. I am happy that I have a willing and industrious group of children who are so helpful to me during this time. I praise the Lord for it and recommend that everyone get themselves 9 or 10 of these little helper's! It is a comfort knowing that my wife and I will not have to be thrown to the State Retirement System one day, and that by having a good dozen or so children around, we will be less of a burden to the whole. Just another reason to consider trusting the Lord in the area of child-birth, along with child-rearing! I know many folks who would point to the current predicament that I am in as a reason NOT to have a large family. I will not take time to address that error right now. I will only say that as a rule, I never use the exception to break the rule.
That is, every time someone brings up the anti-family argument, especially the Christians', they always point out the "what if" scenarios that could leave us in an overwhelming situation... As if a Father of 9 has ever lived a day that was not overwhelming! What I know, is that the Bible is pretty clear on the blessedness of children, and the ability of God. But, that discussion will have to wait because I am involved in so many other things to prepare for the next couple of weeks.

Hopefully, I will be able to keep you somewhat updated over the next weeks as things progress. I will try to post a short essay on Child-Training that another young couple in the church has asked me to write as an aid in their own training efforts. It will be something profound like, "Thank God, every day for a wife that is serious about her job!"
Really.
That's my biggest secret to how a house full of boys (we were blessed with 1 girl, out of the 9), can appear so 'civilized' when they are out fooling the unsuspecting masses to accept my devious message of large well-ordered family life! She is the backbone of the training system here at my home. I don't know if a Patriarchal minded fellow is supposed to say that, but it's true. My wife is the greatest christian witness that I have ever known, in life or in print.
I didn't mean to post on this but it is a worthy subject
.
I believe strongly in a male Head-of-household. In fact, one of the tenets of my Confession of Faith has an entire document directed to the great duty of fathers' in the training up of their children. The Ministers of our church are required to visit in the homes and "enquire after" the daily habit of scripture training among the members. Not lording over any Head mind you, ( Every man is king of his own castle), but seeking to see if the 'king' is perhaps an impostor of the worst kind... A spiritual reprobate, and vagabond who is worthy of the worst upbraiding, should he neglect his duty to daily, break the Bread of Life to His own seed! It is the worst plague on the Church today, that there is not the fire of Family religion near the Hearth of our activities. It has two scoundrels that will one day give a woeful accounting..Father and Mother! If all that the 'back to home' para-church movements have taught us about the Home being the first embryo of the church and the state (properly run, of course), is correct, and that the answer to revival lies in an awakening affirmation of family-integrated churches, then where does the final judgement of our church, and therefore state lie?! At the big, bad feet of the Anti-Christ? Yes, and No. While it is true that the Devil is one of the enemies of our faith, and yes, the World is in there ,too, the enemy that WE will answer for is actually number two on the list..."the world, the flesh, and the devil...." I am far more concerned about number two, than either of the other ones. It is the real culprit of the degradation of society. Fathers do not instruct their children in the Word. Mothers do not weep over their souls. I have known some who could outwardly fool you. I used to be one of them. That is where my wife comes in. She nurtured our family along during those times of my dereliction. She wept for them, and pleaded like Zipporah did for Moses, that God would spare my bloody soul.
I was busy you see. I ran a business and was a full-time student at Bible-college! Not to mention, those 'extra-curricular' activities that kept me occupied during what free time I had left. I won't mention what those activities were, they are not worthy to be spoken of. But, every Sunday you would find me in the pew at the '______ _______ Independent, Fundamentalist Church'. We had Revival and Camp Meetin' 3 times a year. I was there. I looked good. My wife, never once, fell to that false temptation to slander me by 'talking' to a friend. She just kept reading that she was to have a quiet and meek spirit, and that she was to live modestly and with shamefacedness before her children. That perhaps, her chaste conversation would be part of God's plan in my real conversion. Feminism is for weaklings. My wife is a vessel of the Living God to be used up at His whim! She is my hero, for she went to the gates of hell and there, stood weeping and bearing precious fruit for me nightly. Those crass women that sit on Oprah and tell you ladies that this type of subjection is a shame to women's rights are spiritual vampires that live only by draining the true life from you. They tell the stories of how they were treated and how they were 'freed'. Truth is, they were always just a part of their Father the Devil anyways. They couldn't possibly understand the motivation that my wife carried as she would climb out of bed at 2 or 3 in the morning to let me stumble into it! Always waiting with that plate that was set for me earlier that night, just in case. And then, as I would dose off to my wicked slumber, I would hear the familiar sound, the quiet sobbing and pacing from room to room, as she pleaded for these children to hold me dear in their heart! Begging God that they would honor my place and station, even if they could not honor me! Let a feminist live 1 year this way with the most hardened, negligent, oaf of a man, and then see the results. You will see the power of the Scriptures at work. You will see my wife, and you will know that there is no more excuse for you because the great lie is undone... it is not just a figurative writing, it is the Living Word, and if she could live like the Proverbs 31 woman so easily and seemingly effortlessly, then what about you?!
Anyhow, that is kinda' what I hope to talk about soon with my brethren from church and I will try and post the outline here if anyone is interested. I really think that it is the single, most important subject in today's Church. I love Agrarianism, but I love Christian Agrarianism more and the history of agrarian Scotland will testify of both, the blessed time when the Light of Scripture ruled in every individual cottage along the Moors, and the sad times when the Land, though agrarian, was as godless as today.

Heady Ideas & Eclectic Thoughts

2008-12-20T10:01:00.004-05:00

I will be posting a new series of blogs soon, as research time allows, concerning a variety of issues pertaining to Agrarianism, The Green Movement, and the involvement of the Church in these areas. Because I am new to blogging, I will apologize in advance for the formatting and rambling. I will try to keep things in as cohesive a manner as possible.

It is my hope to better understand some of my brethren, (sisters too!), and offer some additional thoughts to our mutual discussion of living a proper existence while here.

This is quite an undertaking for me and I am very alive to the fact that there are so many folk out there doing this sort of thing. Some quite well, and others...that I pray for.

My main focus will be on a Reformed view of Holiness/Separation, and Industrialization/City-dwelling. It is a subject that has been well covered by many others, but I feel a deeper need to understand the arguments. So as a result, I will be seeking answers from some of the more "experienced" folks out there to help clarify these issues.

Please pray for me as I undertake this task. It is my hope that it will lead to a greater unity among the many Christian's out there as we properly define the meaning of Agrarianism for the next generation.

Just a hint! Some of the subjects that we will be tackling are as follows:

Reconstructionism vs. Separatism

Is Urbanization unwise...or Sinful?

Is your garden eschatology sound?

Plans,Providence, and Priorities

2008-12-18T11:11:00.007-05:00

Nothing is going as planned.

I am growing accustomed to this. I never planned on leaving the Appalachia I love so much to come back to Florida. My wife surely did not. I never planned on having a small home plumbing business during the 2nd Great Depression, with 9 children. I certainly didn't plan on blowing a few discs in my back 4 months ago, being unemployed, unable to rest at ease in the comfort of unemployment or work comp., ( small business owners can't afford comp, and unemployment is not allowed for injured folk!), or many of the other things that are happening in my life at present.
In fact, there are quite a few things that I did not intend to take place in my life. But they have.
I had been telling myself for some time that I would be more involved in the Garden next time. Just like the countless self-exhortations to do more of the training in our homeschool, and leading Family Worship when I got home from a hard days work. Again and again I told myself that things had to change. That I had to get back to our original vision of homesteading, and training the children to a consistency with their own spiritual duties. It was easy to see that my wife was overburdened with doing her job and mine while raising up a large family, homeschooling, training in the Scriptures, grinding wheat, cutting hair, learning to sew and make soap, etc.,... Yes siree, I was going to get back in the saddle and start being the Old Me...soon. Little did I know how God would answer my and my wife's prayer. It wasn't that stupid waste of a dollar they call Lotto. Nor did I find that perfect "Hobby Farm" listing. You know the one. Where some older couple with no kids and a ton of extra land just wanted to "bless" a family like mine with a little piece in exchange for the upkeep of their farmstead! And, of course they would live in an area that was inhabited by many like-minded Saints of God who we could fellowship and worship with according to our understanding of the Word!
No, that is not what happened to get me back on track.
Instead, I was forced, kicking and screaming ( mostly from the pain of a few herniated discs) to quit working away my life away from my family. Never, in a lifetime would I have chosen this way. But, I now think that was my problem. Never in my lifetime would I have chosen any way.
Sure I wanted to be at home with them. I really did pray and seek a way that I could be more involved in their daily education and training in righteousness. I searched out all the opportunities that I could see to figure a way for a modern father, with a large family and no money, to get things "right". I yearned, and still do, to find a meaningful way to fulfill that most sacred duty, raising up godly seed, that any father has! But I could not figure it out because all I could see were the Giants in the Land.
I had my plans certainly. I would continue to work hard and save every spare nickel...when there was one, and SOMEDAY, I would find that perfect place with little money down and orchards bursting with fruit just waiting for a fellow like me to step into it! That would solve all my problems! After all, I would be working on our homestead. We would put up a few large canvass surplus tents, hand dig a nice well, and start felling trees for the cabin! Surely, I knew it was a long shot. But the Lord knew my heart and I could always hope for a little help from Him.
On THAT day things would finally be alright! I would be home and involved in making sure the children had a proper worldview. We would rise early and begin with long prayer and thanksgiving on our way to the milk shed. There was even a chance that some of my children would still be young enough and receptive enough to give me their heart and let me show them all the lessons that I had learned, about how God wants us to live for Him, and to set our affections on the things above and not on the things of this world!! I really thought that the key to giving up my desires was to simply have some of them...well, o.k.... the majority of them, fulfilled! Then it would be easy to let go of the gut wrenching need to obtain my dream of independence, right?
Could it be that I am the only misguided, self-seeking, lover of my covetous dream-farm, christian out there? Am I the only person who has started out with a fire for the things of God, ( only to discover that somewhere on the way my will replaced His?), and a vision for the next generation, and a zeal for seeking His pleasure and a real need to know that He feels love in return from me as gratitude for that day? You remember that day... when the light was changed to darkness, and life was breathed into your dead corpse for the first time, and suddenly you realized that you were taking your first real breath of fresh air, ever, in your lifetime? What happened to that day? Where have those feelings gone? Why is it so hard to even remember the unexplainable joy that came and raised us up like the men in the Valley of Bones, that suddenly grew flesh and became Living Beings!? We swore we would never forget it! We became fools to all who knew us as we prattled on and on for endless hours about this incredible New Birth! Oh, our hearts did burn within us!
And somewhere along the way of our journey to that City whose builder and maker is God, on that path to the Celestial Kingdom that is not made by any Man's hand, our vision was somehow blurred and the visage became more temporal, and we changed the Glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man. For some in was land, for others... new skills learned, and hobbies fulfilled, dreams of butter-milk and a skep full of bees, or some homemade soap with hyssop from the herb garden! After all, we all know that milk and honey and... well hyssop is in the Bible somewhere, too! And we know that there really is value of sort in the things that we seek. It really will be a better upbringing for our children, and their really is a great need to watch over them and keep them pure and unspotted from this world. This world. We see daily what is happening in this world. Wars and financial melt-down, and scandal and corruption, and genetically modified food, and Humanist Zealots tracking down the peaceful children of God for wanting to be seperate and clean and taking their land and their liberty, and on and on...and...before we realized what was happening, the need to grasp whatever security we could find overwhelmed us and became... our trap.

Matthew Chapter 6:
25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? .....

31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

In the morning, my son's and I are adding more compost to the garden. And my wife will cut our hair after she grinds the wheat. And we will all gather in the evening to prepare ourselves for the Lord's Day Sabbath.

My plans for my homestead have changed...in ways that I did not expect.

And I am thankful.

Spring Prep

2008-12-17T16:39:00.006-05:00

While I have been an avid reader of several blogs over the last few years, I have little knowledge of Blogging itself. But, like most things in life, I am sure that I will find a good how-to-book out there somewhere. In the mean time, I hope anyone who finds this little journal will bear with me as I try to properly categorize the site and learn the etiquette of blogging.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way I thought that I might share a ray of hope with some of the northern folk out there.

We are gearing up for the Spring push! That's right, here in the Sunshine State we don't have much of a Winter. Now don't get me wrong, it is usually February that catches us off-guard. It is the coldest month of our year, with some freezing weather and the occassional 20 something dip at night. For the most part though, folks around here can work in the garden for 10 to 11 months of the year, if they desire to. The big time to start transplants is next week and within the next 10 weeks we will have nearly everything in the ground, the Lord willing, of course. Can't wait!

The last couple of years have been a real trial because we got started late and lost nearly everything to bugs and heat stress. These are both huge problems in Florida and when mixed with a soil that is 90% sand you really have to work to get some canning done! I am going to try and post a pic of the square foot garden that we did when we started out a few years back.

I am not sure how I did it, but I got a partial shot of one of the children's "plots" up there.

Did I mention s-a-n-d? Boy, I forgot how bad it used to look! Alot has changed since then and I will be sure to get some new pics up soon that tell the story of what organic composting can do for sandy soil. Until I figure out how to import them I will just let you know that it really does help. We started with soil that had never been worked and after a little time, we have what most folk around here would consider black gold! It was just a matter of implementing what I had read for so long. Save everything possible for the compost stack and work it accordingly, and you will be rewarded. In fact, that is what the next several weeks will consist of. Turning a season of carefully prepared compost into the beds so they will be ready for the planting. I really do hope to figure out how to get some recent pic's up because they tell the whole story of the wonder of organic methodology. Here's what we did:

First, we went online to order one of those Compost Tumblers that make magical stuff in weeks.

Then, we laughed, and choked, and laughed some more at the price of one of those things!

Next, we looked into building a three bin system that all the "farming" books show, and figured out we couldn't afford that either, so... we starting doing what my Granny's people have always done when pressed to solve a homestead problem...we looked out in the yard to see what kind of junk we could use.

That's when we saw those 12 tires that someone had left here, back before we came to this place, and remembered somewhere reading about a simple "tire stack" compost system.

Voila! 3 stacks of tires, each 4 high, and we had the beginning of a real soil-building machine.

Every other Saturday, the boy's rake the hay out of the chicken coop and run, mix in the rabbit droppings, (excellent quick fertilizer, can be used immediately), throw a scoop of wood ashes from the fireplace or burn pile in, take all of Mother's kitchen scraps, and mix it up and throw it into the first stack. After 2 weeks, you simply take one tire off at a time, and move the mix to the next bin. That's really all there is to it! As you get to the 3rd bin the stuff is so broke down that there is plenty of room for more.

I can't stress enough the importance of building organic matter into sandy, well draining soil. Without it you will never beat the nematodes here, much less the heat. We have gone to double dug, wide beds and are very pleased. In 4 years of gardening we have gone from a speck of beans to nearly 60% of what we would normally buy at the store, and my wife is a fabulous cook with a wide variety of menu's.

We neglected a fall garden this year but can still do carrots and brocolli until the last week of January if it is a quick variety. I really wanted to have the beds rested and ready for this spring.

I geuss that will do for now until I can get a few pics up. We will be doing some rabbit butchering as we move into the next couple of weeks so I will try and keep things updated.

Why Filial?

2008-12-06T18:36:00.006-05:00

My dear wife was quite adamant that my new blog title was not clear enough in description for the average person to understand. Alas, I have learned over these years that in most cases she is ...well, right. Still, I am comfortable enough that I will be able to explain why I have chosen this particularly pithy title as the conduit of yet another man's journey to simple living and humble musings about what there is to learn as we try to escape the mundane existence of slave-wage living in modern Babylon. It is my hope that I will post an acceptable explanation soon. For now, it will be simple enough to say that the idea of "fine" is self explanatory to anyone with access to a dictionary. I have even included Webster's Original at the top of this blog.

You see, we are not yet free from the slough of this modern muck. I speak in the temporal sense of course. We are not off-grid, earth-sheltered, or even owners of land. We live on a small piece of property that is rented from a local reformed minister, ( my minister ), in a part of Florida that is semi- rural and therefore semi-restricted as to usage. Even so, we are busy carving out our sustinence lifestyle while praying for the day that we might get a little "further out". Hardly the picture of Agrarian expertise, we still feel the call to do what we can ,where we can. This, I believe, is the missing ingredient of so many in the trap of modernism. They are waiting for that lottery ticket to come in before making the needed adjustments to their daily living... " if I only had _______," they say, "then I could start to live more independent of the system!" Alas, they grow more dull to the call day by day. It is kind of like the character Christian in Bunyan's classic, The Pilgrims Progress, as he lies down to take a rest in that enchanted place, unaware that the sleep he enters is his trap. Our fine property is what we have been given in our station of life, so this is what we will use.

As to the Filial nature of our existence, it can be illustrated by the events of this very morning. Our property backs against an old pasture that is owned by a wealthy northener. This Northener is keen to sell and has gone to great lengths to have his parcel rezoned for a commercial sale. Still, times being what they are, he has taken to allowing various local folk to keep cattle on this acreage that he might benefit from the Agricultural exemptions. Well too!, say's I, not being a particularly tax friendly individual myself. The problem is, that the cattle baron is seldom around to tend his stock and more importantly, to mend his fences. So, for weeks on end I have had the daily experience, ( nightly too), of herding his 15 or so younger cattle out of my gardens and back across my repeatedly mended fences into his property while trying to keep them from turning toward the nearby highway on the front of his unfenced property. This highway is a newly 4 laned monstrosity that is heavily travelled by the unattentive soccer-mom's and other Babylonian types, who are busy with their lives. Numerous attempts to reach the owner have yeilded no results, so I do what must be done to prevent harm to either party and try to keep ahead of the little devils while dreaming of larders full of fresh young steer meat!

Until, this morning that is.

As we were preparing ourselves for the Public Assembly next door at the House Church that we attend, we heard the sound of sirens and the loud speakers of our local Deputies in the distance toward that afore-mentioned highway. By the time that I got clothed and outside I was greeted by the stampede across my yard. and right through my fence and gates, and the bewildered look of several deputies whooping and waiving "Su-eee!" across the loud speaker system. I did not have the time to stop and explain that the universal hog call of these parts would never attract a band of young cattle, especially when seperated from their herd and lead cows. Cattle you see, like all herding creatures will follow the lead animal almost always unless, as in this case there is no lead animal. You must first try to "bunch" them and either help establish a leader or become one yourself. Unfortunately, these animals were now in quite a frantic, and they were stampeding in erratic directions, what with the constant sirens and squelch horns being blared from all directions and several of the lawmen trying to gain order by randomly speeding directly into the center of the herd with their vehicles revving and lights flashing! All this , right through my little property and with only 30 minutes before our Congregation was scheduled to start arriving! As I was looking at the ruined fencing and the great mud ruts that the derby deputies were churning up in our grass parking area, I noticed that my family dog was now escaped from the fence and nowhere in sight. That is when I called the deputies over and instructed them to stop and let me get the critters back where they belong. All lights went off, all sirens were ceased and I calmy called my 13 year old son to the road and told him to get them back in their property so we could find our dog. 3 minutes later with no more than a small pole and an 8 ft rope-cord attached, he had used his makeshift "cracker" whip to herd the bunch some 15o yards straight through a 3 ft wide break in the fence and back to their 40 acre parcel! Amazing young man, if I do say so myself!

It was then that we became worried because our dog is a well known cow dog and surely would have been near too herd these animals. I asked the deputy if he had seen what happened to the dog that ran out when my fences were broken and he informed me that another herd was up at the highway and he might be there. My heart sank as I called the heel command and heard no reply. I looked at my boy and told him to get the shovel and start me a goodly sized hole under a shade tree as I got in my truck and headed for the highway. 6 years this dog had been a part of our family. He had foiled 2 burglars after the hurricanes a few years back by pinning them to the house while I retrieved some persuasion. Then, there were the coyotes that had come to raid my chickens and met a mongrel that fought like it was an holy calling to save my stock! 8 of my 9 children had rode his back, hitched him to their homemade wagon and dressed him in villianous costumes for impromptu battles. Never did he fail to heed a command with the utmost submission and sorrowful gentleness and yet he was all Alpha in his realm. Nightly he would be found lying in the spot between the driveway, the livestock shelters and our doorway. Rain was no deterrent. He shunned the dog house we provided, but would be always found lying down with his head erect and scanning the 3 domains of his realm. As I pulled onto the highway I was met in the median by a deputy near the valiant beast. He began to explain that he was only trying to get the cows back across the road, ( as was the dog, no doubt), when the rushing of his car had caused them to turn again on the dog who quickly dodged out of the way and into the traffic. He geussed the fellow was doing about 60mph, so it went quick... 60 mph, on a 50mph highway in broad daylight, with 7 cows and 3 cops with lights flashing spinning every which way across all 4 lanes!

No sense in going in that direction though, the matter at hand was the dog. I pulled up just ahead of the faithful beast and and got out and raised the topper while dropping the tailgate. The deputy, looking a mixture of perplexion and disgust, asked what on earth I was doing?! I explained that I was loading up the animal to get him out of the median when he quickly interupted me and said, that there was no need for that because he was gonna call the garbage folks and they would come by, usually the same day, and throw him in the garbage hopper. I looked at the deputy in a manner that must have given him some insight into the workings of my mind, and he dropped his head slightly and softly said. "Oh, you gonna bury him up then, I see..."

Yes Sir, I responded, he is my dog, and therefore my resposibility, I am going to bury him.

Slowly, I drove into the yard, now filled with church goers who had pulled in from the highway as I was loading up my animal. There too, were my children, standing back at our property and waiting too know. As I came in, I told them all to stay back and called off the boy at the hole digging and told them all to attend unto their Lord's Day and I would follow soon.

Now less you misunderstand, we do not worship nature, nor animals. We eat most any that we can palatably prepare. Family dogs being excluded, of course. And not a tear was shed during this ordeal. Not even by the little ones. It is not that we are callous, far from it. In fact, I am quite sure that many tears will flow, even from my own eyes after the numbness wears off. The point that I am making is that misplaced critter love had nothing to do with my actions, nor with my tears.Rather, it was a result of the simple command that my Heavenly Father has given me to take dominion over all living creatures. And with that dominion, He has further commanded that I consider the beast of my field, and study to know the state of my flocks. It is filial duty, to care for this animal that so faithfully obeyed the right order of nature while under my care. It is this same duty that teaches my children that an animal missing food and water at chore time results in the same for the chore-person. Not because those animals have even a small percentage of our worth, but rather, because we are given a command from our Father that we are to care for our flocks and that failure to do so properly is a grief to His heart, and the evidence of an uncaring and unmerciful wretch.

This is not a complete explanation of what I wanted to convey in my new blog title, but it is the explanation that Providence has provided. We seek to be faithful in whatever little thing that God entrusts to us in our place and station. Oh that my neighbor had felt the same....