Ranchfest Update
10/10/07 - 4th Day - Early Morning. Ranchfest Greetings. I haven't updated in awhile but we have been pretty busy here at the ranch. By 2nd day evening everyone had arrived who is going to arrive for Ranchfest. I'll give you a quick update on what we have been doing.
On the Sabbath we had a large breakfast at Double H Dining in Santa Anna. Then, as we do every year, we went to the Fiesta de La Paloma in Coleman. The Fiesta was a bit bigger than last year, but if you ask me, there wasn't much to see. So we decided to go into one of the antique stores on the main street there in Coleman. We looked around for awhile and on one of the back shelves I found a little area with some old books. I perused through them, not expecting to find anything of interest. Most of the books were put there just because they looked old and not because they had any real value. That is one of the problems with antique stores. On most of the books you couldn't even read the spine to see what the book was. So I was about to give up when I saw a book entitled Joshua Gianavello. The name sounded vaguely familiar to me. I have about 3 or 4 books about a Waldensian hero with a similar name. Sometimes the name is Joshua Juneval, and sometimes you see it as Joshua Janaval. I wasn't sure if it might be the same guy, so I picked up the book and opened it up. The title page said Joshua Gianavello: The Waldensian Hero. I was excited! I couldn't believe my find. There was no price on the book, so I quickly went up to the counter to inquire as to the price. I was afraid it was going to be beyond my means so I prayed silently on my way to the register. Well, they only charged me five dollars for the book! Amen. That afternoon when we returned home I began to delve into the book, and though I was familiar with the Gianavello story in a rudimentary way, I was not prepared for how powerful this book really is.
We had a great Lord's Day fellowship with singing and food and a lot of talk. We had a good campfire that night and I asked everyone if they wanted me to read in the Gianavello book and they all did. So I read two chapters that night.
On the 2nd Day we got to work on our projects, knowing that funds would be really tight and that we might be standing around most of the week. We divided into two teams and one team went over to Josie's cabin to start putting the roof on it. My team went down to my new office camper in the woods. Our project would be starting to build a large shed roof cover/catchwater over the camper. We had a pile of 16 foot long 4x6's and we began digging the holes for them. It was quite a job, but we got all the upright 4x6's put in concrete during the day. The other team was really moving out and finished Josie's roof the first day. The good news is that we worked hard and got a lot done. The bad news is that we were virtually out of money already and we still had the whole week still to go! Our back-up plan if the money came in was to put the sheathing on Josie's cabin. That night we gathered around the fire again and, by demand, I read three more chapters in the Gianavello book.
On Tuesday we stayed together as one team since we didn't have the money to work any more on Josie's cabin. I had a large stack of used 2x6's from when we tore down an old house, so we all went to the office work site and began working on the shed roof structure. Once again we accomplished all we had planned for the day. In addition, we found that several of the folks had skills that came in useful. Bill Braley was able to identify what was wrong with my pickup truck and he told me what to do to solve the problem. Bill and Larry got together and got the generator in the office motorhome working and running like a top. We were also able to do some troubleshooting on the electrical system in it. Larry also began work on getting another generator that we salvaged from an RV running. So all-in-all we had a great day. Last night we read two more long chapters in the Gianavello book and everyone is really enjoying it. Elder David said "It's a hit!".
So, here I sit on the morning of the 4th day. We have 3 more working days of ranchfest and not a dime to work with. So today we will be helping out with some of the other projects we had going before ranchfest. Some of the guys will be stretching pasture fence on the north end of the east pasture. I am sitting here trying to think of some other projects we can work on. If some money comes in today, we will get the rafters for the shed roof and get back to work on that.
The ladies have made some dynamite food this week, and we are all eating really, really well. We are all looking forward to the Longhorn hamburger cookout on the evening of the 6th day. The butcher called last night and told us the hamburger would be ready to be picked up this morning.
The pigs are doing great and (Lord willing) we will be taking the momma pig to the butcher on the third day next week.
It turned a bit cooler last night, and was about 14 degrees cooler this morning. This was our first morning in the low 50's and everyone is walking around like it is the dead of winter.
Anyway, Ranchfest is going great. We are all having a blast and the fellowship is really good.
The Joshua Gianavello book was written by Russell H. Conwell and was published by the American Baptist Publication Society in 1884. I recommend it highly, but don't know if you'll be able to find one. I did a google search and didn't find any online, though it is listed at Amazon. We are discussing either transcribing it, or having me read it and making it available as a free audio download. We'll see.
Hope all is well with you all,
Michael Bunker
On the Sabbath we had a large breakfast at Double H Dining in Santa Anna. Then, as we do every year, we went to the Fiesta de La Paloma in Coleman. The Fiesta was a bit bigger than last year, but if you ask me, there wasn't much to see. So we decided to go into one of the antique stores on the main street there in Coleman. We looked around for awhile and on one of the back shelves I found a little area with some old books. I perused through them, not expecting to find anything of interest. Most of the books were put there just because they looked old and not because they had any real value. That is one of the problems with antique stores. On most of the books you couldn't even read the spine to see what the book was. So I was about to give up when I saw a book entitled Joshua Gianavello. The name sounded vaguely familiar to me. I have about 3 or 4 books about a Waldensian hero with a similar name. Sometimes the name is Joshua Juneval, and sometimes you see it as Joshua Janaval. I wasn't sure if it might be the same guy, so I picked up the book and opened it up. The title page said Joshua Gianavello: The Waldensian Hero. I was excited! I couldn't believe my find. There was no price on the book, so I quickly went up to the counter to inquire as to the price. I was afraid it was going to be beyond my means so I prayed silently on my way to the register. Well, they only charged me five dollars for the book! Amen. That afternoon when we returned home I began to delve into the book, and though I was familiar with the Gianavello story in a rudimentary way, I was not prepared for how powerful this book really is.
We had a great Lord's Day fellowship with singing and food and a lot of talk. We had a good campfire that night and I asked everyone if they wanted me to read in the Gianavello book and they all did. So I read two chapters that night.
On the 2nd Day we got to work on our projects, knowing that funds would be really tight and that we might be standing around most of the week. We divided into two teams and one team went over to Josie's cabin to start putting the roof on it. My team went down to my new office camper in the woods. Our project would be starting to build a large shed roof cover/catchwater over the camper. We had a pile of 16 foot long 4x6's and we began digging the holes for them. It was quite a job, but we got all the upright 4x6's put in concrete during the day. The other team was really moving out and finished Josie's roof the first day. The good news is that we worked hard and got a lot done. The bad news is that we were virtually out of money already and we still had the whole week still to go! Our back-up plan if the money came in was to put the sheathing on Josie's cabin. That night we gathered around the fire again and, by demand, I read three more chapters in the Gianavello book.
On Tuesday we stayed together as one team since we didn't have the money to work any more on Josie's cabin. I had a large stack of used 2x6's from when we tore down an old house, so we all went to the office work site and began working on the shed roof structure. Once again we accomplished all we had planned for the day. In addition, we found that several of the folks had skills that came in useful. Bill Braley was able to identify what was wrong with my pickup truck and he told me what to do to solve the problem. Bill and Larry got together and got the generator in the office motorhome working and running like a top. We were also able to do some troubleshooting on the electrical system in it. Larry also began work on getting another generator that we salvaged from an RV running. So all-in-all we had a great day. Last night we read two more long chapters in the Gianavello book and everyone is really enjoying it. Elder David said "It's a hit!".
So, here I sit on the morning of the 4th day. We have 3 more working days of ranchfest and not a dime to work with. So today we will be helping out with some of the other projects we had going before ranchfest. Some of the guys will be stretching pasture fence on the north end of the east pasture. I am sitting here trying to think of some other projects we can work on. If some money comes in today, we will get the rafters for the shed roof and get back to work on that.
The ladies have made some dynamite food this week, and we are all eating really, really well. We are all looking forward to the Longhorn hamburger cookout on the evening of the 6th day. The butcher called last night and told us the hamburger would be ready to be picked up this morning.
The pigs are doing great and (Lord willing) we will be taking the momma pig to the butcher on the third day next week.
It turned a bit cooler last night, and was about 14 degrees cooler this morning. This was our first morning in the low 50's and everyone is walking around like it is the dead of winter.
Anyway, Ranchfest is going great. We are all having a blast and the fellowship is really good.
The Joshua Gianavello book was written by Russell H. Conwell and was published by the American Baptist Publication Society in 1884. I recommend it highly, but don't know if you'll be able to find one. I did a google search and didn't find any online, though it is listed at Amazon. We are discussing either transcribing it, or having me read it and making it available as a free audio download. We'll see.
Hope all is well with you all,
Michael Bunker
posted by Michael Bunker at 10/10/2007 04:18:00 AM
1 Comments:
Congrats on the book find MB, praise God....hope you're able to do it on audio. Thanks for the update! God bless y'all during the remaining Ranchfest, praying for you.
Bill
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