No Rain, But at least it's Hot!

6/03/08 - 3rd Day - Midday. Peace y'all. Still no rain in sight, or in the prognosticators forecasts. It is so dry here that we have to chew up sand to make spit. Everything around here right now revolves around water. Watering animals, watering the gardens, running to get water, hauling water, trying to drink enough water. As I mentioned in the last blog, we are taking our drought here personally, and Elder David and I, following the pattern set by the Puritans, have called for a day of sorrow and repentance here on the land. If any of you would like to join us, the day will be tomorrow (Wednesday). I am not asking any of you to fast, etc., unless you would like to. I don't believe that those kind of things can be requested or commanded. God has to lead us to such things. However, if you are joining us in this day of repentance and sorrow (prayer, confession to God, affliction of the soul, etc.), please let us know by posting a comment here on the Process Driven Life blog. Particularly ask the Lord for rain here at the ranch, and that He would forgive us of our shortcomings and of our sins, and that He would show us mercy. Here is the prayer I wrote towards the end of the drought in 2006:

You are eternally mighty, Jehovah. We ask you to give us that portion of your rain that will make our land fruitful and verdant when it is now dry and barren. You have used the image of water in your scripture to symbolize your might and power. You have used the rain or lack thereof to bless and to chastise your people. It is your power that caused the rain to fall that brought the flood upon a wicked world that perished.

It is your power that caused Elijah the Tishbite to prophecy that there would be no rain upon the land for years according to thy Word. You are our God and the God of our forefathers. We petition thee to provide sufficient rain to us in the merit of your great faithful ones, our forefathers of Israel. Remember the righteous Abraham, who was drawn after You like water. For his sake, we petition thee for rain.

Remember Isaac who digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father. For his sake, we petition thee for rain.

Remember Jacob, our Agrarian model who dwelt in tents, watered his herds and his gardens, and to whom Isaac said, "God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine". For his sake, we petition thee for rain.

Remember Moses drawn forth from the water. He helped the seven daughters of the priest of Midian by drawing water for their flocks. For his sake, we petition thee for rain.

Remember thy Son Jesus, in whose name we come to thee Lord. He turned water into wine and stilled the waters of the tempest that frightened His disciples. He was pierced for our iniquities and water and blood ran from His side. For His sake, we petition thee for rain.

Father we know that we have not perfectly kept your commandments or obeyed your statutes, and you have said "If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit" (Lev 26:3-4). More than rain we desire to keep thy commandments and to do them and to walk in thy statutes. Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. Cause us to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do we trust: cause us to know the way wherein we should walk; for we lift up our souls unto thee. Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God. We know that you have said "if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full" (Deu 11:13-15); so we pray Lord that you will cause us to hearken diligently unto your commandments, because we know that the hearing ear, and the seeing eye, YOU LORD hath made even both of them.

You are our God who makes the wind blow and the rain descend, and we come to you by Jesus Christ the righteous one and petition that for his righteousness sake you will send us rain, Father.

Nevertheless thy will be done.

Absolutely, let the Lord's will be done.

We have been working hard on the roof of the office. But it has been so hot and breezy, that the last few days we have had to find other work to do. We have been in the high 90's and low 100's almost every day. Last night, at 9 p.m. it was 95 INSIDE the cabin. I can go straight to sleep if it is 90 or less, but if it is in the 90's, falling asleep can be kind of miserable. Danielle has been going to sleep on the porch. When the wind is blowing at 20 mph and the temps are up around 100, we call that the blowtorch. It is almost impossible to keep the gardens in any type of shape during the blowtorch, because the wind and heat strips all the moisture away faster than you could possibly water the plants. June is still the midst of the rainy season here, so we are very hopeful that our rain is still on the way. One good tropical storm or hurricane (sorry Houston/Galveston, but we need it) would fix us up good too.

We will be taking our last male pig to the butcher on the 18th of this month. My two females should be pregnant at this time, so we hope to have piglets sometime in August.

I'm still working on a couple of different ideas for Fall (SUPER)Ranchfest. One of the ideas would be an Amish style barn-raising. That would take some work, and some funds, but it would be an awesome experience. For those who have written me about my lack of blogging more often, I will try to do better. But here is a secret for those of you who are fascinated with life here in the community... Most of the blogs I link to on the right side of the page are blogs of people who live here in the community, including the Process Driven WIFE blog (Danielle) and the Bunker Children blog (my children). Here are the links:

• A Process Driven WIFE
• Bunker Children Blog
• Ante Family Agrarians
• Irbs and Stuff
• Sifford Sojournal

There are usually stories from the community here from another perspective, so you can check on them daily and sometimes I'll show up in one of their blog posts. I'll try to do better on this blog though.

Listen, I know my approach and philosophy here is "radical". I don't mind that, and it doesn't offend me. I'm the guilty pleasure of some of you less radical folks, and I know it. You don't want your friends and neighbors to know you read 'ol Bunker every day, but you do because you can't help it. This blog is like the beer store in a Baptist town, it gets more and more popular every day, but no one will admit to reading it, and very few of the more mainstream agrarian blogs will link to us. Like I said, I'm fine with that. Deep down, you folks know I am right, and that is why you sneak back here to listen to what I have to say. For some reason, we've gone from being ranked in the 3.5 million range (not bad) on Alexa to about 1.5 million in the last 60 days, and that with almost none of the agrarian blogs linking in. We're up 189% in visits in three months, and we've gone up 1,455,253 places in those three months, so some one is out there. The thing that scares folks is that I am proposing an actual Biblical philosophy of Christian Agrarian Separatism, rather than just offering agrarianism as a pretty good lifestyle choice. Our approach condemns the world that hates Christ, and the industrial system that it has produced. It doesn't mollycoddle syncretists and worldlings, but challenges them to examine their foundations, and to read the Bible as it is written, and not through the rose-colored and skewed filter of industrial and commercial colonialism. The fact is, if folks listen to me (and they are listening in ever larger numbers) AND do what I am proposing, the world system that has corrupted and destroyed so many billions of souls would collapse around us. I have always preached that people have a fear of freedom, and nowhere is that more evident than in the nascent agrarianism movement. People want to live in a picture postcard, or imagine living in one, but they want to bring Egypt with them. They want renovation without revolution. They want a life with barnyard animals and chicken tractors, but they want them and air-conditioning and Wal-Marts and toaster pastries too. Every movement is killed by syncretism, and every attempt at change is destroyed by compromise. I understand that not everyone is going to agree with me. In fact, I expect almost nobody is going to agree with me. But I don't need a million man march to change the world. One man and one family at a time will be enough. Each family that unplugs from the modern apostate industrial and religious world, is a leg being kicked out from under the hologram of freedom and security most people have accepted as reality. That is a fact. Which makes me dangerous. You may write me off as a kook and an extremist, but don't ever think that I'm not dangerous. There is no more dangerous man than one who believes and who attempts to live what he preaches.

Think about that.

Michael Bunker