Scattershooting

7/31/08- 5th Day - Mid-Morning. The heat and no rain continues here. The last day of July. The last three days we have seen rain from the front porch, but none of it is for us. Temps near or over 100 every day. The prognosticators are calling for it to cool a bit starting towards the end of next week. We look forward to that.

Hey, my last two audio sermons are up on BiblicalAgrarianism.com and you ought to take the time to give them a listen:

Alive to the Law

Dead to the Law

I think you will be benefited spiritually by them.

There is no easy way to do what we are doing here. Going out of "the system" and living off-grid for going on three years now has proved that to us. This is our second drought year of the three, and our second full year without air-conditioning at all. We continue to learn, and it is emphasized to us how much more we need to do to recapture the old ways and to decolonize our minds. Too many people, it seems, are wanting to live the picture-book version of this life, while insulating themselves from the reality of the work it takes to truly be free. You see, we true Christians have enemies...

You hear talk of "the world, the flesh, and the devil", and some comfortable "christians" might think that they are in some way opposed to those things, but in reality they are not. If these things are contrary to Godliness, and are the unholy trinity that comes against God's elect, then some time ought to be spent pondering them.

Anyone who dares to embrace true Christian Agrarianism will find himself contra all three of these. No professing Christian who lives in the world, in concord with the world, and in the same manner as the world, can call himself "contra-mundum" (against the world). The world has no controversy with you unless you are against the world. Likewise the flesh has no controversy with you, so long as it is being served (no matter what lies you have told yourself). A worldly Christian (and by that I do not mean a paganistic or outlandishly wicked professor - I mean a professing Christian who lives in concord with the world, according to worldly precepts, and according to the ways and philosophies of the world) will go to great lengths to convince himself that he is dying to his carnal man, but this cannot be the truth. Likewise the devil has not controversy with the worldly Christian. So long as the agents of evil have already convinced you that the world is your home and your country, and that you are to "change the world" and live in it and live by it's precepts, then the devil has no need to contend with you.

But if you once determine to live contrary to these things (the world, the flesh, and the devil), then you will find that this unholy trinity has a controversy with you, and will come against you, and will do everything to deceive you and keep your mind colonized and keep you in ignorance.

Now, there is a lot I can say about this (and a lot I have said about it), but suffice it to say that without separatism, simple living, and a completely new and more Biblical worldview, the professing Christian is heading for failure, and is likely decieved, not just about his carnal condition, but about his spiritual condition as well.

So, here is a thought you might begin to consider. Since we do have an enemy, and that enemy does desire to entrap us with the deceitfulness of the world and of the flesh, then we ought to be on guard against any agent who encourages us in that direction.

Think of prophecy. In the valleys of the Alps and in the hiding places of Europe true Christianity thrived, even during the darkest days of the height of Romanism. The move of God that included the Reformation brought to light the necessity for separation, and for Christians to eschew and reject syncretism, worldliness, riches, and earthly honor. Very soon though, the counter-reformation from the Roman Church swung into gear. I talk about this in my book Swarms of Locusts. The universal view of all the Protestants, Anabaptists, Waldensians, etc. that the Papacy was Antichrist encouraged more and more Christians to separate and to try to live simple, separate, and deliberate lives. However, too many Christians today are ignorant of the counter-reformation and what tools the devil used to bring Protestantism back into the fold of worldliness and syncretism. The greatest tool of the counter-reformation was PROPHECY. Two Jesuit priests, Ribera and Alcazar came up with two contrary prophetic worldviews (the first was Futurism, and the second was Preterism) to confound the proper identification of the Papacy as Antichrist. Futurists taught that all prophecy was to be fulfilled some time in the distant future, so why not just live your life and get along with the world, because some future rapture would protect you from Antichrist. The Preterist taught that all prophecy was fulfilled in the distant past (including the return of Christ and Judgement) and so why not just live your life and get along with the world, and take over the world for Jesus. Jesuitical Preterism particularly was used to push Christians into politics, syncretism and worldliness. Theocracy was seen as the solution for taking over the world and presenting a "christian" world to Christ. Entire nations (including this one) slipped from its separatist moorings and drifted into the wide channel of worldliness, wealth-seeking, and domination. All because the people of Christ were too ignorant, lazy, and worldly to see the dangers and to heed Christ's warnings. Antichrist was ignored by both Futurists and Preterists and what you see around you is the product of their folly.

The true Christian prophetic view of HISTORICISM was abandoned, and so was separatism, simplicity and deliberate agrarian living. Think about it. It is very likely that most bad ideas and resistence to true Christian Agrarian living is founded in a really bad idea of what the world is, who is the prince of it, and what type of lives we ought to be living as Christians.

Enough of that for now.

So I have more mesquite coffee now available. A few of you who ordered coffee from me will be receiving it this week (Lord Willing). If you would like to order some, send me an email to editor ( at ) lazarusunbound.com. I am sending it out on a donation basis right now.

I hope you are taking the time to make use of the means of grace, and are listening to the audio sermons made available on Lazarusunbound.com when you have the opportunity.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

It's So Hot...

7/29/08 - 3rd Day - After Breakfast. 105 degrees yesterday. Some folks said 106, but who am I to quibble? Now remember, I would take 105 here over 90 in DC, Boston, or Chicago any day. At least here, if you get under a tree and catch a breeze, you can cool off quite nicely. Well, at about 9 last night it was 100 degrees INSIDE our cabin. So Danielle and I went down to the root cellar to watch a movie. When we came back up at 11 p.m. - 98 degrees in the cabin! Ouch. So you don't sleep much when it is that hot. The new folks down here living in tents had it nice. The children slept outside on the deck, and told us it was quite nice and cool out there. Not so in the cabin. This cabin was designed poorly and doesn't shed the heat well. So I have had a plan to cool it off by making some changes, but I haven't had the time or material to do it yet. I'll think about it again today when it should be well into the hundreds again. Ok, so here are my "it's so hot" jokes for the day...

It's so hot...

Arizona called and asked if they could borrow some heat.

Death Valley called and asked if we were trying to start trouble.

we are feeding the chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs.

the cows tiptoe to the water trough yelling "Ah!, eeh! aaahhh! eeeh!", then complain about the boiling water.

if you were to spit in the dirt, it would sizzle, if you had any spit.

you can leave the oven on as an air conditioner.

the trees are whistling for the dogs.

the temperature drops below 95, and you put on a sweater.

Each day is labeled as - tolerable, hot, really hot, and ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!

I saw a funeral procession pull into a Dairy Queen.

we have to use potholders to pick up our tools.

...no seriously... I told Danielle that I really can't get to sleep unless it is 91 or below, and she said, "so you don't plan on sleeping until September?".

Ahhh... you get the point.

Peace and coolness,

Michael Bunker

Hot!

105 degrees here at the ranch today.

Anybody up for a hotblog?

M

Howdy, and Some Cattle For Sale

7/25/08 - 6th Day - Mid-Morning. Preparation of the Sabbath. Nice and cool this morning, but it is supposed to be blistering hot for the next 5 days or so. Oh well, July is almost over, and then we are on the downslope heading to October and Super-Ranchfest.

Ok, so I have to sell some of my cattle. The herd is about to multiply, and I have to thin it out. The other day, we had to move Chico, our yearling full-blooded pure longhorn bull, to our lower pasture because he was starting to "come of age" around some of our longhorn heifers (his half-sisters). So I will be trying to sell or trade Chico, or Chico may be one of two or three that go to the butcher come late fall. Here is the latest picture of Chico:

Chico is a great looking bull, and he has the classic pure longhorn look. He is out of Holga and the great young bull Quitachon. Both his sire and his dam are very gentle, and so is Chico. He will be one year old in August. If you are interested in Chico, I will post or email you a better and more close up picture. I would be willing to take $500 for Chico.

Most of my regular readers are familiar with Maria. She was the first cow we purchased here at the ranch, and she is the mother of Pita, who we are currently training to ride and pull. Maria is a Longhorn/Watusi cross (1/2 of each) and has some fabulous horns:

Maria is beautiful, and would make an awesome front pasture showpiece. She is only about 5 years old, so she has a lot of horn growing to do. I will be selling her along with her second calf Mariana, who is coming up on a year old in August. Maria is also very pregnant, and is due to drop another calf sometime in the end of August. So I am selling Maria as a "3-fer". I would be willing to take $1200 for pregnant Maria and Mariana. Remember, Mariana is 3/4 Longhorn, as will be Maria's newest calf.

I will be trying to sell these cattle for the next month or so, but if they do not sell, then it is likely that Maria, Mariana, and Chico will go to the butcher sometime in the fall. If you are interested in buying any of them, let me know. I am also willing to make a deal if someone wants to purchase any or all of them for the superior grass-fed organic beef. Delivery is available, but will be expensive.

Peace y'all,

Michael Bunker

Dolly and a Cup of Coffee

12/06/06 - 4th Day - After Breakfast. Hurricane Dolly is now a Category two this morning and is coming ashore down in South Texas. The experts say it is moving west, and I suppose they know more than me, but it looks like it is moving north to me. But that is probably just hopeful thinking for me. We really, really, need the rain... If you want to know where we are located on the map, it is pretty easy. If you were to throw a dart at Texas and hit it dead in the center... FIRST: DO NOT THROW DARTS AT TEXAS! Second: our ranch is within 50 miles of where the dart you shouldn't have thrown would be.

Here is some information I put together for the people who ordered Mesquite Bean Coffee from me. If you still want some sent to you, let me know. You'll have to email me your address at editor ( at) lazarusunbound.com. The first folks who ordered coffee should be receiving theirs sometime early next week. Make sure you post your comments after you have tried the coffee.

Central Texas Mesquite Coffee (and Tea)

Welcome to the wonderful and unique taste of Texas Mesquite Coffee and Tea. Since there is now no information (that I could find) on Mesquite Coffee online, I have put together this information for those who might be interested. Some of you have asked how I first came up with the idea to make coffee from the Mesquite pod. In 2006 I found The Texas Almanac at an Abilene wholesale club. I was reading the information on the Mesquite tree, and it said that, during the Civil War, when coffee was not available, the Texas army made coffee out of the mesquite pod. Since we had mesquite pods everywhere, and I like coffee, I decided to roast some pods up and try it out. I was pleasantly shocked and surprised. It tasted like gourmet coffee. So here are some things you might want to know about Texas Mesquite Cofee. First, here is some information on the Mesquite pod that I found online:

Mesquite, the most common shrub or small tree in the Desert Southwest, forms fruit of bean-like pods in the fall that have long been a nutritious food source to humans, wildlife and livestock.

For Native Americans of the desert regions, mesquite was not only relied on as a dietary staple, but as the most important economic plant of their culture. The Papago, Pima, Yuman, Cocopa, Mohave and Cahuilla peoples of Arizona and California utilized all parts of the mesquite:

• Bark - basketry, pottery, fabrics and medicine
• Trunk & Branches - firewood, in the manufacture of bows, arrows, mortars and furniture
• Thorns - awls and for tattooing
• Leaves - making tea, used medicinally as an eyewash and for head and stomach aches
• Sap - as a snack, glue and dye.

But it was the mesquite pod, with its nutritious, bittersweet pulp, that provided the greatest benefit to indigenous desert peoples. They collected pods each fall, often eating many of them green from the trees. The rest they dried in the sun and stored in large baskets for future use.

Usually, the beans (pods and seeds) were ground into a coarse meal, then by adding water, were transformed into a gruel or a cake without cooking. Some cultures are said to have taken the seeds from the pods and ground them into a flour called pinole, from which a bread was actually baked.

But we're talking about coffee. Mesquite Coffee is quite a bit stronger than traditional imported Central American coffee. If one were to use an equal amount of Mesquite coffee (as compared to traditional coffee) Mesquite Coffee is said to have four times the amount of caffeine as regular industrial/commercial coffee. However, even for those of us who enjoy really strong coffee, only 1/3 as much Mesquite Coffee is necessary to create a superior strong coffee.

Mesquite Coffee and Tea is made from the roasted and ground seed pod of the Honey Mesquite tree. The entire pod, seed and all, is roasted and ground to make coffee or tea. Mesquite pods are a perennial food source and been used in Texas, the Southwest, and Mexico as food for hundreds of years. The mesquite pod has been ground for flour and meal by the American Indians and other indigenous peoples for centuries, and it has long been hailed for its nutritional and medicinal value. During the Civil War the mesquite pod was roasted and brewed into a delicious coffee substitute. The mesquite pod is high in natural and healthy sugars, and is often used to make jellies, jams, and even beer and alcohol.

Mesquite Coffee is not like regular/industrial/imported coffee and tea product, which are mass-produced using industrial methods for wide consumption around the world. Though fair-trade and organic coffees are now being made available, for the most part coffee is still grown by huge, industrial corporations on coffee plantations in Central America. Mesquite Coffee, as of this writing, is not available really anywhere. A quick perusal online this morning found no Mesquite Coffee available through online source. Our mesquite pods are gathered by hand and, since we live off-of-the-grid, our pods are roasted either in a solar oven, or in a propane oven.

Your coffee/tea will not be the uniformly ground crystals found in imported/industrial teas and coffees. Since the whole pod is used, the coffee/tea consists of numerous different consistencies. You will find from fine to course ground material, as well as seed hulls and un-ground pod portions. All of these parts go together to create a wonderful coffee tasting experience. Prepare your Mesquite Coffee just as you would prepare your normal coffee in the morning. You will find that the Mesquite Coffee will have a delightful cinnamon aroma, and will smell as if you had already added some sweet, flavored coffee creamer. It is also common and expected for the finer grounds material to make their way through whatever filter system you use and into the coffee. This is not only not a bad thing, but it is preferable. Remember, this is not your normal coffee. While industrial/commercial coffee is bitter and granular, and you really never want the grounds in your coffee, Mesquite Coffee is sweet and flavorful. The fine grounds that do make it into your coffee are quite tasty and consists primarily of roasted sugars. The sugars in Mesquite Coffee are extremely healthy and in some documents are recommended for diabetics who use the sugars to control their glucose levels. So do not worry about any fine "grounds" in your coffee - they are just a delicious additive to your Mesquite Coffee experience. Serve your Mesquite Coffee just as you would any industrial/commercial coffee. Try it black first, then, try it with your favorite creamers, honey, etc. One of my favorite ways to prepare coffee is with fresh cream and honey.

Iced Mesquite Tea

Iced Mesquite Tea is made in the exact same way as the Mesquite Coffee. In fact, you could (if you like) call it "iced coffee", except it really tastes like a premium iced tea. Here at the ranch, we brew a regular pot of Mesquite Coffee and then we "water it down" with water and lots of ice until it attains the coloring you would expect of iced tea. Remember that there is a natural sweetness to Mesquite tea, so you don't have to add much in the way of sweeteners to make sweet tea. We generally add just a teaspoon or two of honey, and a few drops of Stevia sweetener to make a delicious southern-style sweet tea. Mesquite Coffee/Tea is so efficient that we normally make a pot or two of coffee in the morning (we often have 6-8 people drinking coffee), and then we make Tea from whatever coffee is left in the pot! Often a large carafe of Iced Tea can be made from the few ounces of coffee left in the pot. This after using only 1/3 of the amount of ground coffee, compared to what we used to use when we drank industrial/commercial Central American coffee.

Enjoy!

Michael Bunker

Games, Raising the Roof, Hello Dolly

7/21/08 - 2nd Day - After Breakfast. We had a great weekend here, though it was brutally hot most every day. The Sabbath was nice and peaceful (but, did I say, HOT?), and the Lord's Day was more of the same, though, as usual, it was nice and breezy down by the office where we had our fellowship. The office work has screeched to a stop due to lack of funds, but more on that later. So, the Lord's Day was close to 100 degrees, and we passed the time by hanging out on the porch, playing 42 (which was fun), and last night (when it finally cooled down a bit) we played Spongebob Monopoly. Now, I don't even know who or what a Spongebob is or what that is all about (or what pineapples have to do with sea creatures), but for some reason we have a Spongebob Monopoly game, so I played it with Dusty, Danielle, and Tracy. I ended up being some character named Mr. Crab or something of that nature. I probably don't need to tell you who won, but suffice it so say that my gregarious, sharing, caring, and non-aggressive playing style reaped great benefits.

The donations are coming in to help replace our brother Jim's roof. For those of you who are interested, we are raising money to replace the roof on a good brother's house. Jim was one of the first brother's who was with me when we moved down here to this land. He helped us build this cabin, and helped on a lot of the projects that got us started here. He left to get married, and soon after discovered that he had cancer (Jim is in his mid 30's). Jim is not doing very well, and though we have the highest hopes and are in continual prayer for him, he would like to (if he must) leave his house in a good condition for his wife in case she desires to either live in it or sell it if something were to happen to him. Currently, due to the construction needs, they are living in a very small portion of the house. If you would like to donate to the cause, please send your donation to:

M. Bunker
1251 CR 132
Santa Anna, Texas 76878

Well, Tropical Storm "Dolly" is churning off of the Yucatan Peninsula. We are just slightly "outside of the cone" for this coming Thursday, so if Dolly takes even the slightest turn to the north, then we should get some good rains come later in the week:



My wife is still threatening to post a picture of my "double-ringer dance" from horseshoes a week or so ago. Y'all need to go to her blog and vote NO. No one wants to see a serious (and almost universally loathed) preacher celebrating like an idiot.

Thanks y'all!

Michael Bunker

Scattershooting on Prep Day

7/18/08 - 6th Day - After Breakfast. Preparation of the Sabbath. Good Morning, Y'all. Well, I have talked to Jim (Jim is my friend who has cancer) in Pennsylvania and he agrees that, though he would love for me to be able to go up there and help/visit again, it would be best if we did things another way. As I mentioned in a previous post, it would cost between $2000-$3000 for us to travel up there again to help on his roof, and almost all of this money would go to hotels and gasoline. So here is what we are going to try to do (if the Lord wills). Those who have offered (or who might be able) to go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for a few days and help with the tear-off of the roof, I will be providing you the dates and information very soon on all of that. Hopefully we will still be able to provide 9 or more people on site for the tear-off. Meanwhile, I will be bulldogging and pressuring my private email list to just go ahead and send money via donations so that we can give the money that would have been spent on travel, etc., directly to Jim to pay for the new roof. This is a special ministry outreach to a brother who did everything in his power (during his health) to assist us in getting started down here and on our Agrarian walk. If you, your group, or anyone you know can help with the tear off (sometime in the first week of August), then let me know asap, and I will get all the details and information to you in order for you to help in that way. I am convinced that we will be able to send brother Jim well over the $2000 we spent in gas and expenses for the last trip up there, and I know how much that amount of money will help Jim during this time of need. IF you can, please email me privately and let me know the amount you will be sending, so I can get an idea of how much we (as a family of Christian Agrarians) will be sending to Jim. That way Jim and his friends can make plans for purchasing the materials for the new roof.

I hope you have had the time to listen to the Gelassenheit series of sermons. Gelassenheit is a term used among the Amish and Mennonites and it loosely means "Submission" or "Yielding". Here are the links to the first two parts:

Gelassenheit (Submission and Yielding), Part 1 (audio) (Sermon Notes)
Gelassenheit (Submission and Yielding), Part 2 (audio) (Sermon Notes)

The third part should be available later today linked on the front page of BiblicalAgrarianism.com

Here are some morning pictures. These pictures are so bad because my camera stopped working some time ago (it was no good anyway), and I am taking these with my camera phone. This first picture is of the cabin. I call it "Morning Cabin":


Here is Danielle browning up some potatoes and onions. I call this, "Morning Breakfast":



This next picture is of our back road that leads back to the creek and my office. I call this "Morning Back Road":


This one I call "Morning 2nd Root Cellar that we are digging next to the cabin hoping the cabin doesn't fall into it before we can get it finished":


Of course, this one is called "Morning Pig":


Ok, enough of that. If you want to send anything (except hate mail, I prefer it digitally), here is my snail mail address:

M. Bunker
PO Box 58
Bangs, Texas 76878

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

Scattershooting: Coffee and Some Pics

7/16/08 - 4th Day - Midday. Well, we are in midsummer stride here, though we're getting almost nothing from the garden. We did get the peaches I showed you, and Tracy made some wonderful peach preserves from them. We also canned pork and ham all of last week from the last of our male hogs from last years litter. Now we just hope our last two females are pregnant. I read last years blog from about this time, and at this time in July I was hoping my pigs were pregnant... it turned out that they were. Tracy has also been butchering our meat chickens, and today she was culling out some of our old hens, which we gave to the Sustaires to use for soup or stew. We're also working almost full time on processing mesquite pods, which is going to be a full time job for awhile.

We have two processes going. We are roasting mesquite pods for coffee and tea, and we are boiling some down to sugar for other projects. I wanted to mention to those of you who were interested in the mesquite coffee. We have found that the mesquite coffee goes WAY further per ounce than regular coffee. I saw that the premium coffee in Coleman was about $10 for a 12 ounce bag... well, for us that wouldn't go very far, because we make coffee for a whole bunch of people, and usually make 2-3 pots a day. We usually use 6 full scoops per pot because I like it strong. When we use the mesquite coffee, Danielle barely covers the bottom of the percolator chamber with the coffee, and it comes out very strong. What coffee we don't drink (if there is any less) is watered WAY down to make tea. It works perfectly. The point is that this stuff is very, very strong. Some of the ladies said that they only use 5-10 pods for a full pot of coffee, depending on how strong they want it. I would say on average you would use 1/3 as much if you like your coffee very strong and dark. Also, I noticed that some of the folks don't roast their pods as dark as I do, since I like the roasted taste in the coffee and maybe they don't.

I would say we have processed about 20-25 lbs. of beans so far, which is a long way from where we need to be. I want to put up at least a two years supply of coffee. As some of you may remember, last year we didn't get any pods at all. It was strange, and we don't know why that happened, except that maybe the drought from 2006 affected the 2007 crop. Or the trees just lay off a year every once in awhile. Anyway, that is why I am going to be putting up 2 years supply (if the Lord wills). This means we should have some tasty mesquite coffee for Super Ranchfest in October, and we ought to have some mesquite beer as well. So Herrick Kimball and a few other folks contacted me about packaging up some mesquite coffee to send them. I am certainly willing to do it, though I can tell you our supply will be very limited, and I don't have a clue how much to charge for it. So, to start, you'll need to email me at editor(at)lazarusunbound.com with your mailing address, and I will do my best to send out what I can. To start with, we'll work on a donation basis, and - like I said - we won't have that big of a supply. Then, after I do some computational analysis (or counting on my fingers) I'll try to decide if next year we can offer this on a wider basis. I will tell you this (and I'm not trying to drum up business...) it is the bests coffee and tea I've ever had. We'll include some type of instruction sheet with the coffee we send out.

Ok, so here are some pics I took with my camera phone. This first one is Kelly Sustaire teaching my daughter Sarah how to count. Or he is telling her that he is not a crook. Not really, he is holding up fingers and quizzing her on her numbers:

Here is a picture of Danielle, Tracy, and Sarah hamming it up...


I think in that last picture, we had just finished snapping mesquite pods and then having supper. For those of you who don't know... Danielle (my wife) is the one waving. I included this picture because she has threatened to post a video of me on her "Process Driven Wife" blog where I am dancing after a "double ringer" in horseshoes. She is blackmailing me. So I am firing a warning shot with this goofy wave of hers. Sarah (4) is the little girl with the big smile, and Tracy (15) is the one who seems a bit troubled by the other two.

Ok, so we have also been digging on our second root cellar, which I hope to have done before rainy season next spring (if the Lord wills).

Alright, I have to run. I have to have a sermon finished for tonight's meeting.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

Mesquite Coffee and Tea

7/14/08 - 2nd Day - After Breakfast. We're back to work here at the ranch. We're working on completing the exterior of my main pasture fence, and today we will be doing some major work in the garden, preparing for the fall garden.

Hey, it is mesquite pod season here in Central Texas, and we had our first cup of beautiful mesquite coffee this morning. Here are some mesquite pods roasting in the solar oven:


Here is a very artsy picture of the roasted mesquite pods in a 1/2 gallon storage jar, waiting to be ground into coffee:


As much as we hate mesquites most of the year (except when we are eating delicious meat cooked over mesquite wood), we love it when the mesquite pods are ready. On the Lord's Day, Ms. Irby brought mesquite tea to the fellowship. It was quite delicious. In addition to tea and coffee, I have made syrup, beer, wine, and liquor from the mesquite pod. It can also be ground into flour and used to fortify and give sweetness and added flavor to breads and other baked goods.


This year we are planning to harvest as much of the mesquite pods as we can. Yesterday, we gathered a 5 gallon bucket full, and today we will do the same (if the Lord wills). We will pre-roast a lot of it for coffee and tea, and will store it in the root cellar.

So how does it taste? Well, the first time I made mesquite coffee, I thought I had made a mistake and had put some gourmet coffee in the blender. It is that good. Full strength it has 4X the caffeine as regular coffee (I am told), but it has many more health benefits than regular coffee. It can also be blended with regular coffee, or made much weaker since it has such a strong taste. Supposedly the sugars in mesquite are more easily processed by diabetics, and can be used to manage blood glucose levels. Frankly, I am shocked and surprised that no one is out there selling pre-ground and roasted mesquite coffee. It is some of the best coffee I have ever tasted - and it is so abundant that it would cost about 1/2 or less than imported coffees. I hope to gather enough this year to not have to buy coffee until the next time we get pods.

Maybe I'll gather some extra, roast it up, and y'all can buy it and experience this unique southwestern delicacy!

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

Scattershooting: And a Warning

7/11/09 - 6th Day - Late Afternoon. Preparation of the Sabbath. I did a Friendslist purge this morning. If you are on my private friends email list and you don't receive an email from the list today, that means you were removed and you will have to contact me to ask to get put back on. If you are not on my private friends email list and you think you ought to be on it, or you would like to be on it, you may email me and request to be included.

You ought to read this old sermon of mine: The Doctrine of Separation

And this one: The Doctrine of Incorporation

If you prefer to listen to the sermons on audio, you can go to the Doctrines page and click on the links.

I don't usually listen to the radio or watch TV, but today on my way to Coleman to get some feed I was listening to the radical Papist Sean Hannity. I don't listen to these clowns to get enlightened, but sometimes you can find out what is inevitably going to happen by listening to what these people say. Today, July 11, 2008, Hannity predicted absolutely that Israel would take out Iran's nuclear sites and missile facilities by the end of the year. The reason you should heed him is because he gets his talking points from the Vatican and from the administration. Israel wouldn't consider doing it unless Bush is still in office, so expect such an attack (I'm certainly not predicting it, but I do believe that this is in the best interest of the oil companies, the statists, and the Pope of Rome, so I do expect it) before election day. The results of such an act will be gas prices that are beyond the reach of most people, and this will absolutely crush most people's long term plans for slowly separating from the world system. Just sit down for a minute and add $12 a gallon gas into your plans, and see how that works out for ya. This will likely correspond with the Republicans attempt to open up gas and oil fields in Anwar, which will bring hundreds of billions of dollars more in oil profits to the big oil companies and their governmental patrons. The fact that it might ignite a regional or global war should not be ignored. All that aside, I am neither an alarmist or a "doomsayer". I personally will welcome higher oil prices, even if it hurts me personally. Either way, if Hannity's "prediction" comes true or not, I and my family will be radically weaning ourselves from these expensive and crippling fuels.

That is all,

Michael

Scattershooting: Peaches and Stuff

7/10/08 - 5th Day - After Breakfast. Hey, here are the peaches from our first ever peach crop here at the Ranch...


Providentially, a great quote was posted on the BiblicalAgrarianism.com forum this morning. The thread was about Matthew 22, and a friend posted a quote from Matthew Henry:

"The day is coming, when hypocrites will be called to account for all their presumptuous intruding into gospel ordinances, and usurpation of gospel privileges. Take him away. Those that walk unworthy of Christianity, forfeit all the happiness they presumptuously claimed. Our Saviour here passes out of the parable into that which it teaches. Hypocrites go by the light of the gospel itself down to utter darkness."

I can't think of a better way to say what I have been trying to say in the last month or so. Masters of rationalization (which most people are) can erect a false dialectic (I like to call it an "A" and "B" situation), then will rationalize their adherence to same false reasoning, by playing their decision off of the false premise or presupposition that they have created. For example, when anyone speaks of obedience, suffering, or sacrifice - these people will immediately trump all of that with talk of a simple gospel, and the simple joy of salvation. Listen, I am all for the joy of salvation. I am all for a simple gospel. But just saying those things doesn't make the gospel that is believed correct, or the joy that is experienced to be valid or rational. Since there are many gospels, a gospel can be simple... but wrong. Since there are many "salvations", having joy in a deceptive view of salvation would be folly. I always want to remind people never to make obedience, rules, or behavior a pillar or part of salvation. That would be silly and wrong. If you have done so, then you are in error. However, to say that you believe in a simple gospel that ignores the RESULTS of believing that gospel - which is obedience and sanctification, is just ridiculous and dangerous.

Many years ago, when I was teaching on Conspiracy and on the wickedness of the established, corporate "church", I had a huge audience. I could pack in 500 people in a small meeting room with no problem. Every meeting was standing room only. That is because I was preaching a watered-down political gospel. When I repented of that, and began to preach on the Doctrines of Grace, and to emphasize God's Sovereignty and the importance of a proper view of God, we lost probably 80% of the audience. I would regularly get emails from Arminians, Papists, and other worldlings BEGGING me to soften the message and to be more inclusive. "Have more grace and mercy... you know, like Christ did!" they would say. I knew that I could not soften the message, and that it needed to be a sword, and that it needed to be as pointed and sharp as the true Gospel is. It was meant to divide, and so divide it must. Many people were mad... many of them had been really good friends. "LEGALIST!" they would charge. They would insist that I was limiting the broadness of God's love. "All we need to do is believe", they would say. "Can't we all just get along?"

A couple of years later, I saw how unbalanced the neo-Calvinism movement was. The New Reformation was actually not a reformation at all. It was a headlong dive into Antinomianism. "Since God is Sovereign," many would say, "then it doesn't matter what I am doing... I am in God's will". Every manner of sin and disobedience was rationalized by saying, "Well, you know, God is sovereign. Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, that is God's will for you." So I preached against it. "LEGALIST!" came the charge. And another load of friends dropped off the map. Not before attacking ME first. You know, the guy they once praised and thanked for "bringing them the true gospel".

Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? (Gal 4:16)

I have been careful to never say that obedience causes salvation, or that it brings about or causes the approval and acceptance of God. I have always said that obedience, separation, and holiness were RESULTS of believing the true Gospel. They are gifts of God. However, where they are absent, there is likely a problem. That is the message I have always preached. Some feel condemned by that, and so they feel the need to attack me and to demean the message because they aren't showing signs of conversion.

Once again the audience shrunk. I have not been invited to preach in a Church for so many years I cannot remember.

Then came Agrarianism. It was something I had always, somehow, known - but the Lord really put it on my heart that our Christianity was emaciated and crippled, because the ground we were trying to grow in was BAD SOIL. It came to me that Agrarianism was the only proper seedbed for proper Christian growth. Separatism, community, simplicity - these were all the support system for proper Christian maintenance. It had to be true, because the Bible teaches it from cover to cover. So once again I began preaching the message that God had given me, and once again the result was a devastating rejection from friends and former allies. People who once called me a "prophet" and a "mighty man of God" (I never use terms anything like this, nor would I accept any type of name or title), were now saying that I had gone too far. I was forgetting "the joy of our salvation". The Gospel is simple, don't you know. Just believe in the Doctrines of Grace, and find some preacher to tell you you are fine, and you will find the pressure and weight lift right off your shoulders. No more self-examination, because that is just "legalism". No more striving, running, pushing forward, fighting the good fight. That is for legalists. Now I am accused by former friends of preaching a false gospel, of being judgmental and legalistic. Ok. Been here before. I'll take whatever stripes you want to give out. But don't be fooled. God is not mocked. I may not always be right, but I am right about this. Write it down.

I have joy in my salvation. If you don't think I do, then you don't know me. My assurance comes from God. I don't want to be deceived, and I don't want to be fooled. I am not willing to be happy and comfortable for a few years, then perish eternally in flames. I want true assurance, which is grounded in peace given by God. It is received by constant watching, and by diligence in checking the signs. People who meet me and get to know me know that the way my message is perceived by some people doesn't come from me or the message. If what I say angers you, then you will say that I am angry. If what I say depresses you, then you will say that I am depressing. It is a type of spiritual projection. It is like when you tell a homosexual that homosexuality is not just a sin or an abomination, but that it is judgment from God (Romans 1). The homosexual is very angry that you have said that, and he really hates you for saying it. So he will call you an angry hater. Even if you have no anger or hatred at all when you say it.

So, I don't mean to draw this out, but it is important that I say it. True obedience and watchfulness does not contradict or preclude joy or assurance - in fact, it is the proper foundation and ground for joy and assurance.

I don't make this stuff up.

To God's little flock...

Keep the faith. STRIVE to enter in at the narrow gate. Run the race. Push into the Kingdom. Contend against sin and rationalization. Do not turn back, take your hand off the plow, or neglect so great a salvation.

Ok, so some of you have inquired about the philosophy you have read (on separation and Agrarianism)... here is a great place to start. Read all the posts, you will find the philosophy throughout the series:

Center for Agrarian and Homesteading Education

If you've already read it, then why not read it again?

Michael Bunker

Update and Some Pics

7/09/08 - 4th Day - After Breakfast. Here are some recent pics from the Ranch. Listen, all these pics were taken by my phone and sent up to the blog via email, so don't expect Ansel Adams. This first picture is of Sugar, she is a Yellow Blackmouth Cur. In this pic we had only had her for 1 day, but she has now been around here for a week. I have to say this is the smartest and easiest to train dog I have ever owned. The children taught her "sit" and "shake" in about 2 days, and she is a tiny little puppy. She was basically crate and house trained from day one. She has an accident every once in awhile, but she will usually tell us she needs to go out, and she goes into her crate every night and sleeps through the night without whining or barking. It took 2 days to basically have her crate trained. She does whine a bit if she is on the porch and everyone else is outside. She wants to be with everyone, which is to be expected.


Here is Sugar this morning, playing with Danielle.


This next pic is of my heifer Pita. Pita is a heifer I have been training for two years. Eventually, Lord willing, she will be a working cow - used to pull and to ride. Right now she is pregnant and should be dropping in the next two months some time. Here she is kicking up her heals and happy because she knows she is about to get some range cube treats.

Here is Pita with Quitachon, the bull on loan from our friend Frank Sharp. The offspring of Quitachon and Pita will probably be named "Pitachon".


This next pic is of my main pasture. I suppose it is about 6 to 6.5 acres. It will be cross-fenced and used as a rotational pasture system.


These next three pics are from the fence work we are currently doing in my main pasture. We are finally sealing off the last two little sections that still had old barbed wire fence.


This is Beulah, our Holstein heifer. (Wow, that sentence took a lot of thinking as to where to put the "e" in each word... not easy! I is not always before "e".)


For those one or two of you who did get the Ansel Adams allusion earlier in the blog post, here is my attempt at an Adams type picture with my cell phone...


These last two pics are from our trip up north. These were taken from my cell phone in Ohio Amish country. The pics will never properly relate how beautiful it really is.


Peace, y'all.

Michael Bunker

Why it Matters

7/07/08 - 2nd Day - After Breakfast. First of all I want everyone to know that in my last couple of blogs I am not condemning anyone who is on the process of pilgrimage in Christian Agrianism. Unless the shoe fits, don't try to wear it. Neither should you, however, exempt yourself from what I am saying if the shoe does fit. I am glad for the thousands and thousands of people who are moving forward in the move towards Agrarianism, and my purpose is to encourage those who are moving, reprove and correct those who are not, and to warn everyone that our way of life has already been attacked and overthrown once in the last 200 years, and for us to ignore the lessons of history would be pure folly.

So here's the deal... you are on your Agrarian way. You have your plot of land in the country (or in the suburbs). You start your garden, and in short order it is beautiful - you even consider sending pictures of it to the homesteading magazines. Your heart swells when you look at the neat rows and thriving plants. Your harvest is spectacular, and you spend hours and hours over a hot stove canning the most beautiful jars of beans and tomatoes that anyone has ever seen. You multiply your flocks, you get your chicken tractors going, you rotate your pastures. Your turkeys are the fattest, your apples are the sweetest, and you're fairly sure you have died and gone to heaven. Why, your Agrarian homesteading blog is gaining in popularity every day, so you must be doing something right. All is sunshine and baby ducks until the crash.

What crash?

I don't know... maybe the price of gas creeps up another couple of bucks and as the businesses and suppliers you rely on to maintain your prosperity begin to crumble, and as you begin to suffer from a dearth of supplies, feed, and other material, and as you lose your access to cheap and readily available grid energy, you find that a crash is inevitable. Maybe it is a long, slow, torturous crash... or maybe it is a dramatic and devastating one. You see, your idyllic Agrarian paradise was built on an endless supply of grid water, grid electricity, cheap fuel, and lots of money. You bought your soil, you bought your compost, you bought your seed or your plants. You flooded your gardens with cheap and seemingly endless grid water, powered by cheap and seemingly endless grid electricity. You hatched and brooded your fowl with heat lamps powered by the electric company or by fuel poured into a Chinese generator. Your harvest was canned in cheap jars bought at Dollar stores or Stuff-Mart, and you never thought you'd ever run out of rings or lids. Your pressure canner rattled noisily on an electric stove, or maybe you were clever enough to use propane or natural gas - all utilities you now cannot afford, or are not available. Your flocks begin to perish without store bought feed, and your pastures just aren't quite big enough to feed everyone like they did when the hologram of prosperity provided for you by the industrial society made you think that they were. You've put all your eggs in one basket, and that basket is called INDUSTRIALISM and you have built it all on the smoking ruins of the consumerist error. None of this compares with having to listen to your family and your children complain because they have never had to live without grid heat and air-conditioning. Now what will you do? You had months and years to search out the old paths and to learn the old ways but you didn't because - why should you? You weren't going to let a bunch of alarmists keep you from your dream. After all, you were busy with petty political homeschooling groups and knitting parties, or trying to make more and more from your day job so that SOME DAY you could retire and still afford all the utilities and supplies.

Four wheelers, tractors, chain saws, power drills, even trucks and cars may soon be useless or at least too expensive to operate. Don't you know your history? Your great-grandparents went through it, but it seems that most of you don't really care to listen. The agents of syncretism told you that if you would only put on Agrarian clothes and build you a little on-grid paradise outside the city limits that the revolution would be won without a shot. The agents of compromise told you you could have your farm and your city life too. Like Zsa Zsa Gabor in Green Acres, you want to walk around your old farmhouse with your designer clothes and your feather boa and you think things will never go bad for you. I beg to differ.

Think about it.

By the way, the newest sermons are up and available on BiblicalAgrarianism.com. Here are the print links:

Gelassenheit: Submission and Yielding, Part 1
Gelassenheit: Submission and Yielding, Part 2

One bit of fun news:

A False Prophet votes to allow woman bishops, and the Antichrist is disappointed.

Y'all be cool,

Michael Bunker

Depedence Day

7/04/08 - 6th Day - Midday. Preparation of the Sabbath. DEPENDENCE Day. Today is the day when more and more Amerikans are celebrating their dependence on the world and not on God Almighty. Everything is upside down in this world, and as the deception grows deeper, it seems that even some supposedly right-minded folks are falling for whatever the latest "sleight-of-hand" magic trick that comes around. Here is the latest popular load of cow feces that is going around the internet:

Joe American Challenges the Candidates

People everywhere are praising Joe American. However, Joe American, portraying himself as a "regular american" without a political agenda - is actually a flag-waving right-wing republican jingoist who really, really, really believes that what America needs is another couple decades of cheap petroleum so Joe Amerikans like him can be lulled even further into the coma of covetousness, greed, stupidity, and gluttony that has crippled millions mentally and spiritually over the last 100 years. I mean, is that really what we need? Listen, I like cheap gas. It helps me to NOT do the hard things I ought to do in order to separate from the world and obey God. I hate paying $4 a gallon. I would love gas to be $1 a gallon. That is because the carnal man doesn't want to cut ties to the antichrist petroleum economy that runs the KINGDOM OF THIS WORLD. Joe American is nothing more than a well-educated, well-spoken, George Bush without the accent, and people are out there applauding this pabulum and sending it to my email box with a bunch of AMENS! attached.

***Pause to calm sickened stomach... drinks some Alka Seltzer... takes some deep breaths***

The fact is that most of these people pushing this junk don't WANT to have to make hard decisions. They like SUV's and air-conditioning and Wal-Mart more than they like obedience to God. Oh my... I feel a rant coming...

Ok, so after my last post we can sit back and wait for the inevitable backlash. The first comments and responses will be mostly positive. Some people, when they get over the blunt trauma of it, will be reflective and even might start to make some hard decisions. But then the SYNCRETISTS will move in. Wait on it. It's inevitable. The devil is in the game too. You know the game. Here is how it is played... I'll lay it out for ya'... (Most of this will go on in the minds and hearts of people, but some of it will be in conversations and discussions, or in comments on blogs, etc.)

First Responses... "Good Job!" "Thanks Michael!" "Lots to think about!" "Keep up the Good Work!" (Some will just sit and stare at the computer with blank looks).

That will last for a bit, then it will turn to...

Second Responses... "A lot to think of here. There will be a great tendency to overreact." "You can err in either direction. We have to be balanced." "We have to make sure we are not extreme." "Overall we should pray about this and make sure we don't do anything rash."

These responses are part of the dialectic. Remember syncretists love the world, and won't part with it, and want to bring it with them. That will go on for a bit, then it will go to...

Last Responses... "God called us to be part of the world, to evangelize the world, to engage the world. How can we do that if we are separate? We can't, right?" (WRONG). "Christ is using the Church to convert and to take authority over the world! We must engage! If we pull out there will be no witness!" "The Kingdoms of this world are becoming the Kingdom of Christ! He's using our involvement to make the world better!"

Blah, blah, blah...

That opinion is what I am talking about in my previous post. The same attitude that was the launching off point for the apostate "church" into apostasy; the same attitude that began the syncretism that ushered in the industrial revolution; the same attitude that let every devil and foul bird right into the professing "church"; that is the attitude that always pushes syncretism, and that calls any true obedience "extremism" or "radicalism".

In 2004 I published an article entitled Why Christians Should Not Vote. The article was posted all over the internet. We followed the reaction with interest. It followed the pattern I just explained. Early on there was a huge positive response. My email box was flooded with people thanking me for changing their minds. Pretty soon, though, there was an overflowing tide of syncretism (frankly almost all of it from Presbyterians). The argument is that if we don't vote for George Bush, then we'll get someone worse, and, after all, God is using George Bush to bring in the Kingdom! Right. So here is the deal.. the founding documents and confessions of Presbyterianism call the Papacy and Catholicism the ANTICHRIST. The politician these syncretistic Kingdom Now covenanters all bombarded my email box telling me we MUST elect, is now about to convert to Catholicism! This isn't an attack on Presbyterianism, it is an expose on error and what listening to these people leads to. Listen, the same error (that Christians ought to be politically active and take over the world so Christ can come back someday) is what brought many of the Reformers to the point of killing Christian Anabaptists and following the model of the Pope in becoming tyrants and usurpers.

They will fill the air with protests and will condemn me in no uncertain terms, but their road is the road to failure and it is inevitably the road to Rome. Greed, covetousness, and the love of this world will always be masked in the lexicon of the Christian warrior. But when you boil it down, and when you look at the fruit of what these people are pushing, you will want to reconsider their brand of Agrarianism. THESE PEOPLE AND THESE IDEAS GOT US WHERE WE ARE TODAY. They are the pied pipers of syncretism.

So they will brand me an extremist, and I'm alright with that. They will always preach luke-warmness, and I'm alright with that. It's their movement, and I'm alright with that.

I have a message to deliver, and I have a standard I must preach to, and I have a master whose Kingdom is not of this world, and I'm alright with that too.

Praise God that right now these people don't have the power to silence me.

Ok, so that probably cut down my audience some more.

Hey, keep praying for more rain for us!

Peace,

Michael Bunker

Scattershooting: Thoughts on my Trip

6/03/08 - 5th Day - After Breakfast. Thoughts on my trip. Many of you may not know, but I spent about 3 years on the road, traveling the country (and the world) preaching and teaching, exhorting and encouraging, learning and discerning. The Lord taught me a lot in those three years. The Lord used that time on the road, when I met, stayed with, debated, confronted, and taught literally thousands and thousands of professing Christians, to teach me much of what I know about deception, rationalization, and worldliness. Those who know me know that I now have thousands of illustrations, taken from real life, to explain the things that I teach, and why I believe the way I believe. This past couple of weeks on the road was a flashback and a reminder of those years I spent traveling and ministering on the road.

It was great to meet so many like-minded people.

In my opinion, the thing that is lacking most in the Christian Agrarian movement is a proper philosophy. Too many people are exiting Egypt and bringing Egypt along with them, and they either don't know, or don't care that they are doing it. Too many people do not know what it is that caused the failure of the industrial/mercantile system, so they are ignorant of what it is that they are doing now that must inevitably cause them to fail. The Bible says that God's people are destroyed by a lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6), and that same section of scripture teaches us that the people were saying "let no man strive, nor reprove another", as if to say "we will not be corrected and let us not be reproved", or some commentators interpret this to mean that God had hardened their hearts so that it was no use for the prophet to strive with or reprove them. I would say this about my many years on the road, and about the thousands of professing Christians I met... the thing that was most evident about them, the thing that almost all people have in common, was that they want a man of God to tell them they are ok. No matter what condition they are in, no matter what mistakes they are making, no matter how what they are doing will harm them in the future - professing Christians want to be told that they are ok. The charge that is most often leveled against my ministry, and against this blog, is that I am too judgmental, too aggressive, too condemning, etc. People believe that I do not take into account the different levels of maturity, different walks, different experiences of different people. They say that I speak as if I expect everyone to be where I am, and if they are not "up to my level", then they aren't Christians, or they are failing. I understand that no man or woman wants to feel condemned. No one wants to be told that they are falling short of the mark, or that they are rationalizing, or that they are still in concord and unity with the world. In my years of ministry, I can tell you again that there is one constant that will never change. Men do not like to hear that there is a standard. They do not like to think that they may NOT be ok. They do not want to be compared to earlier generations, or to earlier epochs of Christianity. They do not want to hear that their reliance and dependence on the world is sin, or that they rely and depend on the world because they love the world. No man wants to hear that, which is why this ministry is destined to be tiny, rejected of men, despised, etc. It is easy to say "Michael Bunker preaches an impossible standard", or "Michael Bunker doesn't understand my situation", and then just go along like before.

Here is a truth: "All men and women are not at the same level. Christianity is a walk and a process (thus the PROCESS driven life), and we are all (all of those who truly belong to Christ) in different places on the Pilgrim's Progress. Some have just started their walk, and some are farther along than others."

Here is the bastardization of that truth: "Since the above is true, then wherever I am, and whatever I am doing, and whatever I plan is acceptable". This lie teaches that the Pilgrim's Progress doesn't have a definite direction, or that forward motion is not required. This lie embraces the antinomian concept that whatever we are doing is fine, so long as we WANT or we DESIRE to please God. This lie embraces the antinomian concept that some progress or some separation is acceptable to God, and that as long as we are better, more holy, or more separated than our neighbors and our society, then we are just fine. Too many people, in their professed Christianity, will perish foully and finally with this lie upon their lips and hearts. Too many people, in their professed Christian Agrarianism, will find themselves coupled with or accounted with the Kingdom of this World, despite their protestations to the contrary.

Here is the thing... I am required to preach and teach to a standard, and that standard is the Bible. I don't preach to "the human condition", or to the corrupted reality, or to myself as the standard. I include myself in every condemnation, and in every reproof or correction. If I preach to myself, it is not as the standard, but it is because I know the dark condition of my natural heart. I know what lies I want to hear, and I know what lies I tell myself. If I condemn these lies and YOU get caught in the crossfire, then so be it. I know rationalization, because I am a rationalizer. I know self-deception, because I have spent so many years in it. I have watched literally thousands of people put their hands to the plow, and then go back to the world - so if I condemn the symptoms of apostasy and backsliding, and if I do so from years of experience, and if you get caught in that condemnation, then so be it. There are some things that are certain. You can be certain that, at some level, you are lying to yourself to maintain your comfort, condition, position, or status. You can be sure that these lies are rooted in your love of the world. You can be sure that most everyone you know is not telling you the truth about yourself - usually because they do not know the truth themselves, but sometimes it is because they do not love the truth, and they do not love YOU enough to tell you.

There is deception everywhere in these days, and I can see why. Truly Godly people would want a doctor who will tell them the truth, but people today want a doctor who will give them an automatic approval and a good prognosis no matter their condition. People want a preacher who will tell them they are ok, a guide who will approve of their plans for the future, and a prophet who will prophecy unto them smooth things. What is needed in the Christian Agrarianism movement is vision, and that is precisely the one thing it lacks. But it will not receive vision because it strives to be a movement without movement. Too many Agrarians want the picture-postcard life, and think that by grabbing a photo snapshot of true Agrarianism that they will also grab the promises of God - promises given only for diligent attention to separatism, simplicity, and holiness.

Almost the whole Bible, and every parable therein, and every shadow therein, and every picture therein, is about separation. Wheat from tares, sheep from goats, the true Church from the World, the children of God from the children of the devil. But it seems that Christian Agrarians want the product of separation - without separating. They want the product of holiness - without being holy. They want the product of of a simple, deliberate, Agrarian life - without getting rid of and rejecting the things that destroyed that life to begin with. Frankly, I don't think anyone is going to succeed in this movement without the pain and suffering that attends true Biblical separation from the world. People can grumble and complain, or, like most Agrarians, they can stick their heads in the sands of Agrarian marketing and feel-good glad-handing, but when the rubber meets the road, there is a reason that industrialism took root and overturned Agrarianism, and that reason was a tidal wave of covetousness, greed, comfort, and the deep-seeded desire for man to do things faster and easier so he can get back to his sins. The marketing arm of the Christian Agrarianism movement will do a good job in painting Agrarianism as a return to idyllic living. The theology arm of Christian Agrarianism will make sure the corrupt institutions of "Church" and "State" continue to receive their due. Modern Christian Agrarianism, though an admirable concept, will go the way of many other back-to-the-land movements... it will be crushed under its own weight, or it will fail its adherents when it is needed most (when society collapses and the economy fails). That is, it will fail unless it gets properly grounded in the Word of God, and centers itself on the critical precept that the modern world (The Kingdom of this world) is evil and corrupt, and is anti-christ, and its entire philosophy and worldview must be rejected. False prophets will preach that we must be "in the world, but not of it" - and by that they will mean that it is perfectly fine for Christians to be full participants in the ways of the world, so long as they claim that their "hearts" are with Christ. False teachers will defend worldliness and say that they defend it for evangelism's and for mission's sake. The very institutions that failed the world and the country (the modern corporate "Church" and the Nanny-State) will continue to warn Christians off of separatism, simplicity, and truly Biblical Agrarianism. The failed prophets of apostate religion (true cultists, tyrants, and liars all) will continue to label any attempt at truly Biblical living as "cultish". Those things are always going to happen, no devil ever wants to part with power. But let me tell you that if we do not accept and embrace Separatism from this world and from the ways of this modern world as a principle pillar of truly Christian Agrarianism, and if we do not reject syncretism as fundamentally dangerous and deadly to true Christianity, and if we do not begin to truly study and learn about what is wrong with the modern Amerikan society and culture, and the wickedness of the industrial culture it has produced - if we do not do these things, then the Christian Agrarianism movement is doomed to failure. I will consider it a failure if, after some reasonable period of time, professing Christian Agrarians are not, in ever greater numbers, truly exiting Egypt for the promised land, and leaving Egypt behind them as they do so. I always take the time to reflect on our own movement here, and try to make sure that we are indeed moving. Learning and reading is one thing, but most people will be ever learning and reading, and never moving or coming to a knowledge of the truth. I can tell you that, all philosophy and dogma aside, I didn't become a Christian Agrarian until we disconnected from the grid, and I never knew how far my people had fallen from God-sufficiency, until we unplugged from the world's way of doing things. You cannot live Christian Agrarianism through blogs or on paper. In the end we must act, and we must trust God to bless our feeble attempts and to lead us to where we need to go. Our circumstances are not our god, and our situation does not mandate our condition. Most people look at problems and do not demand solutions. Therefore they never MOVE... and MOVEMENT is necessary for the success of any MOVEMENT.

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

Texas Sweet Texas

7/02/08 - 4th Day - After Breakfast. We arrived home yesterday afternoon from our 12 day trip. It may take me a few days to recuperate from all the driving, food, lack of exercise, and constant air conditioning. We had a great trip, but I have to tell you that we are all very grateful and happy to be home. I know that my communication has been hit-and-miss, so I'll give you a rundown of the entire trip.

6/19 - We left early in the morning and made good time getting up to Little Rock, Arkansas. We stopped at a Days Inn in Little Rock. I taught Chris Woods to ask for (and sometimes receive) a discount on the room. Usually they only give discounts for AARP, AAA or some other such thing, but I have learned that if you are charming and ask for a discount, sometimes they will give you one.

6/20 - We drove to Knoxville, Tennessee. We had contacted some friends in Nashville about meeting with them when we passed through, but we found out that they too were on their way to Pennsylvania to visit our friend who is sick. We ended up staying in Knoxville through the Sabbath since we did not want to travel on the Sabbath. We stayed at a Motel 6 the first night, but moved to another Motel 6 the second night since the first one was pretty bad and didn't have internet. While in Knoxville we visited a huge flea market which was on the edge of the Smokey Mountains. I found and purchased two old books.

6/22 - We arrived up in Gettysburg, PA. We had a great reunion with our friend Jim, and with our two friends Bob and Bill from Nashville. We stayed up late talking around the fire.

6/23 - We got up and went to breakfast with Bob and Bill, then we returned to Jim's house and did some work around the house and property - weeding his garden, edging, and helping his father build a berm down one side of the property. Some friends of Jim's that I only knew from the internet came over and we had a good fellowship that evening.

6/24 - Tuesday - Bob and Bill left to return to Nashville. Chris, Joseph, and I headed over to Lancaster County so I could show them a glimpse of Amish life. We toured around Amish country for most of the day, then we did a tour of a pretty campy "Amish Farm and House" which was pretty bad. The tour lady didn't know what she was talking about, and actually had some of the tour-goers convinced that many of the Amish get the New York Times and vote in national elections. That night we returned to Jim's house and had a great dinner with Jim and his friend Bob. We discussed what it would take to rip the roof off of Jim's house on our next trip.

6/25 - Wed. We went west to Fairfield, Pennsylvania to meet a large Agrarian extended family there. We had a great time with the Crums at their Willow Valley Farms. We visited their barns and saw their animals, we watched the Crums granddaughter work the cattle by horse, and we visited their little store where they sell their products. We would have liked to have stayed longer, but we really needed to head back the opposite direction (again). We left for New York with a plan to meet with Herrick Kimball up in Binghamton, New York. Late that night we got a room outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania with the plan of buzzing up to Binghampton the next morning for lunch with Herrick.

6/26 - Thurs. Brother Herrick Kimball was kind enough to take the day off of work to drive down from his Finger Lakes home to visit with us in Binghamton. We met at the Cracker Barrel and we had a great visit. It was a pleasure and an honor to meet with Herrick, and he also gave us a gift of some authentic New York Maple Syrup, and some New York pancake mixes! I look forward to eating them Herrick, and I'll give you a report on how good they are. That night we got a room just outside of Cleveland, Ohio with the intention of meeting with another brother north of Columbus for a tour the next day of Ohio Amish country.

6/27 - Friday. We drove down to Central Ohio and met in a town called Dalton with a brother named Russell who is a local homesteader. Russel is very familiar with the Amish in the area. He has an awesome little store in Johnsville, Ohio where he sells his family's homemade bread and baked goods, and lots of Amish products as well. I have to tell you that I LOVED his store, and if you are ever in the area of Johnsville you ought to stop by. Russell took us on a very enlightening tour of Ohio Amish country. I have to tell you that I really enjoyed Ohio Amish Country more than Pennsylvania Amish Country. It helped that we had a knowledgeable local guide, but Ohio Amish Country is far less "touristy" and sold-out than that in Pennsylvania. We had a great day, and we also got a tour of Russell's 2 1/2 acre homestead. I can tell you that this man is doing more with 2 1/2 acre than most people are doing with 10 or 20 times that. It goes to show you that it can be done, and a good sized family can not only do well, but can thrive and prosper on a very small amount of acreage. We bid Brother Russell goodbye and headed west late in the day. We stopped west of Columbus near my boyhood town of Fairborn, Ohio (outside of Dayton) for the Sabbath.

6/28 - The Sabbath. We spent a restful day in Fairborn, Ohio at the Days Inn on the Interstate.

6/29 - The Lord's Day. This was our busiest and most rewarding day. We started out by buzzing through Indiana. We stopped outside of Indianapolis hoping to meet with a brother there, but he wasn't able to meet with us - or we didn't connect, so we headed northwest to Springfield, Illinois. There we met with a great Agrarian family named the Vincents. The Vincents are a family with 7 children and the 8th on the way. They have an awesome 9 or so acre homestead where they raise and milk Jersey cattle. They also have pastured poultry and have some great gardens. We were served delicious fresh ice cream made from the cream from their cows. Wow! We enjoyed the conversation and learned a lot about the benefits of raw milk. We had to leave earlier than we would have liked, and we steamed southward towards the Roman Catholic enclave of St. Louis. Just south of there we have some good ministry friends and brethren, and we were pleased to fellowship with them at their country retreat in the beautiful hills and valleys of eastern Missouri. We baptized Greg and his wife Renee in their nice little pond, which was a great Lord's Day blessing for us - then Renee served us a HUGE meal of bar-b-q, steak, beans, salad, and huge loaves of cornbread. That was followed by a delicious cheesecake. Stuffed and unable to move, we waddled to the van to continue our long trek. We made it to Central Missouri where we finally pulled up for the night, tired and sleepy.

6/30 - Mon. We headed to Topeka to pick up young Dusty, a 17 year old young man who will be moving down to Texas and is considering entering ministry training with me. We had a great meal with his family there in Topeka, then we headed south (FINALLY!) on I-35 towards home. We made it as far as the Oklahoma line and we pulled up and got a room for the last night on the road.

7/1 - Home again. We stopped over in Sanger, Texas where I got a full-blooded Yellow Blackmouth Cur puppy, which Brother Herrick Kimball turned me on to on his blog a month or so ago. This is the first puppy we have had for many, many years - and the children were elated to finally have a dog at the ranch. It was great returning home, and we are soooo glad to be here.

Ok, so I have to get to work. I'll be talking more about my trip later, and what we learned. I hope all is well with you all, and we are glad to be back at home and back at work.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker