By: Melissa Bunfill (@melissabeth on BTA)

In the third week of November 2021, sixty Bears and Cubs gathered together to celebrate the 1st Annual Ozark Bears Thanksgiving. After moving to the Ozarks only six months prior, our families were astounded that we were able to make so many friends in such a short amount of time. Our community here is incredible. I really believe that what we have created here is what Owen was dreaming of when he first came up with the concept of Beartaria. But I can’t begin to tell you about our community without first telling you how we got here.

2020 was an eye-opening year for everyone. We were blessed to already be doing small-scale homesteading on our almost 1.5 acres in the Northern California foothills. We already homeschooled our kids, ate real nourishing food, and avoided medical interventions. Through the experience of the cooties’ insanity, we began listening to the Big Bear’s streams. We became convinced that usury was a sin and became determined to get out of debt. At the same time, my husband unexpectedly quit his job of 14 years. He decided to take a month off to decompress and reassess. During that glorious time with him at home, we realized that we longed for him to be home more to help raise our young sons.

We dreamed of a life where he could work part-time. A life where I could bring him a sandwich as he worked on pasture fences or fixed sprinklers, and we could have un-rushed lunches together. We realized that these dreams were not possible in our “dream house” on the big hill, with the big mortgage to match. If we wanted him to be around more often, instead of working sixty hours a week to afford our fancy-pants life, we needed to move.

In the time between, he quit his job and he sold our house a few months later, God burned many bridges for us that made it easier for us to move. We’re thankful now for the painful lessons that made it clear that it was time to leave California and start a new life. Our house sold on the first weekend. We sold the majority of our belongings and loaded our family of five into our 5th wheel trailer. We had no jobs lined up and no home to move to. We set out with blind faith in the fact that God was speaking to us loudly, and we could not ignore it.

Over the next four months, we traveled to fourteen states. After spending six weeks in Arkansas, the state my husband thought he might like to call home, we headed north into Missouri. As we crossed the border, I sighed deeply. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I could breathe. Missouri just FELT good. We had plans to meet family in Yellowstone and reluctantly left Missouri. Leaving Missouri, however, cemented the fact that it was the place for us. We all longed to return. At a miserable RV park in South Dakota, I told my husband that I just wanted to go home. “Where is home?” he asked. “Missouri,” I replied without hesitation.

After our visit to Yellowstone, we were so excited to finally be on our way home. We had connected with some Bears on the Missouri page of the Beartaria Times App who were hosting a meetup at their house on Memorial Day weekend. God tested our resolve, and in Colorado, our truck broke down, threatening our ability to make it to the meetup. However, two weeks and $10K later, we were back on the road with only three days left until the meetup. We made it to Salem, MO, and were greeted by ELOV8 Bear on his 140-acre homestead deep in an Ozark holler. On soft, rolling hills so lush that we could have been hundreds of miles into some jungle, we were welcomed with open arms as we met old friends for the first time.

All the men who would go on to form Ozark Legacy Contracting just five months later, my husband Bill, Mr.PermieBear, TylerBear, and GunniteBear, were all at that first meetup. It was a dream to have moved 2,000 miles across the country, knowing no one, yet walking into a ready-made community of based Bears.

By November of that year, we’d spent countless hours getting together with our Ozark Bear community nearly weekly, having workdays on each other’s newly acquired, rundown farms. Having homeschool play days, sharing dinners together, welcoming babies, and trying to grow into a real, functioning community. It’s not hard to see why the legend of the Missouri Bear community has spread throughout the realm. Most Bears moved here, like us, without family, and following blind faith, knowing no one. To assimilate into a completely new culture, as well as navigate basic necessities such as where to source nourishing food to feed our growing families. We had to lean on and learn from each other. I’ll also put this next part bluntly for those Bears considering a move here. Living in the Ozarks is hard. There is no Costco, Target, or Home Depot. There are no shopping malls or movie theaters. There are no hipster coffee shops, and there are no Whole Foods. In the only grocery store near us, there is not even an “organic” section in the produce aisle. There are snakes, ticks, chiggers, poison ivy, and the occasional tornado. We’ve all bought farms with nearly falling down houses and multiple junk piles littered around the property, in true Missouri style. To navigate the difficulties of living here alone would be disheartening at best. In short, this community works because we need each other. We need each other, and we want to help each other because we’ve all committed to seeing this thing through, building an alternative community to the one of indentured servitude that we’ve been sold our entire lives. We have another important, foundational similarity that gives me chills. If you ask most Bears why they moved to the Ozarks, they’ll tell you that, like us, God called them here.

As Thanksgiving 2021 approached, we were keenly aware that most of our friends would be celebrating without family. We decided to host a Thanksgiving meetup for the local bears. At the time, we were still living in our 5th wheel, as we were knee-deep in renovating our recently purchased 1938 farmhouse. Seekers of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful arrived bearing mashed potatoes, green beans, loaves of sourdough, pies, and cakes. The fact that our house was halfway demolished inside and that tables and chairs were set up on plywood subfloor under open holes in the ceiling phased no one. Bears are so cool. No one cares about fancies and lollies. They just cared that we were together, sharing stories and encouragement. And that the gravy is ladled generously and served piping hot. As a prayer was said over the meal, bread was broken, and friendships were formed. RedPandaBear organized a group photo in front of our barn, a tradition we repeated this year. It’s a tradition that I hope to continue every year and watch what faces show up year after year and also to see what new faces are added. Over the past year, several Bears have asked if we were going to host Thanksgiving again. My enthusiastic reply assured them that I hope to host every year as a standing event for Bears to count on and look forward to.

This year, I was slightly nervous hosting as our Ozark Bear numbers have grown exponentially. To date, we have around forty-five bear families living within a two-hour radius. With the attention our community has been receiving with the recent festival and purchase of campground land, we decided to invite only local bears via our Telegram chat rather than posting to the Beartaria Times App. We initially hoped to host outside as we were anticipating around 100 people. As often happens when a group of crushers assembles, similar to the weekend of the National Festival, it rained. It hadn’t rained for weeks, yet on the morning of Thanksgiving, the heavens opened, and it poured. We moved couches, rugs, and end tables into bedrooms and set up tables and chairs inside to host the 89 Bears who attended. Honorable mention to BoatShoesBear, who showed up ready to crush and did most of the set-up. Everyone was amenable to the change even though we were all quite cozy packed inside together. It all worked out except for the fact that the mountain of muddy boots by the front door looked like something out of a Spielberg movie. Bear mamas came bearing so much food that we could have fed a group twice our size. There was plenty of wholesome fun had by all. My husband gave tractor rides to the kids, and our builder buddy made an obstacle course for the kids. There were several tug-of-war battles by the cubs as well. Ever since the festival, the kids have been playing tug-of-war whenever they get together to prepare to crush at next year’s festival. Thanks to the rain, we were able to light a giant bonfire in front of the barn to keep everyone warm. We even ended the night with fireworks for the kids. All the mamas pitched in at the end of the day to do dishes, sweep, and clean. Countless Bears thanked us for hosting. A few told us it was the best Thanksgiving they had ever had.

This is a tradition we will continue every year. The bolstering of our spirits and the closeness created by gathering together makes these events worth it. Owen talks about finding what you can do to add value to your community. I can’t fix your kitchen sink or build you a website, but I can bring people together and provide a welcoming, cozy place for people to gather. Gather together, Bears. Gather whether your house is under construction, or you live in a camper or a shophouse, or if your house looks like it belongs in a magazine. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you find each other and BUILD. Build communities, build alternatives, build EACH OTHER. This type of event also prompts us to reflect and practice one of the key elements to Bear life– gratitude. We come together and share what we are thankful for. We are thankful for this community that has helped us not only to survive here in the Ozarks but to thrive. We are thankful to the Bears here who have become wonderful friends and supported us to put down roots and build. We are thankful to Owen for catalyzing all of us on paths pursuing the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. We are thankful, most of all, to God, for showing us the way and for providing abundantly.

Until next year, Ozark Bears, onward to Beartaria!