Born under a good sign is what I thought in December when I looked into the heavens and seen the glow of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon and the birth of Natelie Anne. It was all amazing and beautiful at the same time. Karin I am proud of you, what a blessing.

God bless this child she was Born under a good sign.

 

In Survival Mode

Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite garden produce they produce a heavy yield.

Once the cold comes and the leaves fall and my yard goes to sleep, I go into survival mode. The House warms with the baking of bread and the drying of herbs. The storage of the harvest begins to end.

The First snow came early this year, that's a good sign to me.

Zeke has a new friend to play with. Not actually, the deer is a big part of my harvest from mother nature. The venison meat can stored away for my survival. I am like the native American Indian in a lot of ways I do not waste any part of the deer in my harvest.

 

One of my favorite smells in the world is that of smoking deer jerky.

Just Bark Today

I just might be a tree huger because this tree just made me want to hug it. It was so gray and aged looking I wanted to ask old Mr. Oak what he'd seen over the years. Mr. Oak and I had nice conversation about the building of Lake Pomme De Terre and the nice view it created. Then the building of this wonderful park came up and how the deer and turkey wake him up in the morning. I found out that they built this camp site because of him and he's talked to many other people before. "What wonderful shade you must provide" I told him. "Just remember to tell your children about me" he exclaimed. As the day went on I learned a lot and promised to be back. I am a big fan of this park now, so I left with a nice feeling.

Also don't call me crazy, trees do talk.

My Weird Life

So I get this postcard in the mailbox, kinda odd being from the state, I check it out. What in the? is it talking about, saying I have something unclaimed in their lock box. What could it be? The postcard had a web site on it, so I checked out. My mind started to wonder off, oh-boy oh-boy this could be the big one. Piles of lute the I inherited from some long lost old Missouri relative. I know? a lottery ticket I forgot to pick up my claim. The web site didn't help with my fascinations it just said print out a bunch of paper work fill it out and send it back. Now I got to go find a notary republic and they stamp it and I sign with witnesses, like some old western. Old guys standing around in the old town bank, ones the sheriff with his six shooter on. As I nervously roll across the old creaky wooden floor and... 

So its in the mail now and I wait to see what I get. You know, it could be this poster that I took to state and won third place in a conservation drawing contest back in 79.

One Perfect Day

In the Fall in the Missouri Ozarks the

Walnut tree is the first to loose it's

leaves.

The Sap is draining the greens to yellow.

Shu-Shu the mighty hunter awaits thecatch with eager anticipation.

A perfect day. I joined my Dad for fishing on a Fall
camping trip. Nice Catch, Black Crappie.

DSL crash again

I must apologize again for that set of pics not being labeled. This set of pics below represent some of my processes for drying heirloom seeds, accept for the mower I just threw that in. 

The Last Fruit

Zeke was wondering why I have such an affection for a large fruit. I tell him if he would just taste it he would know why? 

This is it, the last days are upon us. Soon it will freeze and you have to have all the fruit out of the garden. In the old days it was funny I would wait till the last second and then roll out there and drag every thing into the house and put it all the dining room table. There would be large plants piled up on the table like peppers and cherry tomatoes roots and all. It was kind of crazy to do it that way because it brang bugs into the house to leave me in strange situations. I found myself one day sitting watching TV and there is a large praying mantis climbing across my chess. Ahh what the heck bring nature into your eco system, cool.

Friend and Foe

While in my backyard and garden today 

I was assessing what I would have to do

to finally rid it of weeds. There is one 

way I have always planed to kill out 

the weeds and that is to NUKE the

whole thing with a soil sterilent. 

The soil sterilent is used to kill 

all plants and seeds. The bad                      cinnamon

thing with that is it's not

my style, no I more of 

a do it natural kinda

guy. Plus there is

some friends

of mine 

that

would 

not like

me doing

that due to 

the fact that

that is their

source of bonus

veggies. My rabbits 

Cinnamon and Bun-Bun 

are actually the hardest

worker for my garden and

they provide the fertilizer and

keep weeds trimmed. I designed

their cages called HARES cage meaning

Habitat Access Rabbit Eco System. This cage

design lets the rabbit have access to the grass

and it save me money on the food bill. 

The only problem with my rabbit

cage system is that I don't have

enough of them. Ya see the 

Enemy in me garden and 

yard is the weed 

Johnson 

grass

and the

rabbits can't 

keep up with the

rate of growth. So I just 

have to do it the hard way

and pull it out one plant at a time

at the rate of growth.

This Johnson

grass is mean

stuff. It has

cut me like

a razor 

blade

before.

To bad 

you can't 

turn it

into bread

or beer or

something.

My arch

Nemesis

Johnson Grass.

I love Volunteers

It's been a long day working in the garden my hands are cold and muddy. The rain came down just like the news said it would. A few drop at first to give you a little warning and then it poured down for couple of minutes. The rain was cold each drop smacking my back like someone tapping with there finger saying silently get out. Then after some house work the sun came out and dried it all up. I went back out to the herb bed and looked to pick some fresh Basil it smelled so good the aroma put me in a good mood. I turned to roll back to the house and something caught my eye. This wonderful little volunteer had pop up in my life and it made my day. A wonderful little sprig of fennel the one true volunteer of the fall. This was nice to see I had no hope in the fall of a a plant popping up on it's own. The Garden is the one true place that gives me happiness all year long even on the coldest days.

Herb bed

 

Deceitful weed

Brandywine my favorite

More pics of my garden.

Weed is Kemp ll

Sorry my computer crashed in mid type and left me with small problem. The blogger won't let me edit my post. Oh well start over.

So as I was saying Betty told me Unkempt meant: ungroomed not neat and smart in appearance or it could also be deficient in order or neatness also rough unpolished, and this is my favorite Slovenly untidy especially in personal appearance <> Then Betty made another point that my last name was in there too, cool. And Kemp means coarse hair a coarse fiber. I know she is really smart she was a BPS editor.  This was brilliant I thought it matches me perfect and it would be a good sign to put over my garden. 

Maybe this is a good sign me and this blogging, may may may I put it to good use. Starting today a new garden cleaned up but still rough on the edges. I'll post with pics the progress.

  

Weed is Kemp

What is the Unkempt Garden anyways, what the heck is he talking about, is he trying to put his name with his garden. Well it's about time he explains all that crazy talk. 

It all started about ten years ago when I was working for the Bass Pro Shops catalog as a production department artist. It was there at BPS that I had the honor of meeting some very nice people, the very people that would help change my life. One of these nice people that would have an affect on my life was a lady by the name of Betty Bates. During the break times at BPS Betty and I would both sip on cups of tea that would give you just the right setting for some in depth conversation. All kinds of interesting topics would pop up during these breaks mostly to give your brain a break from the Malay of stressed out work. In my case most of the topics that would pop up on the break-time would end up talking about my garden. Soon after talking for awhile about the garden I would mention how my mother had a big garden and thats where I learned. After talking about the size of the garden the idea came up that I should name the garden with tall sign over the gate, like we did in my past; I grew up on a patch of land we called "Woodsy Acres" the land of locust and honey just West of Lebanon. 

I know this subject sounds so blase or boring because of the rambling but just hang in there. 

Anywho... Betty soon came up with the idea for a name that I had never heard of "Unkempt".

That was  

 

    

Blog Core

This whole blog thing did NOT start out on the right track, it threw me for a big one. First of all I will admit right off the top that I am a slow typer and that leaves me in a tight spot sometimes. Say for example that your an average slow keyboarding specialist and your on a big ole Macintosh computer, trying to relax for the day. I roll on up to the old mac stretch my fingers and start clacking away. Type what I think is a big thick wide paragraph that took me a half hour, and click and save and copy. Open my blogger web site right here and create compose and paste. WRONG! nogo this can't be true it keeps popping up under the compose box "What The Hell" I said repeatedly. I was so determined to defeat this evil, 

for days and days trying to trick it. Maybe copy paste save then paste it under some mac pc friendly format, nogo

Is there no justice in the

world, how could this be, wasting all my valuable slow hand cramping typing on this beautiful mac. Okay big Program you Win... I will type on your wonderfully laid out program, so blue are you so big.

So in conclusion this is my first entry and it has been an experience it reminds me of being in college English 101 again. 

so if anybody is board enough to read this please go easy on me.