Gregory Kemp's Blog

Hi, All! Not much has been going on with our big WV cabin project this winter. In fact, the weather has stymied our efforts to get up the mountain. Lots of snow and icy roads. A few weeks ago, we ventured out there to check out the land and to return our camper (we took the camper on an xmas holiday trip) and we got seriously stuck halfway up the mountain. We encountered ice and my truck and camper slid backward about 50 feet and jackknifed - quite scary. But in the end, with the help of the bobcat and about an hour of chipping ice, we got the camper to a safe spot, and abandoned it in the wilderness.



Two weeks later we came back to finish the trek up the mountain and we were shocked to find the camper gone. A thousand things ran through our mind - did we leave valuables in the camper? Is our insurance up-to-date? But when we finally reached our lot we found our camper was there! Someone (a neighbor) had hauled the camper up the mountain to our land. We still don't know who moved it. Nice gesture, I guess, but it was a bit creepy, Who knew the camper was ours? Who knew where to put it? Our only friends on the mountain deny doing it.....

After more than two years of work, my latest novel,
Undercover in Afghanistan,
is finally finished. The book is currently available only on Kindle, but print
editions will be coming soon. If you are a fan of thrillers, alternate history,
military fiction, satire, the crazy, the absurd, or you just love me and want
to support me...Undercover in Afghanistan is worth the $1 download. In case you
don’t know, you can download Kindle apps for the the ipad, iphone, android,
Windows, etc.

So, what is my path to publication this time around? Well, as
most of you know, my first novel, The Legend of Vinny Whiskers, was published
by a small New York City publisher
in 2009. While the publication experience was exciting, and traditional
publication lends credibility to a novel, the process was tedious, and at
times, outright frustrating. I’m glad The Legend of Vinny Whiskers (and another
title I contributed to, 101 Things Every Man Should Know How to Do) both got published
“traditionally”, but after the experience I decided I wouldn’t use Webook again.
Nothing against Webook…well, yeah, there is something against Webook…but I
don’t want to get into that. My situation now is to either chase a
new literary agent and land a new publisher or use the incredible self-publishing
resources of today and publish the novel myself.

Self-publishing can have a negative connotation and with
good reason. With self-publishing there is no check and balance against crappy
writing. Anybody can self-publish. Now that’s not to say that there are no great
books that were self-published. There are many. And that’s also not to say that
publishers don’t publish crappy books. They do. But since publishers invest money
in the authors they choose, it generally means that there is a higher level of
quality. It certainly means that the book has been professionally edited and proofed.

For me it comes down to this: I already have the validation of being
published conventionally. And frankly, I really don’t want to cater to a cumbersome, archaic
system that can hinge on the opinion of a single person. I want my book in the
hands of as many people as possible and the easiest way to do that is to
utilize technology and make my book available at a great price. So that’s
what I did. A two-year project by an experienced author for just $1.  Shocking. 

Raise the curtain. Introducing Undercover in Afghanistan.
What I call the very first in a new genre: Reality satire…

The year is 2010. Five men enter the highlands of eastern Afghanistan,
undercover and off the grid. The mission: to find bin Laden’s secret lair. This
is no ordinary group of men. There are two washed up mercenaries, a mentally
disturbed ex-CIA agent, a terrified newspaper reporter, and their leader, an
ambitious U.S. President with a ludicrous plan. The men soon find themselves
starving, on the edge of mutiny, with their only hope of success—and
survival—resting on the shoulders of a kidnapped, 13-year-old girl.

via photos.gregorykemp.com

Our annual Halloween Party, co-hosted by Jenni Davis, was a great success this past weekend. The theme was Carnival Freak Show. There were many bearded ladies and Ringmasters (including me). There was the four-breasted woman (located front and back), a three-breasted woman (just front), two tattoo-ladies, Hillbilly Farmgirl was Fish Girl From Atlantis and won best costume, there was a snake-charmer...so many great costumes and as always, a couple of lame ones.

My opinion: Hillbillly Farmgirl and Jenni did the best decorations to date!

Wow, just noticed how long it's been since I posted an update about the cabin. Most of the reason for the absence is I've been working hard on the new Home Inspection business I'm opening this week (website is www.trustkemp.com and it's in development), plus we went to the Florida Everglades and Keys AND I spent an extra week at my parent's house learning the family gas station business in case something bad were to happen--we had been talking about the idea of someone learning the biz for many years and finally started on it. What I learned is this: you can't learn a Gas Station/Convenience Store/Car Repair business in a week. But we made a good start.



Please stay tuned, I'll be posting a cabin update here in a few days, plus pictures from our Florida trip and news about my new business.



Also, our annual Halloween Party is this weekend so I'll be sharing drunken pictures of Hillbilly Farmgirl too.

Picture this, it's early July and I've been working on a roof repair on a building in South Carolina for 15 days in 109 degree record heat and I'm about ready to head home. The night before I leave there are heavy downpours: the first test of my new roof. So the morning I'm set to depart I walk over to the property to have a look at how the roof is holding up (and expecting a moment of triumph) but when I turn the corner I find water pouring out the front door of our building.   
 
After seeing this does Greg A) suddenly suffer from nausea and double vision and crumple to his knees?
 
If you picked A you are correct. When I saw water flowing out the front door I was devastated. Two weeks of work and the roof totally failed! Actually not. In a strange coincidence the plumbing in the bathroom busted during the night and that's what flooded the building. The roof held up during the storm! It was a terrible moment for me when I saw the water but fortunately there was no real water damage; the building was empty and the water actually gave the building a nice wash down. Whew.
 
Anyway it's been quite a month since my last post about our West Virginia experiment. Yes, I did a lot of roof work but we also went to Maine for a week. You can see pictures from our trip to Maine here. 

Our WV garden has been doing great. Hillbilly Farmgirl has been going out there just about every week to pick vegetables and check on things. Fortunately we've had plenty of rain and our automatic watering system is working, the only problem we've had is a deer has somehow been getting through our garden fence. We're not sure how the deer is getting in but we've caught him on our motion activated camera eating green beans and sweet potatoes (notice leaf in mouth). The good news is it seems he has an appetite for nothing else. We've reinforced the fence twice now but he still seems to be getting in. Could he be jumping the 8 foot fence? I don't think so. He probably has a key.
 
Here's what we've picked so far:
 
850 yellow wax beans (yes, we got 850 in spite of the deer eating half of the plants! Beans are done for season but quite a success!)
110 cucumbers (done for season)
30 squash (done for season)
6 bell peppers (many more to come)
5 banana peppers (many more to come)
5 onions (many more to come)
1 red potato (many more to come)
0 sweet potatoes (totally decimated by deer)

Hillbilly also picked about 8 pints of wild blueberries!
 
The main thrust of this post, however, is to show you our latest addition to the garden: a greenhouse. Over the last few months, in addition to managing the garden, we've been plugging away on a 10 by 12 greenhouse. It's finally done. The bargain of the project were the windows: 6' by 6' foot windows for 25 dollars each on craigslist! Here are pictures of the project from start to finish.

Laying down a few inches of
gravel for the base.




The new chop saw at work.




Greenhouse base in place.




I put down some local stone and mixed it with gravel for the floor.




And there you have the base.

Then we started to put up the walls. The back wall is 12' wide
by 12' high. I'll tell you, putting up a 12 foot wall was not
easy.




Three walls up.




And then the rafters: 2 by 6 by 12 feet.




We hung the rafters with galvanized brackets.




The sliding doors in place and me on the roof.




A huge part of the job was priming all the T-111
plywood.




Once the framing was done we started to put up the
polycarbonate transparent roof panels.




During construction, I got concerned with the large wind area on the back wall. A few calculations revealed that a 58 mph sustained wind would blow the shed over. We decided to anchor our 225 gallon water tank to the shed for added weight to prevent overturning.




Here is the gutter with the pvc pipe running the water to our
225 gallon water storage tank.




There was a lot of cutting to get all that plywood in place.




We got some GREAT help from my parents at the end. They
helped us paint the whole shed. Thanks, folks!




My mom was a help when she wasn't running the Bobcat,
something she had long wanted to do.




And there you have it...our 12 by 10 greenhouse right next to
the garden. A definite success!

Garden success!  After leveling and fencing the garden at the end of April we built raised garden beds with local rocks and tilled in 3 tons of mushroom compost with the native soil.  Hillbilly Farmgirl planted beans, squash, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, onions, and peppers. At the same time I began construction of a greenhouse which in addition to housing greens would also be used to collect rainwater in a 225 gallon storage tank for irrigation. Until  the greenhouse roof was completed we couldn’t collect rainwater so we filled our water tank with water from a surface spring.  Once full, we built a PVC irrigation system and put the tank on timers to water the garden when we're not there.  Fortunately, there has been a lot of rain and the the results have been stunning.  We harvested our first goblin egg squash, a cucumber and two very young green beans.  The fence appears to be holding, except we do have a resident chipmunk who likes soybeans.  I think pictures tell the story best.

Garden area level and ready.

Building the raised gardens.

The mushroom compost. $30 a truckload.

Raised beds complete and mushroom compost mixed in.

The irrigation system.

Look at that water flow!!!

My God a veggie!  (of some sort)

Beans held up by string.

And Hillbilly Farmgirl keeps on going...

Garden timer on our 225 gallon tank.

Boring plumbing connections on our tank.

This is 4 weeks of growth.

Our first crop yield! A goblin egg squash harvested June 15th.

...and a pickling cucumber too!

That's what we got so far, 2 yellow wax beans, a pickling cucumber, a goblin egg squash and two onion scapes.

Squash with a mesquite pork loin.  Yumgood.

 

 

My last update included details of the garden fence we built.  Since then we've made great progress on the garden but we've also had a run of sad news.  In early May our beloved dog Noodle was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  We had hoped that chemotherapy would give us more time with her but things did not work and she died on May 31st.  You can read more about Noodle and what she meant to us here.

The sad news didn't end with the loss of Noodle.  A few days after Noodle died I got news that my grandmother and last remaining grandparent also passed away.  Nana, as she was known, was 90 and spent most of life on a farm in South Georgia. Although I saw Nana often as a kid, I can't say I knew Nana very well.  I guess when you're one grandkid out of nine and the excitement of the farm, the woods, and fishing were a few steps away then visits with Nana were pretty much hi and goodbye bridged by smiles and long hugs. I'll say this about Nana, she was always good for a smile and a kind word.  She was also a wonderful cook, the master of southern food.  I was particularly fond of the big farm breakfasts: grits mixed with fried eggs, bacon, and biscuits with heavy cream and syrup.  As kids, we ran around the farm all day and took for granted her kindness and the glorious food she prepared. A few things occurred to me after her death which I never considered when Nana was alive. Nana was raised in an area of the Deep South severely divided on racial lines and in 40 years of knowing her I never heard a single close-minded remark, not one bigoted word.  Also, Nana was a devout Baptist and I realize now that not once did she push her faith on me. Good on ya, Nana.  Rest in peace.  You too, dear Noodle.

Hillbilly Farmgirl is no ordinary farm girl. Hillbilly Farmgirl can read. Lately she's read dozens of books in preparation for our latest West Virginia DIY project: a vegetable garden. She's developed a robust to-do list: soil testing, seed ordering, buying tools, row design. The list goes on. It's not until task 15 that we have actual crop yields and somewhere in there, written in the margin as an afterthought, is the action item "build eight foot garden fence."

Eight foot? That's huge. She says it's necessary to keep out the deer. I don't know what books she's been reading but I've never seen a deer with a pole vault. But books trump what I say so we're building an eight foot garden fence. 

I learned something. Building a big fence around a quarter-acre garden is no small project. Steep slope. Many, many rocks. The local frost line is 24-inches meaning we need to get the posts two feet underground to prevent them from shifting as the ground freezes. I was going to stick the posts that deep anyway so they didn't tip over but I thought mentioning the frost thing would make me sound smart. 

To select the proper post length I applied the following equation: 8 foot deer leap + 2 foot frost depth = 10 foot post. I think 4 by 4s sound about right. Pressure treated buggers. And for good measure I'll dump some concrete in the holes to make sure nothing moves.   

Installing the posts got complicated. In about half of the cases we found bedrock between 12 and 24 inches below ground which prevented us from getting the posts to an adequate depth. In cases where we could not dig deep enough we decided to put the posts directly on the bedrock and anchor them with ½-inch rebar into the concrete. For this I got you use my Hilti hammer-drill which performed very well.

Posts alone don't make a fence. You need stuff between the posts to keep out the super-deer. I selected barbed-wire (15.5 gauge, 4 point). I picked barbed-wire because of price ($43 per 1340 foot spool), not because I enjoy barbing myself in the neck, gut and groin, because that's what happened as we ran more than a quarter mile of the stuff. We also added chicken-wire at the bottom of the fence to keep out small critters like rabbits and chipmunks. I suggested we bury the chicken-wire twelve feet underground in case we've got deep tunneling rabbits. She didn't think that was funny and almost made me do it.

In the end we have a nice fence. It might be a bit tall. Yes, it's tall.  It's tall like the fence in King Kong or Jurassic Park. I asked the Hillbilly if we were trying to keep out deer or Tyrannosaurus Rex.  She said, "The Tyrannosaurus Rex is a carnivore. It doesn't eat veggies."

Hillbilly probably read that in a book too.

 

Other photos below....

 

We got some free labor from Hillbilly's Aunt Robin and Aunt Sherry. Maine ladies can hoist timber, that's for sure. 

 

Hauling the 4 by 4s to the worksite.

 

We secured the barbed-wire with open hooks and eye hooks that are probably too small to hold back a hungry animal.

 

The rebar in the bedrock.

 

We trimmed the barbs from a hell of a lot of barbed wire to help thread it through the eye-hooks.

 

That's Hillbilly in her smartsuit.