Feeling bamboozled?

 

 

 

Back from summer camp, I'm getting reacquainted with studio routines – like doing a quick spin-off in emulation of my current hero Hashim Akib.  And I've been thinking that it's time for an end-of-season status report on Bamboo 2022.

 

To recap, here's my backyard starting point on August 1^st.

 

Even the resident panda here at The Yellow House found this a daunting scene.

 

By August 16^th, at the rate of 1-2 hours/day, I'd met my goal-- clearing virtually all the bamboo inside my yard.  Of course, this happened with a little help from my friends, the smallest ones shown here surveying the empty raised bed by the fence and a pile of bamboo clippings. 

 

Friends farther afield helped in many ways.  There was applause (the best part!), the panda suggestions, of course, and a neighbour's recollection from a trip to Thailand that elephants also love to romp in and devour bamboo.

 

Another friend was the first to suggest what led to the title of today's post.  I was blown away when this professional librarian (ret.) sent me "the well-known 10 C. haiku attributed to the Emperor's 4th gardener":--   

Begone foul bamboo roots

The heron sits in lotus position

Will I be paid on Friday?

When I cyber-exclaimed with amazement, "How? What!! Really?!" she replied, "I think you've been bamboozled" – and made a sly reference to her own trusty "haiku machine".

 

There's still plenty of bamboo in my future, and I had planned to attack the two long planters on the laneway (the source of the invading roots) next year.  Here's one of them:

 

But another friend said: "Consider this.  If you keep clipping away the green parts, the plants won't be able to produce chlorophyll, and eventually they'll die off."  Well – this was a strategy worth trying for the coming winter.  But not surprisingly, I got carried away.

 

I clipped all of that bamboo to about a foot in height.  And then.  Well, it's, er, addictive.  I couldn't resist exploring the roots below.  I didn't commit to doing this on a daily basis, but as of mid-October, I've dug up almost a third of the box's contents.

 

In the process, I followed THE longest root ever, from the eastern edge of the box into my neighbour's section of laneway, almost four feet, as displayed here:  (An unfailingly supportive friend remarked, "You should hang this trophy on your wall!")

 

Scarily, I also found a half-dried clump of black bamboo and breathed a sigh of relief that there was no more.  The biggest cane here is larger than any of the green-gold canes.

 

Despite all that awaits me in 2023, I've tried not to be bamboozled.  I know there's a chance something will pop up from presumably cleared ground – but I also know it's been fun and satisfying to persist…and sometimes exhausting, too.  The gardener shown here needs a nap – before she inspects that back left corner…and a tiny shoot of green emerging through the cracks.  ("Bamboozled," copyright 2022)

 

As for me, I think I'll settle in this bamboo chair (another friend's contribution) for my one weekly cocktail and survey a job well done.

 

 

And that brings a revelation!!  Bam-BOOZE…?!!  Well, just about anything organic can be rendered alcoholic and it so happens that: 

"Ingenious villagers in China's Zhejiang province have come up with a way of using bamboo to make liquor. Primary liquid of liquor or rice wine is injected into each bamboo shoot with the wine brewed and purified with the growth of the bamboo."

And for the real deal – bamboo wine -- check this link for full instructions.  I'm just grateful that the roots at The Yellow House are nowhere the size of these massive tree roots from a nearby construction site.  (I think the "STOP" sign in the background is a message that I've gone on long enough)