About a month ago I went to my local bamboo grove in search of some nice new culms before the growing season got underway and the bamboo became waterlogged. I didn't have the trailer with me, so I just cut them and left them to dry. Several weeks went by, and then it snowed, then thawed, then snowed again, then I never had a chance to get them, so I did that this past Sunday. It had been raining, and I didn't want the cut bamboo to get moldy, so I decided to drive up there in the car and load them up en masse. This went pretty well, and I honestly shouldn't need any more bamboo for a couple of years, so prolific was my harvest! One of the side effects of the snow was that it caused a massive blow-down in the bamboo grove; many of the taller shoots were busted off half way down, and an even greater number were simply bent in half. I didn't cut any new bamboo shoots this time, only newly broken ones.
The major issue was that this particular bamboo grove is some sort of bird super-condominium, it must be the favorite hang out for an enormous flock of birds. How would I know this? Because where birds hang out, birds shit. I'm truly glad I won't have to go back for a while as I'm pretty much done hanging out in a dense grove of bird-doo enslimed bamboo. The rain made the bamboo slick with the droppings, and I was able to wash off some of the culms, but not all, and not my jacket. I was thoroughly gross by the end of the trip.
Strange side benefit however: handling all of the bird-poo-bamboo (say it five times fast) for a couple of hours did something marvelous to my hands. They are the softest that they've ever been. Maybe I should look into that more.
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