Bamboo stalks and leaves are easy enough to whack away and dispose of. It’s the rhizomes that wear you out.
Yesterday I wrote about bamboo aboveground. Today it’s the rhizomes, a word I just found through Google — and god bless Wikipedia, too. Rhizomes are thick underground tubers shaped like ginger root, but tubers fed on really serious steroids. After years the stuff grows thick underground, weaving together in an impenetrable mass that’s tough to dig out.
So I devised a strategy.
I dug down underneath it. By undermining it, I could then use the shovel and axe to chop down and break it apart.
Swinging a pickaxe — it’s one-way to jack the old heart rate up. What else am I going to do on the weekend? A guy has to make up for being deskbound, somehow. And this is part of the bargain I’ve made. Mrs. Ombud used to take care of the herb garden but it has been, um, a bit neglected recently, so I promised to whack out the eastern bed of bamboo if she would revive the herb garden and flower beds again.
Generally, as I dig, chop, and hack away at it, Ernie and Edie lounge happily in the sun nearby, tongues lolling out. A couple times Ernie has gone over to the pile of dirt and begun digging through it. Maybe, in his mind, he’s helping. He isn’t, and I’ve let him know.
He’s very sanguine about the criticisms, and resumes lolling in the sun. Okay, boss, if that’s how you want to spend the afternoon, it’s your business.
I kind of liked the bamboo, as it shielded this old dilapidated chicken coop the prior neighbor to the east kept, but once she passed on to her reward (at age 101 — she had lived in that house since Teddy R was president) the new neighbors took down the old chicken coop and put up a shed.
Now it’s just a view of the brightly colored toys and tools they keep up on its roof. Until the citrus tree we hope is a lemon gets bushier, and obstructs the view again. I’m okay if it’s a lime tree — Mrs. Ombud will be very disappointed if it turns out to be grapefruit.
So that’s how I’ve spent large chunks of recent weekends, chopping and hacking away. The best part is the beer afterward, and putting my feet up, and popping in a DVD. Lately it’s been Marie Antoinette, Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came, Rome, Season Two, Disk Four, and Sweet Land.
God bless the pause button. I have to say, considering the hassles of getting to movie theatres, shelling out too much money to get blasted by commercials and hyper-frenetic trailers then listen to the kids behind me acting out, I can’t say I miss “the theatre experience” one damn bit, and the best part is the pause button on my DVD player.
I tried standing on theatre chairs, turning to face the projection booth and hollering, “Hey, Mac, could you pause it there? I gotta go take a whiz” but it never worked.
Okay, I didn’t really. But I’d be amused if you did. Myself, I’m just not there any more.
Now, I don’t have to ask — and getting up out of the easy chair is the best way to suss out how stiff I’ve gotten, and how far I am on the Motrin meter.
A swingin’ Saturday at the Ombudshousehold: pickaxe, a full green waste bin, Netflix, homebrew, an easychair, and slumbering dogs at our feet. A working remote, then hobbling stiff like my grandpa used to raid the fridge, pop a motrin and hit the play button.
I’ve done worse on Saturdays, I’ve gotta say.
I read your posts about the bamboo and it brought back memories! It’s not called the fastest-growing plant for nothing - as you have described so eloquently! I feel your pain.
The stuff grows everywhere, but each area seems to have a special problem with bamboo unique to the area. In Phoenix, well, scorpions looooove bamboo. Hey - those cool, green tubes? They beat the heck out of those hot desert rocks when it is 125 degrees. I’d hang out in there myself.
I remember one summer when my Grandma was visiting in Phoenix and we got on the subject of the “bamboo problem.” To make a long story short, we wound up removing half a yardfull of the stuff in July. Ugh. I was not stung, but there was a mass exodus of scorpions and a bunch of them wound up in the pool. Double-ugh! Guess who’s chore was cleaning the pool?
Yikes! Shades of Jaws — except this would be Tails, and it would be enough to put me off swimming, too.
NM, I visited an old and good friend in Phoenix last November; he lives near Camelback, but when they first arrived they almost bought a house that is north of downtown Phoenix. They didn’t get it, but read about the sale of the house, later, in the newspaper.
It turns out it had a huge nest of scorpions underneath it.
Enough to entail failed visits by exterminators, lawsuits, and stories in the newspaper.
Just thinking about it is enough to put me up on the roof with a sleeping bag at night.
Sounds like a great way to spend a weekend, frankly.
Wait, not the scorpions, the gardening and DVD-watching.
Although, I’ve never seen a real scorpion so the novelty would have a certain value for me…
The don’t have scorpions in Australia? Hm.
I wouldn’t expect them in the British isles. Although I have to add that, as the scorpion and the frog parable plays a key role in the movie The Crying Game, scorpions are now oddly linked to Britain for me, when I think of that metaphor.