Wild Hope Homestead

Something wildly exciting happened this morning. Well, some people may not think it quite as exciting as I. But it’s things like this that keep my world fascinating.

Recently, I have been reading about and staring in awe at photos of bamboo tomato cages and A-frames for growing climbing or sprawling veges up. Spring is in the air and I was starting to get fidgety about bamboo. I wanted some really badly. I needed it to grow stuff on. The few bamboo stakes I had left were old and small. I wanted nice big hefty bamboo stakes to make awesome garden structures with – like the beautiful tall bamboo A-frames of Charlie and Jo at Let’s Face the Music. And I did not want to pay for them.

Someone must have read my mind. Last night, a lady in my neighbourhood posted online that she had some bamboo available if anyone wanted it. I wanted it! So, this morning I went bamboo hunting. Not really hunting, more like gathering. I was instructed to take as much as I wanted to from her gully, where they had chopped a whole lot down, as they were going to take whatever was left to the dump in the near future. The dump! No! Must hoard the bamboo!

Getting the bamboo out wasn’t exactly straightforward. I had to park my car at the top of the road, walk down into the adjacent reserve, squeeze through a fence, throw my bamboo selections (restricted to car and carrying size) into a pile, squeeze back out the fence, pick up all the bamboo (nicely judged), carry it back up the slope and down the road a bit to the car and squeeze it all into the car. If anyone saw a crazy lady walking down the road with a load of bamboo and stuffing it into a car, yup, that was me. A lot of the bamboo poles still had branches and leaves attached, so it was not particularly graceful. But it was awesome.

Bamboo that was too tall to stand up in the garage.

Bamboo stash.

When I got the bamboo home I cut all the side branches off the poles and stacked them in the garage. Some of them are already dry and some are still green. I kept all the cut offs that weren’t too small to use as dibbers for potting up seedlings, garden markers or mini stakes. The smallest bits and the leaves went into the compost bin. Everything got used. Excellent.

I wanted to get more bamboo, and bigger bamboo. There were some massive poles that I eyed up, knowing they wouldn’t fit in the car. But I had many other things to do, like grocery shopping and work. I almost put off the grocery shopping, but I knew I had to get chicken if I wanted chicken, bacon, leek and mushroom pie for dinner. Pie. Bamboo. Pie. As much as the bamboo excited me, I love that pie. Anyway, a little patience goes a long way. I have arranged for The Husband’s Father to drop the trailer around tomorrow, and, provided The Husband gets home from work at a a reasonable hour, I will proceed to persuade him to help me get some more bamboo before it gets dark. I mentioned this to him tonight and he kind of grunted. I took that as an ok! Or at least it will be if my powers of persuasion win out. He may be a little bit bamboozled…