Wild Hope Homestead

It was early evening on Friday. I eagerly waited for The Husband to come home. The Husband called from work to say that he wouldn’t be finished for another hour. It would be too dark to go bamboo hunting then. Sad face. We couldn’t do it on the weekend as we were going to Auckland. But 10 minutes later, he called back to say that someone had given him a hand and he was heading home!

I was a bit more prepared this time. I got my gardening gloves, my loppers, a pair of secateurs and some ratchet tie downs. We also had the trailer, which meant the bigger bamboo poles I had eyed up could be taken, and The Husband brought a sack barrow along. I don’t think The Husband quite knew the extent of this mission. That was probably a good thing at the end of his working week. On the way to the bamboo site I told him I had made him some crunchy peanut butter. That was probably a good thing too. I feel like it appeased his feelings towards my nutty bamboo mission later on. Marriage is all about give and take, after all.

I showed The Husband where to park the car as close as possible to the reserve. Which isn’t that close. This is probably when The Husband started thinking I was nuts. We walked down into the reserve, which only took a few minutes, really, but The Husband thought I was off my rocker. I think he was also hungry. I squeezed through the narrow part of the fence into where the bamboo was, assuring him that this was what the property owner had told me to do. He wasn’t in a hurry to squeeze through the fence so he stayed on the other side. I selected bamboo poles, chopped them to a transportable size, then passed them over to him to chop off most the side branches and put them in a pile. It was a pretty efficient system actually. Of course, I had the harder job; stomping around in the undergrowth and bamboo piles, deciding what poles to take, hauling them out from underneath each other, trying not to trip over and practising my javelin skills by throwing the poles close to the fence. I was pleased to find I had javelin skills. I found this all highly exciting, but I don’t know if The Husband was excited.

Eventually, we decided we probably had enough to haul back to the car. The Husband strapped the pile of bamboo onto the sack barrow. He then proceeded to haul it through the reserve with the strap over his shoulder and the sack barrow horizontal, wheeling along behind him. I really wish I had taken my camera. We got up the slope, only tipping the sack barrow once. Then we paraded down the suburban street to the car; The Husband in front, lugging the trolley of ridiculously large bamboo poles, and me walking behind with my tools and a couple of small poles. This was even more hilarious and I couldn’t help laughing out loud, but not loud enough for The Husband to hear me. I didn’t think he would appreciate my laughter at that moment. We lifted the whole sack barrow of bamboo onto the trailer, strapped it in and brought it home.

This haul is even more impressive than my first. The longest of the ‘normal’ bamboo poles is just over 4m. Then there is the Mother Pole. It is 3.9m long and ridiculously fat. When I saw it I had to have it. I have thoughts of sawing it to make some sort of furniturey thing. Obviously, a well-thought-out plan. Now the garage rafters are stocked with bamboo. I need to tap into my creative genius. Just as soon as I finish my big assignment…

The ‘normal’ poles, some of which are pretty fat.

The Mother Pole.