Rebirth

The aftermath of the flea wars is taking some getting used to. I am adjusting to the sunlight that now streams into my living room, study and bed room with the bamboo stand gone. My view is the burned, scarred remains of the bamboo stand, surrounded by a jagged-toothed bamboo fence and leftover spikes of bamboo, but no green foliage. I should not complain since with the fence I have privacy and security, just no green.

The spikes were aptly moved to the back yard to make a fence there. What existed was hedge row that divided my yard from an adjoining field behind me. One of the neighbors had claimed the field for a garden, so there was freshly plowed ground, waiting for the rains and planting time. I despaired when the four diligent fence builders returned to chop away the hedge row and construct a bamboo divider between my yard and the field. Again, the green was gone.

The clean-up

The fence building took about 3 days,, during which I was again entertained by their measuring and chopping. The last day of their construction, a young woman came to my gate to tell me that the HR Director had said that she could gather up the remains for the bamboo as firewood, if she wanted it. This served two purposes. It gave her fire wood and it cleaned up my yard. I certainly couldn’t complain. But once again, I missed the green of the back yard.

New bamboo growth among the ruins

Thursday, it began to rain again. We had had about two weeks of sunny, dry weather, great for fence building. But this is the beginning of the rainy season and the rains are hoped for. There was rejoicing when they came, soft and steady for about 24 hours. But from my heart, there was even greater rejoicing when they stopped and I went out to enjoy the freshly washed air. There along the fence line, near where the bamboo once stood, were several small shoots of bamboo, poking their heads about the charred remains. I was elated by the rebirth of the green and of my hope. I had hoped that the bamboo would grow back, but I wasn’t certain how long that might take. With just a day of rains, the growth had begun. I now have hope for the grass and the plants that were seared as well and maybe even for the hedge row in the back, since it was only cut down, not dug out. I am hoping for the rebirth of more and more green around my house