Bamboo Farming

The Hope Springs Eternal Bamboo Farm is officially open for business. You may pre-order your pots of bamboo now for delivery in approximately 6 to 25 years, depending on how large you would like the bamboo. We might have a sign out by then. A pot this size, for example, will cost you $35 to $3,000 (depending upon the rate of inflation) and will be ready in 6 years:




The Hope Springs Eternal Bamboo Farm offers a wide variety of bamboo species (3). There's the Buddha Bamboo:



Except that that's not our Buddha Bamboo. Actually I'm not sure that's Buddha Bamboo at all. But it kind of looks like the fuller, much taller version of our Buddha Bamboo, which is not really impressive at all at this point and not worthy of a photo.

We also (at some point several years from now) will have this variety available for purchase:



It grows into a hedge -- in about three years -- not sure what it's called of course. You'll have to ask Flamingo Joe or our Vietnamese farmer neighbor Henry, who gave us the bamboo and is going into business with Joe.

It was a tough negotiation hammering out the details of the joint venture agreement with Henry. Flamingo Joe said, "Henry what do you say we go into the bamboo business together and split the profits 50/50?" Henry laughed real low, rubbed his chin and then said, "No no no Joe. Let's split 60/40. You get 60, I get 40."

Henry is a very smart man. He probably knew what was going to be involved in getting a bamboo farm up and running -- in his mind whoever digs the really big holes should get 60% of the profits. He does not want to have any responsibility for digging the really big holes . . .

. . .or putting up the bamboo teepees:



When I got home from hanging out at Neiman's eating bonbons (or the skating rink), I was very impressed with the bamboo teepee. It did not occur to me until three hours later when I was in the shower that Flamingo Joe had managed to get that teepee contraption up all by himself (he would tell you that he does all kinds of complicated things all by himself that I never notice or appreciate, but I can assure all of you that I do indeed take note when he straightens the steering rod thingy on the tractor all by himself by lowering the bucket on top of it until it's bent back in place like he did today) -- he tied those ropes a good 12 feet off the ground at the apex of the teepee and somehow managed to get all three sticks standing up at once. And I didn't see the ladder anywhere around. Apparently, to be a good bamboo farmer, you also have to be good at geometry. So you have to dig really big holes and be good at geometry. Or short of being good at geometry, you have to be able to put the ladder away in a hurry so your wife doesn't see it when she comes home.