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BAMBOO MUSIC

Down the road a farmer has clearcut perhaps 50 square meters of the quarter-acre wilderness (right in the midst of the rice paddies) that must have been there for a hundred years or more, judging by the size of the trees; the growth included varieties of beech, cedar, persimmon, bamboo etc. I spotted it as high quality firewood and mentioned it to Echo, who while going down the road met the guy who was cutting it, he said he was just going to haul it away, that if we wanted it we could take it, so we took all that could be carried, leaving only two large cedar logs and one immense beech log, maybe 5-7 meters long that made me wish I was a wood sculptor, what a fine totem pole or something it would make! All told, maybe two cords of firewood. We also took a bunch of fat bamboo, maybe 12 meters long, dragging it up the mountain hanging a long way out of the back of the van, scraping on the road, what a musical racket it made!! Big bamboo stalks, for who knows what. The bamboo will tell us; it has only a green voice yet, but soon it will be golden; and then we shall see.