New Shoot

I'm thinking small today. Micro. Down on the level of microbes, thinking that it (the world down there) is just as nice a place as any. Why? Because I just spotted our first bamboo shoot of the season. It's in the very center of this picture, or at least you can just make out the tip. In a week or so this guy will be out completely, glossy green, bigger around than the thick end of a baseball bat, with one mission in life: to grow fast.

While I was down on my hands and knees I noticed that the stone patio has developed a really nice patina, a variety of microscopic fungus and moss on the stone itself, shades of green and gray, a velvet patch of fungus between the stones, and of course all the weeds that I am neglecting for now. We see only the refracted light surface of this world, not the amazing microscopic detail.

I got my face close, then closer, but my eyes have conspired against me so that I cannot see objects up close. I'm tempted to go get my glasses and go back outside, back on my hands and knees, to get a better look, but I guess I don't care that much.

The bamboo shoot is different. I'll keep an eye on him for the next several weeks.