Termites

I went to get some scrap wood and cut green branches from the lady up the road who wanted to get rid of them. Inside one of the sticks of old bamboo there was an old termite nest. I managed to save a small part of it. A lot of country houses in japan have a sort of earth floor entry hall and then the familiar paper doors. This house has such an entrance way and the paper doors or Shoji have a glass section all around at head height when sitting on the floor. When I went to pick up the wood the lady was sitting at her little table with a charcoal heater under it and watching TV. She lives alone, but she looked fairly content there in that little linear section of her life picked out for visitors by the ribbon of glass.
I am not a big fan of termites, but they certainly know how to create themselves an ergonomic space. It is a shame that they so often make it by chewing up mine. If you live in a part of the universe and an age where you have both termites and ball point pens you can have a fun few minutes by drawing a line on paper with the pen and watching termites follow it like miniature circus trainees. Apparently the chemicals in the pen ink resemble those used to make scent or pheromone trails by the bugsters.