My marimo balls arrived a few weeks ago and are quietly doing whatever it is they do. They arrived in a little glassine envelope, moist and fuzzy to the touch, perfectly spherical and smelling very pleasantly mossy. I’m pretty happy with them. Take a good long look at them now because I probably won’t show you them again until they’ve achieved thunderous girth, and that’s going to take a while.
My marimo balls at present.
An approximation of what my marimo balls will look like the next time I show them to you. I plan to keep them intact so you should picture me reclining on top rather than posing inside, as this woman was doing inside a dull old grass ball at the Hampton Court Palace garden show. Photo by Luke MacGregor/Reuters via The Guardian.
A certain helpful someone who was cleaning up my apartment while I was at work blearily mistook my marimo balls for some sort of culinary experiment gone wrong and flung them into the sink, but they don’t appear to have suffered for having spent time out of their little glass home. The ensuing email discussion (“those are intentional pets!”) brought forth Gmail ads for Mr. Big Moss Collection (“You should see whether they might be interested in retaining your consulting services . . .”). Fellow moss-keepers take note, Mr. Big does not go around “collecting” other people’s mosses the way houseguests do; instead it is a big — supposedly — collection of mosses for sale, some of which are nearly as attractive as my marimo balls.
Lunar Camel Co. 