I can't remember exactly when I first noticed bamboo growing in our backyard. There was one mature tree just on the northwest side of our property. The rhizome (the part that spreads bamboo) crept under our fence from our northern neighbor. But what made the urgency of the matter really sink in was when I saw several new shoots emerging slightly east of the mature tree.
It seems every time I saw them, there were more and they had grown taller. It was obvious that I needed to act fast if I wanted to control this. Otherwise, it would spread like the Coronavirus...well, maybe not that bad.

Bamboo was the enemy. But before you destroy your enemy, you need to first understand it. Norma and I did a lot of reading on-line to learn how bamboo spreads.

wikiHow - How to Control the Spread of Bamboo

Bamboo Plants HQ - How to Stop Bamboo From Spreading?

Bamboo Garden

I wanted to leave herbicides as a last resort because we have chickens that eat plants. In general, we want to keep our backyard as poison-free as possible.

Next, I started digging...not to remove the problem, but to determine the extent of spread.

There were about 6-10 rhizomes in our yard. The longest spread 23.5 feet south from our north side fence. Each rhizome produced several shoots, generally every 6-24 inches. I could generally trace the rhizome path by looking for the shoots. But not all shoots are visible. The small ones may not have broken through the ground. In one of my finds, there was a rhizome that spread 5.5 feet beyond the last shoot.

In general, the rhizomes are easy to remove. They were typically between three to nine inches below the surface. In one case, it was extremely difficult to remove because it had grown between the roots of our cherry tree, but in general, I could dig them up easily. Or, if the ground was soft, I could simply pull them up. In the below photo, I am holding rhizomes and shoots that I dug up.
Here, you can see how they ran east, towards the morning sun and parallel to our fence.
Norma dug up a section that ran south.

What do the rhizomes look like? Ours are segmented with roots coming from each segment. Sometimes they are fibrous and have an orangey exterior.
Often, they are a half to one inch in diameter. Here's what they look like if you cut one open.
It was pretty rare for a rhizome to bifurcate but it did occur a few times. So if you pull them up, just make sure you don't break one at a junction and leave some behind.
What about the shoots? I sometimes call them "spikes." These are the things to look for. They grow out of the rhizomes. This is what they normally look like.
You can peel the leaves off the exterior as if they are corn.
Your fingernails can easily pierce the soft parts under the leaves. I know that people in Asia eat bamboo shoots but I don't know what kind they eat or how they prepare it. But I do know my chickens found the shoots tasty, especially if I broke it open to expose the fleshy white part.
I found an article titled BBC News - Coronavirus lockdown: Asian cooks make bamboo shoots top trend which I might refer to later if I want to harvest the shoots for food.

I removed the shoots, rhizomes, and all traces of bamboo in my yard. I disposed of them in compostable bags to be picked up by the county.

After reading about barriers, I purchased "Bamboo Shield for Colder Climates - 60 mil thick x 24" depth - 70 feet" from Bamboo Shield for $139.30. At first, I tried ordering it from Amazon but it would have taken a long time to ship. I think the whole Coronavirus thing has Amazon backed up.

In our area, we can could have gone with the 24" size or the 30" barrier which is thicker and more expensive. I figure since we are in the northern part of our zone and all the rhizomes I've seen haven't been deep, the cheaper stuff would suffice.

I dug a 62 foot long trench that starts at the west side of our fence and parallels our north fence, about 14" from it.
Unfortunately, digging this fence meant severing some of the roots of our cherry tree on the north side. I put something up to help keep it from falling but I don't expect it to survive. There's no way I could have not severed some of the roots and still have installed the barrier properly. [As of 2023, the tree is still standing, alive and well.]

The barrier arrived on the evening on April 22, 2020. I installed it the following morning.
I finished my work shortly before a storm arrived dropping about an inch of rain.
I think I installed the barrier a couple of inches too low. I don't want it too high because I want to be able to mow over it. But overall, I think I did a pretty good job. If rhizomes creep over the top, I think they will be easy to spot and remove. They definitely aren't going under it.

I know the barrier is thick enough to stop bamboo roots but there are a lot of other roots that grow in my yard which are much bigger. Hopefully those roots will not damage the barrier.

I uncovered a lot of things while digging in my yard.

On April 16, 2020, I found a couple cicada nymphs which I fed them to my chickens.
I also found lots of termites living in decaying logs. The chickens ate those too but I'm guessing one cicada nymph has as many calories as 100+ termites.

Norma found a couple of box turtles. They were both underground and looking very sleepy. I expect they were still hibernating. We had some freezing temperatures forecast so after relocating them, we put them in similar soil and covered them up with some dirt and brush.

On April 17, 2020, I found several patent leather beetles living in decaying logs. My chickens ate them too.

Norma may have found the turtles but I found a gray tree frog.

I also uncovered a lot of other cool stuff that I would not classify as "critters."

The first was something that I posted on Facebook. Just a couple of photos of me holding something that resembled a saber-toothed tiger tooth. I asked folks to guess what it was. I had a lot of guesses but none were right. So I posted the following answer:

Where does the branch of a tree start? On the surface, we might think it begins where it visually protrudes from the trunk. But it originates much deeper than that. Anyone who has worked with lumber has likely seen knots. These are cross-sectional pieces of where a limb forms in the trunk. Such branch beginnings are very dense, so when the tree breaks down over time, these parts are often the last to remain.

About eight years ago, we had some dead or dying Norway Spruce trees taken down. The trunk was cut into eight foot long sections which I then moved into a back corner of our yard. Eventually, the termites, bark beetles, patent leather beetles, bacteria, etc. broke down the wood to the point it was mushy. But the dense pieces forming the branches residing in the trunk remained intact.

This feature of a dense portion remaining after the other parts have worn away is geologically reminiscent of a monadnock. Sugarloaf Mountain is the only monadnock in Maryland.

Living where I do and spending so much time on the water, it is unusual for me to say "horseshoe" without the next word being "crab." But on April 21, 2020, I found a horseshoe while digging in my yard.
Would I also find a horse skeleton? Maybe my property was once part of a farm that had horses. Probably not. About 20 feet from my find is an old horseshoe pit built by one of the previous owners. Also if you look closely at the horseshoe, it says "Ringer." Regardless, it was a lucky find.

I find a lot of broken glass and sometimes shards of ceramic when I dig in my backyard. There is never much glass or ceramic in one spot. It seems to be randomly scattered and it is always small pieces that don't look like they fit together. Rarely do I find something that isn't broken. But on April 23, 2020, I found a bottle. There was no lid and it was full of dirt.
Underneath, it read
W.T. Co.
3
U.S.A.

After doing a web search, I found something that looks exactly the same at EBay - W.T. Co 1 USA Cobalt Blue 3.25 inches Tall Bottle (a broken link as of 2020). The only difference is that the writing on the bottom has the number '1' instead of '3'. Unfortunately, there is no description of what the bottle was used for or when it was made. It sold for $35, used.

Later, I found out from Glass Bottle Marks - Whitall Tatum Company that this is a Whitall Tatum pharmacy bottle made between 1901 and 1924. Though unlikely, maybe the bottle held cocaine since that didn't become illegal until 1914.