Steep, Vietnam

It appears to be recently planted corn that is growing on this steep hillside. There are actually six people working on the mountainside field pictured here. In this made-to-post, low-res jpeg, they show up as little more than fuzzy specs. Above the left side of the house and a bit above the bottom of the stand of trees that extends towards the middle of the photo, there is a tiny red speck. That is the shirt of a farmer working in the field.

Scott Farm, near Brattleboro, Vermont

During my stay in Amherst, friend Kate and I drove up to Brattleboro Vermont to take a look. Among other things, we struck out to visit the home of Rudyard Kipling, which is located a few miles north of Brattleboro. It had never occurred to me that Kipling wrote part or all of Kim and other stories about India in a rustic New England location. File that under life is full of small surprises. In any case, the Kipling house is rented out to private parties – one cannot even enter the grounds to look at the house from the outside. Undaunted, we continued down Kipling Road for a ways until we came upon the Scott Farm. We turned into the driveway in search of apples – mid-September is apple season after all. The farm did indeed have apples, and it also was home to something called The Stone Trust – a school that trains and certifies people to build dry stone walls. School was not in session during out visit, but it was interesting to walk around the grounds and see evidence of the students’ efforts.