Down the Lane

Today I went biking in the local neighborhoods and along the nearby river, trying to get into condition to do the East Coast soon.

Had to run into town to get tick medicine for the dogs first. In this Year Without a Winter the ticks have already started to arrive on our hounds.

On the way to the river I passed this shop selling and repairing used machines.

Along the Han River in eastern Taichung county a farmer was busy with a wheelbarrow.

The Han River.

Egrets, as always, somehow manage to find food in this concrete wasteland.

Just outside of Fengyuan I thought I'd turn down this lane to have a look at the farm-and-factory belt that comprises the exoskeleton of most cities on the western Taiwan plain.

In Taiwan, you can have an instant garage.

An orderly house surrounded by green.

I won't swear to it, but I think they were growing carrots here.

Typical farm and factory country.

The road is my warehouse.

Gardens may be found shoehorned into every empty plot.

An irrigation ditch runs past a rice field, a common Taiwan sight.

Farmers sometimes dam local rills or knock holes in drainage ditches, two of the many ways they obtain water without paying.

Lunch.

An old woman rifles through someone's trash looking for recyclables she can sell for a few extra bucks.

The rice just went in a couple of weeks ago, greening the island.

The orderliness of the rice fields contrasts with the open sewers that so often are local creeks and rivers.

A rose farm confronts a large, gray factory.

Terraces march up to the foothills.

Some kind of gourd?

Heaps of old tile lie shattered in an abandoned lot.

A house, demolished.

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