The Shire

That’s where I’ve decided we live now. It’s as close an image as I can give for modern folks from the US. The patchwork of crops across rolling hillsides, scattered small houses integrated into the pattern, it all seems rather Hobbiton. The last few days we have spent quite a bit of time out walking the roads to trails to pathways out and around the surrounding hillsides. Mostly trying to learn who and where our community is. There are fences between the plots of land, but there is always a common ground path between the fences that separate the properties, and pretty much anywhere that a road makes a long switchback or turn, there is a much shorter (though often steeper) walking path.
It is the difference of a society that is still largely dependent on their feet for transportation. The roads are there, but they are only used by the buses, and the trucks that haul the produce, therefore, they only have to get “close”. The houses by and large are not on the roads, but on small pathways, and are frequently surrounded by the crops that that family grows.
The differences from the Shire are obvious as well. Firstly, it is much steeper than either my or Peter Jackson’s image was. It is not the rolling English (or New Zealand) countryside. It is a steeper rivercut valley. The other big difference is that the major export is not tobacco, rather it is cabbage and potatoes. Still, it is a very picturesque place to live, even without the round doors and furry feet.