Around Thành Công Village

Paddy with setting sun. Paddy fields at sunset with a cloche covering a seedbed of sprouting grains Much of the land around Thành Công village is parcelled up amongst the villagers who grow two crops each year: rice, and maybe ground nuts or sweet potatoes. Behind the village the hills rise towards 3,000 feet and between them and the village is a large reseroir. The hills and the ground beyond the villagers' fields are wooded with recent planting of eucalyptus and pine. Seed bed. Rice grains are often sown in seed beds like these, then the individual seedlings are planted out into the fields Newly planted paddy. The fields are flooded for the young plants Two sowings of young seedings. Here there are two lots of planting: those on the left a day or two old, and on the right a couple of weeks - but growth is very much temperature dependent Foot high paddy . Within a month the rice is a foot high Women and chickens. Chickens and weeders - heads down Village reservoir. The reservoir sits between the hills and the village Scrub land beside reservoir. The water is surrounded by trees which run over the hills, and with this scrubby sandy terrain, which in fact converts well to productive ground Bowl collecting gum from tree. Tree with bowl collecting gum, part of the regime of managed woodlands that is now in place Sign requiring protection of woodland. One of the concrete signs placed by the government as part of its replanting scheme. These exhort people to protect, and not destroy, the woodlands which, it stresses in red, belong to us all Pine and Eucalyptus.

The history of these woods, as throughout Vietnam, is poignant. The combination of the U.S. destruction of vegetation, and the near famine conditions that resulted from the ensuing American economic blockade, left the land denuded. The governments response has been the massive planting of fast growing eucalyptus and pine.
Fields beside village. The fields, village of Thành Công, and hills beyond New tomb. This tomb and enclosure by the village has been newly rebuilt - debris is still visible Buffalo grazing among eucalyptus. Young eucalyptus and grazing animals Tombs in the woods. Other tombs in the woods. For more on tombs go to a page on graves in Tĩnh Gia Go to another page. Seed dispenser. Clearly a cycle has been the inspiration for this homemade seed dispenser Cart on path. A cart on a path to the fields The small fields, that surround the village, stem from the de-nationalisation of land at which time each household was given a number of these patches, this allowed the good and poorer land to be divided fairly amongst the community. Using seed dispenser. Neighbours watch as the man shows how his seed dispenser works Weeding. The constant and backbreaking job of weeding dominates working life Furrows. Furrowed land with some form of young cucurbitaceae (cucumber family) Motor plough Another shot of the fields around Thành Công, but maybe you can see that the man is no longer led by a cow or buffalo, but by a motor plough. All the animals dotting the area Go to another page. beyond him will be used for work as they have been for thousands of years, but change is coming everywhere in Vietnam The next page shows something more of the animals that work for the village - the cows and buffalos. Buffalo swimming. line
Saturday 25th February 2017 Murphy on duty

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