rice must be submerged for its growing cycle

a young girl’s organdy dress

the promise of a new harvest

heading westward on Road 39, which connects Bayliss (pop. 100) with the interstate, flanked by fields like silver mirrors, square ponds leveled by laser-guided equipment, the valley is so flat that looming in the distance is Mt. Shasta, 14,162 feet high, 150 miles away and white with snow in August.

Monsanto says 2004 was the ninth consecutive
year of double-digit growth in biotech hectares

in summer, the ponds are green with new shoots, a perfect green of sunny jungle, the radiation of one hundred degree heat and one hundred percent chance of sunshine.

mirages form in the swampy fields and the dry air becomes humid