Kakheti, Georgia

Vineyards and mountains

Me using a mortar and pestle on walnuts: with flash and without (blurred handheld long exposure)

Fall colours: marigolds, used for food colouring, and grape leaves

Kakheti, Georgia

Grape leaves in fall colours

Cross outside a village cemetery church

Grape harvester children in bronze

Hand-embroidered St George icon

Persimmon leaf

Kakheti, Georgia

My 600th post!

Top: Working on a car in its 50s

2nd: Someone picking the last of the grapes

3rd: Apple pieces drying

4th & 5th: Fall pear and persimmon leaves

Where are you, countries?

Just before my 600th post I thought I'd list the countries from which no one has stopped by the blog so far. (92 countries have visited, though.) This list isn't perfect because, as friends in Papua New Guinea told me, their visits are registered as having originated in Australia; and there may be other such anomalies. Nonetheless, here's the list of no-shows to date, as complete as I can make it (144 of them):

Afghanistan, Albania, American Samoa, Angola, Anguilla, Antarctica, Antigua, Aruba, Ascension, Bahrain, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Christmas Island, Cocos-Keeling Islands, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Congo, Dem. Rep. of (former Zaire), Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cuba, Curaçao, Diego Garcia, Djibouti, Dominica, East Timor, Easter Island, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Malvinas), Faroe Islands, Fiji Islands, French Antilles, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabonese Republic, Gambia, Gibraltar, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Iceland, Iraq, Kiribati, Korea (North), Kyrgyz Republic, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macao, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali Republic, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritania, Mayotte Island, Micronesia, (Federal States of), Midway Island, Monaco, Mongolia, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands Antilles, Nevis, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Marianas Islands, Oman, Palau, Palestinian Settlements, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Réunion Island, Rwandese Republic, St. Helena, St. Kitts/Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Pierre & Miquelon, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, São Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles Republic, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somali Democratic Republic, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togolese Republic, Tokelau, Tonga Islands, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, US Virgin Islands, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Vatican City, Wake Island, Wallis and Futuna Islands, Yemen, Zambia, Zanzibar, Zimbabwe.

Kakheti, Georgia

Top: Persimmon leaves, always a riot of colour this time of year

2nd: Pears ripening, nearly ready

3rd: Persimmons on the tree (through their leaves in the foreground), time to pick!

4th: Barberries again

5th: Wool drying; carding and spinning come next, all by hand, before it's knitted into something useful, usually thick socks or a vest for winter