The assumption over the last week has been that economic distress is limited to small towns and rural regions. That's not the case in Pennsylvania.

Without public transportation, rural Americans with disabilities face a difficult choice: move to the city to get the services they need, or stay in their hometowns and try to get by. Even in Kansas, where nine out of ten counties have some form of rural transit, Dorothy Russell can't get 15 miles up the road for dialysis.

Kentucky was a treacherous border state during the Civil War. A genealogical research trip to Menifee County turns up Mason jars and a murder.

How does a small vineyard in a rural area make a sale?

It helps to have good wine. And David Mudd discovered it also helps to have sheep. Writing for New Farm, Mudd interviewed Chuck Smith, owner of Smith-Berry Vineyard near New Castle, Kentucky. Smith now has 21 Border Cheviot sheep that are weeding and fertilizing his grapevines. They also provide a pastoral backdrop for visitors.

“I haven’t studied it, but I think people tend to buy more wine the longer they stay around the place. And they come back more often," Smith said. His vineyard is forty miles from Louisville and twice that distance from Cincinnati. "So if the sheep are an attraction, I’m getting at least a ‘two-fer;’ I get my weeds and grass eaten, and I give people another reason to come.”

Collaborating with sheep is an old idea that wineries have rediscovered in California, too.

Are feral pigs private property, an invasive species or wildlife? The latter, says Pennsylvania's Supreme Court. Enthusiastic hog hunters must wait for boar season, whenever that may be.