1 . When Lauren Schroeder, a teenager from Iowa, US, showed up to a community food drive last year, she didn’t see much food that actually provide people with nutrition — just a lot of canned goods. Determined to make a(n) _______, she took action. With the _______ of her parents, who provided her with half an acre (英亩) of land, she _________ 7,000 pounds of produce and gave it all away to local food banks and non-profits.

Although Lauren had no prior experience _________ a garden, she took up studies of agronomy (农学) and gardening, and really put her _________ into it. Her work soon drew the _______ of an organization called Future Farmers of America, which awarded her a small grant (补助金) for _______ and seeds.

Lauren _________ 2 to 3 hours daily to the tasks of watering and weeding (除杂草), and her efforts soon _______. She began __________ 15 types of vegetables to organizations like Wheatland Nursing Home. “It was really __________ for me to know that anyone who wanted fresh vegetables would be able to get them,” Lauren said.

Now, she has turned her half acre into a full acre and ________ the number of vegetables to 20 different species. “How could you not be ________,” said her mother, “she really chose to ________ learning about agronomy, and took it a step further by genuinely ________ those in need.”

2 . Country diary: a chainsaw massacre in the alder woods

On an overcast, drizzly afternoon at Durham Wildlife Trust’s low Barns nature _________ alder provided the brightest splash of color in the _________

A tree had been felled and sawn into _________. Chainsaw wounds on this species can look like a massacre, because soon after the timber is cut, it turns a lurid shade of red, almost like blood, in stark contrast to the battleship-grey bark, _________ those wounds, which briefly _________ raw meat, fade to orange and finally to chestnut brown.

When this reserve was established half a century ago, around old gravel pits (采沙场), some moisture-loving alders were planted to help _________ a bare, windswept site. Alder wood is one of the finest sources of charcoal, and the plantation trees are old enough now to be coppiced, to produce barbecue fuel.

There is also an important natural alder wood here, created by a cataclysm almost two and a half centuries ago, which led to the designation of the reserve as a site of special scientific interest.

The Great Flood of 1771 _________ Weardale, washing away bridges all the way to the coast. When the water subsided, the course of the River Wear had _________ half a mile south, and the old riverbed became what is now the reserve’s Long Alder Wood, the finest example of its kind in the region.

When it sometimes floods, this tangle of gnarled（苍劲嶙峋的） trees has a _________ of the Florida Everglades（佛罗里达大沼泽） about it, with mossy, fallen trunks sinking back into the ooze (淤泥). Year round, there are wonderful __________ to watch birds from an embankment level with the tree canopy. This afternoon an acrobatic flock of about 30 goldfinches（金翅雀）__________ and chattered through the twigs, feeding on tiny seeds that fall from the woody cones.

Sadly, since the mid-1990s, another__________ has befallen this locally __________ woodland: alder dieback disease has killed around half the mature trees. Coppicing is leading to some regeneration, though in this precious __________ dead timber is allowed to lay where it falls, reserved for the needs of a __________ community of fungi, invertebrates and woodpeckers, rather than back-garden burger-flippers on summer evenings.