Roofful

Every hut had the same accessories — a bedraggled woman and a tangle of children on the mud floor, a roofful of vultures and a great pile of the most beautiful pearl shells drifted like snow against the house.

The Lyndonville, Vermont, house that Rodale's New Shelter March 1983 cover hailed as a new generation in solar technology is a new home, designed from the ground up for a roofful of active water collectors heating a concrete floor slab, which then passively heats the house.

I have a shed whose roof has a gentle pitch, and this summer I'm going to grow a roofful of pumpkins and squash.