Below are the answers (in bold) to the exercise in Recasting a Paragraph in the Past Tense III: A Revision Exercise Based on a Paragraph by Edward Abbey.

Appalachia

We drove through the country, out here where the people used to live, among forgotten general stores and deconsecrated churches. Hysterical hens tore across the path of the car, hogs rooted in the oak groves, an old horse rested his chin in the crotch of a butternut tree and watched life pass him by.

We saw hand-built WPA bridges arching polluted but pretty streams where great leprous-skinned sycamores leaned above the water. We passed a farmhouse with a somewhat crumpled look, like a worn but comfortable shoe; a swing hung by chains on the long front porch. We saw an antique John Deere tractor, the kind with iron lug wheels, a flatbed Ford with two flat tires. A poor but honest scene.
(Adapted from Appalachian Wilderness: The Great Smoky Mountains by Edward Abbey, with photographs by Eliot Porter. Dutton, 1973)

Selected Works of Nonfiction by Edward Abbey

• Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, 1968
• Appalachian Wilderness, 1973
• The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West, 1977
• Abbey's Road, 1979
• Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside, 1984
• One Life at a Time, Please, 1988
• A Voice Crying in the Wilderness: Notes from a Secret Journal, 1989
• The Best of Edward Abbey (excerpts from fiction and nonfiction), 1992
• Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951-1989, edited by David Petersen, 1994

Related Revision Exercises:

• Recasting a Paragraph in the Past Tense I: From "Memorandum" by E.B. White
• Recasting a Paragraph in the Past Tense II: From "In the Heart of the Heart of the Country" by William Gass