A 'Scouring of the Shire' hint?
Tehanu @ 4:56 am EST

Amargasaur and I have been arguing about whether this picture is or is not proof that 'The Scouring of the Shire' takes place in the movies. A. argues that if this is Sam greeting his daughter Elanor on his return home, the only reason there would be tree stumps in the background is if we saw 'Sharkey's people' cutting down trees at some point. I can't see any stumps, just farm junk. He's convinced though.

Amargasaur insists: "...but after adjusting the lighting in the pic they are much clearer. The location of them is perhaps hard to say exactly, but in the first picture, there are two tree stumps, small ones, half way up on the left side of the picture. You might mistake them for barrels of some sort, or something like a black paint can, but at the bottom of them they widen and seem to be set asoundly in the grass. So...look on the left side of the picture, half way up, right against the side of the pic.
Hope that helps!"
Well, my screen isn't good enough to show all that. Still, this is one of a number of encouraging signs that the Scouring is in (like the burning of the mill on the Hobbiton set, for instance.)