According to wikipedia, my guinea pig is the domesticated descendent of a closely-related but different species of cavy that lives wild in the Andes. All our cultivated species of potato originate from a single potato domesticated in the Andes.
My guinea pigs will eat almost any greens; tubers such as carrots, parsnips and dandelion roots; apple peels; and the green rind of a watermelon. They'll eat hay and cardboard and plastic bags. They won't eat the potato or its peelings.
I think that's interesting.
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I've been reading about terra preta, the Amazonian "superdirt" made from charcoal and organic waste. Did you know that archaeologists now believe the Spanish explorers' reports of large, complex societies in the Amazon? For years scientists dismissed those reports as gold-fevered exaggerations.
I think that's interesting, too.
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I have some new year's resolutions but also I have a new year's research project. (Some people knit; some people quilt. I research things.) I want to know who lived in Central Oregon in 1491 and what their lives were like, and I also want to know how we know that.
When I mentioned this to my family, I added, "It doesn't appear that anybody lived here. There wasn't anything to eat." My kids shouted, "That's not true!" There's serviceberries, they said, and huckleberries and currants and fish and deer and birds...
Apparently the children actually listen when I muse aloud. How about that.
3 comments:
You need to read, if you haven't, a book called 1491 by Charles C Mann. That's where I found out about the soil building bit. And I think you might get some good info on your research.
My clothes horse used to fall apart under the weight of snowy clothes.
Totally interesting!
Lots of interesting things! I didn't know (or didn't retain, also possilbe) that potatoes originated in Peru.
Keep us posted about your research. It sounds like a great project.
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