Sunday, February 17, 2008 - Rockhound State Park, Deming NM
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Sunrise at Rockhound State Park
Rockhound State Park backs up against a ridge on the north side of this little valley and overlooks the mountainside to its south. The early morning light playing off that mountain ridge and the clouds it precipitates from the cool moisture passing by on the prevailing winds is endlessly fascinating.
And drop dead gorgeous. What a glorious view to wake up to.
Night camp
Site 28 - Rockhound State Park, Deming NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - good signal
- Find other references to Rockhound on this website
- List the nights I've camped here
- Go to the Rockhound State Park website
- Get a Google map of this area
- Check the weather here
Teosinte and the Improbability of Maize
The ancestors of wheat, rice, millet, and barley look like their domesticated descendants; because they are both edible and highly productive, one can easily imagine how the idea of planting them for food came up. Maize can't reproduce itself, because its kernals are securely wrapped in the husk, so Indians must have developed it from some other species. But there are no wild species that resemble maize. Its closest genetic relative is a mountain grass called teosinte that looks strikingly different - for one thing, it "ears" are smaller than baby corn served in Chinese restaurants. No one eats teosinte, because it produces too little grain to be worth harvesting. In creating modern maize from this unpromising plant, Indians performed a feat so improbable that archaeologists and biologists have argued for decades over how it was achieved. Coupled with squash, beans, and avocados, maize provided Mesoamerica with a balanced diet, one arguably more nutritious than its Middle Eastern or Asian equivalent.