4 ms·

Now I’m interested…

by OnlyMortal 4y ago

Now I’m interested…

gus_massa 4y ago
I agree. @GP: Photos? A press article? More details? Why donkeys and not mules?
- googlryas 4y ago
  Mules are (generally) infertile. They're viewed as better beasts of burden than donkeys, but not if you need to keep creating them out of separate horse/donkey populations.
  - madaxe_again 4y ago
    Yeah, this. Mules, you’ve gotta buy with money from the rich dude with a horse. Donkeys, you just need two donkeys and a winter and you have three donkeys. You’d be amazed at what they’d stagger around under, particularly when people are getting firewood in. Not unusual to see little donkey-carts on the road, too - usually the man riding/driving and the wife walking alongside picking up whatever falls off, as that’s how they do things here - surprised they don’t feed their wives donkey bread too. I guess it ties to the same thing - poverty, and free labour and energy. Big families back in the day - the younger (60s/70s) generation all have seven siblings and a hundred cousins.
    - gus_massa 4y ago
      Both replies makes a lot of sense. Here in Argentina, many stories about the independence war have mules because "they are better in mountain terrain". Reading some material a few years later, IIRC there where big transport business from Argentina to Bolivia/Peru and Chile that have mule breading facilities. If you have a big transport business or military operation, it makes sense to separate your breeding animals and have specialize work animal. But if you are a farmer with only a few animals, you can't do that.
- madaxe_again 4y ago
  I chuckled at your request for a press article - part of the reason this corner of the country still has a lot of really old practices is that it’s remote, and the population is tiny. There’s no press out here, and according to the internet there is nothing here. The prime minister was meant to visit a nearby town last year, but cancelled on the day when he realised it would take 2hrs to do the last 40km. Until the 90’s, here was a day by road, minimum, from Porto - usually two, according to locals. Now it’s 2.5hrs. It’s so unvisited that a large ruined 15th c. castle on top of a hill thought long lost was only “discovered” in the 1980s. The locals still laugh about the government men coming and discovering what they already knew was there. I can’t find anything about the bread - I’ve tried searching previously - it’s just a thing people do here, and always have. There’s a lot of that sort of thing, here. Thankfully there are some efforts going on to chronicle this stuff before the old folks all die - amateur historical society taking recordings etc. which is better than nothing, and I saunter about with a camera. They still have a forge in a nearby monastic village, powered by water-bellows - and it’s not a novelty, it’s where you go for scythes, machetes, etc. The watermills for grain worked until the 90’s, and were then abandoned - we live in one now. The local breed is “Mirandese” - to be clear, most folks these days have abandoned the awkward old (usually on public land, wildcat) hillside groves, but the ones which are still worked, usually by elderly farmers, are donkey powered. The village near us, there are only three (actually, four now) donkeys, two of them work - but they all munch the pao de burro. Hunting and transhumance with dogs is also a big thing here, and I’m 99% sure it’s the same stuff I see shepherds giving their dogs. Wikipedia has a bit on the breed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_de_Miranda https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_de_Miranda
  - gus_massa 4y ago
    Thanks for the reply. A blog with some stories, recipes and photos would be nice. (And some historian in 3000 will be very thankful. Big cities are overrepresented.) Anecdote time: When I was young, we usually went during the holidays to a house of my grandparents that was 1km away from a small town (1k habitants) that was 15 km away from the capital city of a small province in the north west of Argentina. Only well water. We bought raw milk that we had to boil (and skim) before drinking. The road was fine, but during the summer that is rainy season you may get flooding in some parts. (Now the road is much better and it feels like a highway.) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yala https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yala I'm not sure if they had/have a newspaper.

Now I’m interested…

gus_massa 4y ago

I agree. @GP: Photos? A press article? More details? Why donkeys and not mules?

googlryas 4y ago
Mules are (generally) infertile. They're viewed as better beasts of burden than donkeys, but not if you need to keep creating them out of separate horse/donkey populations.
- madaxe_again 4y ago
  Yeah, this. Mules, you’ve gotta buy with money from the rich dude with a horse. Donkeys, you just need two donkeys and a winter and you have three donkeys. You’d be amazed at what they’d stagger around under, particularly when people are getting firewood in. Not unusual to see little donkey-carts on the road, too - usually the man riding/driving and the wife walking alongside picking up whatever falls off, as that’s how they do things here - surprised they don’t feed their wives donkey bread too. I guess it ties to the same thing - poverty, and free labour and energy. Big families back in the day - the younger (60s/70s) generation all have seven siblings and a hundred cousins.
  - gus_massa 4y ago
    Both replies makes a lot of sense. Here in Argentina, many stories about the independence war have mules because "they are better in mountain terrain". Reading some material a few years later, IIRC there where big transport business from Argentina to Bolivia/Peru and Chile that have mule breading facilities. If you have a big transport business or military operation, it makes sense to separate your breeding animals and have specialize work animal. But if you are a farmer with only a few animals, you can't do that.
madaxe_again 4y ago
I chuckled at your request for a press article - part of the reason this corner of the country still has a lot of really old practices is that it’s remote, and the population is tiny. There’s no press out here, and according to the internet there is nothing here. The prime minister was meant to visit a nearby town last year, but cancelled on the day when he realised it would take 2hrs to do the last 40km. Until the 90’s, here was a day by road, minimum, from Porto - usually two, according to locals. Now it’s 2.5hrs. It’s so unvisited that a large ruined 15th c. castle on top of a hill thought long lost was only “discovered” in the 1980s. The locals still laugh about the government men coming and discovering what they already knew was there. I can’t find anything about the bread - I’ve tried searching previously - it’s just a thing people do here, and always have. There’s a lot of that sort of thing, here. Thankfully there are some efforts going on to chronicle this stuff before the old folks all die - amateur historical society taking recordings etc. which is better than nothing, and I saunter about with a camera. They still have a forge in a nearby monastic village, powered by water-bellows - and it’s not a novelty, it’s where you go for scythes, machetes, etc. The watermills for grain worked until the 90’s, and were then abandoned - we live in one now. The local breed is “Mirandese” - to be clear, most folks these days have abandoned the awkward old (usually on public land, wildcat) hillside groves, but the ones which are still worked, usually by elderly farmers, are donkey powered. The village near us, there are only three (actually, four now) donkeys, two of them work - but they all munch the pao de burro. Hunting and transhumance with dogs is also a big thing here, and I’m 99% sure it’s the same stuff I see shepherds giving their dogs. Wikipedia has a bit on the breed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_de_Miranda https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_de_Miranda
- gus_massa 4y ago
  Thanks for the reply. A blog with some stories, recipes and photos would be nice. (And some historian in 3000 will be very thankful. Big cities are overrepresented.) Anecdote time: When I was young, we usually went during the holidays to a house of my grandparents that was 1km away from a small town (1k habitants) that was 15 km away from the capital city of a small province in the north west of Argentina. Only well water. We bought raw milk that we had to boil (and skim) before drinking. The road was fine, but during the summer that is rainy season you may get flooding in some parts. (Now the road is much better and it feels like a highway.) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yala https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yala I'm not sure if they had/have a newspaper.