A Special Birthday Outing

Krypto's 11th Birthday was on the 6th of April!

Because we were double booked to speak that day, out in Franklin, NC, we thought we would have a special day for him on the 5th. On the drive out west there just happens to be the Biltmore, America's Largest House, so we planned to do a family visit.

I made this sign and put out his presents on Friday night, so he would see it when he woke up on Saturday morning.

Grandma Stamp had sent us money to buy him the next book in the Dan Dare series. He loves these British Sci-Fi comic books from the 1950's.

Sissi made him a crochet gift.

It was a hat for his stuffed animal, "Dolphie."

Ahhh, love the hugs!

His family gift was the expansion pack to a game he got for Christmas, Space Empires - Close Encounter.

After a quick breakfast, a donut run, and getting some gas, we were on the road....arrival at the Biltmore was around 11AM.

You have to park a good distance away from the house and as you walk up, this is the view you take in.

On the balcony, looking out at the house.

Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside of the house. There is much to see, our tour took about 2 hours. If you'd like to see the inside of Biltmore House, please go to the Biltmore House Gallery and enjoy. Or, for even more pictures, do a Google search of "Pictures of the inside of the Biltmore" and even more pictures will show up.

As we left the house and made our way to the gardens.

Our birthday boy, Krypto.

Looking up at the house.

The view from the Loggia.

Out in the gardens.

Krypto said, "You can learn a lot of things from the flowers." So, he was listening!

Cute Gwangi.

Get ready for all the flower pictures. I love gardens.

The hyacinths were in full bloom and the smell was intoxicating. I need to get some at the house.

I love purple, and there were so many different shades.

Sissi spent time smelling pretty much every flower she came across.

They sure like orchids in the Conservatory.

These were so amazing. The purple centers were showy.

These yellow flowers were very different, I should look up what kind they are. They have white sections sprouting from the tops of them, almost like wings.

Taking a break outside of the Conservatory before heading over to Antler Hills.

There was a wedding reception being set up and quite a few people were taking pictures of the table arrangements.

Another table arrangement shot.

Indy said there were no pictures of me, so Krypto got a quick lesson with the camera and took this picture of the two of us.

Playing on the tractor at Antler Hills.

Silly shot of the kids.

The Biltmore was always intended to be a self sustaining property, so they keep the animals and farms as he intended them to be. These goats were not hugging though, they kept pushing each other off the overturned tub and playing "King of the Hill."

The time piece that George Vanderbilt had installed. It sent electric currents to all the other clocks in the house so they all moved at the same time, every minute...no excuse to be late to one of his functions.

We got to see his 1913 Stevens-Duryea Touring Car. Though actually Edith drove it most of the time, since he died young (in 1914)...she also had a Harley Davidson we got to see, but couldn't take photos of. Super cool!

Taking a quick break outside of Cedric's Tavern...named for Cedric, the dog of Cornelia. The kids enjoyed playing on their statues that were based on an old photo.

I highly recommend a family outing to the Biltmore house. We arrived at 11AM and left at 7PM and could have seen more. We packed a lunch and then just ate fast food when we left for dinner, there are plenty of quick type restaurants right off of the Biltmore property. I just wish we had had more time to check out one of the NINE letterbox clues that I had printed and brought with me :)!

Have you had any fun family field trips lately?

The story of another one of those famous guys...

Today, we’re going to provide a “different” sort of blog post.  Previously, most of this series about Central Asia in general and Kyrgyzstan in particular has been, frankly, fairly cheerful in outlook:  we’ve talked about the local handicrafts,  yaks, yurts, and poetry, all of which are fascinating, but form only a portion of the endlessly intriguing story of Central Eurasia.  Now, we’d like to present a “snapshot” look at another side of this ancient region, a brief examination of the career of a man whose name you may be familiar with, perhaps without knowing why: Timur, usually known in the West as Tamerlane.  He rose from obscurity to found an enormous empire, stretching from present-day Kyrgyzstan to Turkey; he also earned, and indeed cultivated, a reputation for brutality not surpassed until the Nazis arrived.

Tamerlane statue in Samarkand

Timur, or Tamerlane, was born in 1336, the son of a minor noble belonging to a “Turkified” mongol tribe in what is present-day Uzbekistan; when a child, he and his family were taken as prisoners by an invading Mongol army to the city of Samarkand.  Later in life, Timur made Samarkand his capitol.  While still young, he and a small band of followers specialized in raiding, or rustling, livestock, and it was on such a raid Timur was hit by arrows in his right side, making him lame for the remainder of his life, and giving rise to the nickname, “Timur the Lame,” by which he eventually became known to the West, Tamerlane.  Eventually, Timur became leader of his tribe and a commander in the armies of the Chagatai Khans, one of the successor Mongol regimes in Central Asia that followed the death of Genghis Khan and the fragmentation of his empire.  

Timur was careful to develop his reputation as a successor to the famed Mongol conquerors of the past, maintaining a descendent of Chagatai on the throne as a puppet ruler while he himself married a Chagatid princess, and took the title, “Amir,” meaning “General,” and referred to himself as the “Sword of Islam.”  Thus, he legitimized his reign in both the eyes of the Mongol tribes, despite not being descended from Genghis Khan as the Chagatids were, and in the view of the Islamic population, although he could not claim to be “Caliph,” not being related to Mohammed.  In any event, Timur’s blend of Mongol tradition and Islamic law proved effective:  his military successes allowed him to claim divine favor in Islamic eyes, and his extreme ruthlessness resulted in crushing attempted resistance or rebellion.

By around 1370 Timur was secure enough in his power at home to “take his show on the road,” and began a period of roughly 35 years of nearly constant campaigning to expand his empire.  In so doing, he conquered virtually all of Persia, or present-day Iran, and all but destroyed the “Golden Horde” Khanate, another of Genghis’ successor kingdoms in what is now Ukraine and Russia, in the process.  He even occupied Moscow and got as far as the Baltic area before turning back.  In 1398, Timur attacked northern India, sacking Delhi after subjugating the region on the grounds that its then-current Muslim rulers were too tolerant of Hinduism.  Prior to the sack of Delhi, Timur reportedly executed 100,000 prisoners.  Afterwards, a revolt in Delhi triggered a retaliatory massacre, following which Timur’s army built structures of human heads, a tactic showcased earlier suppressing revolts in Persia, the famous “towers of skulls” which served as a ready warning to any foolish enough to defy the Amir.  

Another statue of Amir Timur in Shakrisabz, Uzbekistan

After conquering northern India, Timur then turned upon the Mamluk Empire in Egypt and the new power of the Ottomans in Turkey.  While he was at it, he invaded Armenia, Georgia, and Syria, defeating the Christian Knights of Rhodes at Smyrna and also taking Baghdad, resulting in a massacre of 20,000 people.  Having more or less laid waste to the Near East, he returned to Samarkand and began plans to conquer China.  Shortly after starting the expedition, however, Timur fell ill and died in 1405 at the age of 68, leaving his sons and grandsons to fight each other over who would inherit his vast domains.  One of his descendants, Babur, eventually founded the famous Mughal dynasty over northern India and Afghanistan.

Map showing the extent of Timur's Empire, overlaying modern day country borders.

Timur’s tomb still stands in Samarkand, a beautiful example of what has become known as Timurid architecture.  Sarmarkand, in the time of Timur, became a center of learning and the arts, but how much of that came from scholars and artisans taken there by force after their homes’ sacking?  Timur is credited with unifying many of Central Asia’s Muslim populations at swordpoint, but also is chiefly responsible for the wholesale destruction of the Church of the East, known in the West as Nestorian Christianity.  His thorough grasp of Mongol warfare made him the last of the Central Asian empire-builders, but he built his reputation, literally, on towers of skulls.  Today, he’s officially a national hero of Uzbekistan, and his monument in Tashkent stands on the former location of a statute of Marx.  Perhaps somewhat ironically, Tamerlane was also viewed favorably in contemporary Western Europe, likely because of his war with the Ottomans, who were at the time generally regarded as a very serious threat to the West.  Tamerlane was the subject of Poe’s first published poem and a play by Marlowe, and there are no less than four operas, by such luminaries as Handel and Vivaldi, about the Turkic conqueror. 

Amir Timur statue in Taskkent, Uzbekistan.

If you’re interested, most of the information in this posting came from, or I referred to, the Wikipedia and online Encyclopedia Britannica articles about Timur, the Chagatai Khanate, and the Knights Hospitaller.  There are, of course, other biographical and historical sources available about him.

Using Yesterday's Classics with Tapestry of Grace

I think you know that we're heading overseas again this next year, right...if not, write me, we'll talk...

For everyone else, I have been trying to reconcile a great classical, Tapestry of Grace worthy education for my children, without having to spend a lot more money on books, and add too much more weight to our already overweight allowance in luggage.

Enter the hubby, and a great solution...use the Yesterday's Classics books that we have already purchased, and are on our Kindle, in the Tapestry curriculum.

Yes!

But....is there a schedule, a rubric, that tells me what book to use what week, and which chapters or pages to read? There are 225 books in the collection, covering a myriad of topics! Where do I begin?

I asked around and no one seemed to have a completed list. So, I just decided to do it myself.

It didn't take me nearly as long as I thought it would, and I have plenty of books left over. Some of the books were already listed in the Tapestry curriculum, on the Alternates page, but many more good classic texts were in the set that we had purchased. I sat down and went week by week.

During the time periods that we spend numerous weeks, like Greece and Rome in the Year 1 curriculum, I replaced almost all of the Literature options with collections of stories from Church, Gould, Synge, Marshall, etc. There are also several good texts that can replace the Core History options, like "Story of the Chosen People," " Shores of the Great Seas," "Story of Mankind," and "Streams of History."

I had about a dozen tabs open on my web browser and searched through Tables of Contents to figure out which books, which chapters, which pages, would suffice for each week...for each Thread in the fabric of time that we needed to cover.

I made pencil notes all through my Reading Lists and also had a piece of paper going and Amazon open to check if books that couldn't be replaced, like "Wonders and Miracles," "Daily Life at the Time of Jesus," and some stories I want the kids to read like, "Adara," "The Bronze Bow," and "Twice Freed" were available on Kindle.

I completed scheduling Year 1 in about 4 hours. I now have a list of just a dozen books that I will need to purchase to fill in the blanks, and half of them are on Kindle! I will be taking with us most all of the LG books that I bought 5 years ago when I was doing Year 1, spread out over 2 years, with just my oldest. I am thrilled! Now, just Year 2 and Year 3 to go....there are plenty more Yesterday's Classics to be used, and we have a collection of GA Henty books on our Kindle that we bought a few years ago that I am going to also use to fill in some of the blanks for our UG and D sons as well.

If you haven't heard of Yesterday's Classics, or are interested in taking a look, you can go here - Yesterday's Classics Catalog

Thoughts on a conference

I've been homeschooling for a bit of time....some would say almost 11 years because really, isn't life all about education, and that is how old my oldest child is? And, some would say about 8 years because I started doing "workbooks" and other "learning" type stuff with Krypto when he was 3 and all of his friends were starting to go to pre-school. In any case...it's been a little while, and yet this weekend was the first time I had ever gone to a homeschool conference, for a whole weekend, and sat and listened in on six different sessions about educational issues.

Just like when I pray before doing my Bible reading, or before my day begins, or school, or any other event in my life, I prayed before this weekend, "Lord, please let the things that you want me to hear this weekend, stick out to me. Make them obvious, make the gems really big for me to see and then the grace to implement them in our lives."

It was a fabulous feeling to walk away from this weekend thinking that no major overhaul was needed...in our school...but, in me...well....let me list for you the sessions I had signed up for...

-The Second Time Around...Susan Wise Bauer talking about what she learned from being homeschooled herself, and now homeschooling her own 4 children.
-Teaching High School Writing...by Julie Bogart, author of Brave Writer
-Coping with Stress and Anxiety...pretty self explanatory
-Nurturing Your Young Writer....by Julie Bogart again
-Homeschooling the Real Child...by Susan Wise Bauer
-Partnership Writing...by Julie Bogart....yep, again....

Have you guessed where I felt I was weak yet?

Teaching writing!

I shouldn't have been...really, I know my kids, I know what they are capable of, I don't need yet another curriculum to tell me how to teach my children how to write, or to love doing it. But, I will say that I got some great ideas from the Brave Writer program to implement over the coming weeks and months. Not forms and outlines and ways to deconstruct writing so that it all looks the same, but fun ideas like Free Writing Friday, Color Walks, using 1st lines of poems and famous quotations for writing starters, working on our openings, and just being creative and NOT correcting everything that is wrong. Yep, you read that right...I really think that I am guilty of squashing my kids' spirits and creativity when the pen comes out and instantly starts editing.

Just last week, before the conference, I had this experience. Krypto had written a 5 paragraph essay about the Nixon Watergate Scandal...his report started like this...

The Watergate scandel....

I picked up the pen, put the three lines under the "s" and then circled the word. I proceeded to say to him, "The Watergate Scandal is a proper noun, a specific scandal, so the s needs to be capitalized, and scandal is spelled with an al, not an el." and as I paused before going on, his shoulders slumped, he sighed and he said, "but Mom, you didn't even read it."

He's right, I started telling him everything that was wrong and didn't at all read his essay through for the content, the heart of it.

When we did finish, his content was great, he had many grammar and spelling errors, but really, he's 10, almost 11, what child that age doesn't? I tried to tell him how good it was, but my marking and commentary all over the page was telling him a different story.

Does our Father do that to us, or does He care more about the content of our heart, our character, and that we keep trying to obey Him? We all have sin, we all have errors written all over us, but I have never felt that when I come to Him that He deconstructs me piece by piece and tells me all the yuck everywhere, I'm still growing, He knows that, He gives me grace and mercy time and time again in my life. I keep learning, I keep trying, I have the confidence to make changes and move on and grow from His gentle correction. How discouraging it would be if all we ever heard were the "wrongs" in our life.

The gem He wanted me to see this weekend was that I need to focus more on giving grace to my kids! Will I still correct their papers...sure, but it's going to be different...that is for sure.

And, I shouldn't have worried about them being too discouraged, last night, as I was saying good night to them all from Virginia, the two oldest were sharing with me their new book ideas, and how much they had written over the weekend. They both made me promise that they could share it with me when I got home and get some more help and ideas. I was thrilled, beyond ecstatic. He is faithful, my kids aren't discouraged about writing, they still want to write and even to share it with me. Their stories were lovely and I didn't correct a single thing, I just enjoyed their enthusiasm, their silly ideas and drawings. It was refreshing and fun! I pray He can help me to keep focusing on showing them love, through grace, in our educational...no, let's be more specific, in our life journey!

The Amazing Yurt!

(Cue classical music; the permanent staff and tonight’s guest lecturer here at whateveristrueandnoble.blogspot endorse Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, the “Pastoral”)

ANNOUNCER:  Good evening, and welcome to “The Wide World of Central Asia,” a continuing series of blog posts exploring the exciting world of inner Asia, and its fabulous tapestry of peoples, places, and other nouns!  Tonight, we’re thrilled to have with us again the guest lecturer whose previous visit held us all spellbound!  And now, our narrator:

IMPRESSIVE NARRATOR:  A few weeks ago, we here at whateveristrueandnoble.blogspot were pleased to bring to you the fascinating story of the yak, one of the most versatile and industrious species of livestock with which God has blessed our planet.  Today, we are equally proud to call your attention to a particular type of dwelling equally reminiscent of the vastnesses of Asia – namely, the yurt, the ubiquitous round tent of nomads, conquerors, shepherds, and granolas.  Tonight, on “The Wide World of Central Asia,” we will explore what the yurt is, its origins, why have so many peoples down through the centuries adopted this peculiar habitation, its immense cultural significance, where the discerning outdoorsman may procure such a domicile, and to what ends.

IMPRESSIVE NARRATOR:  The yurt is, to the surprise of many Europeans and North Americans, not some hideous aberration of the Queen’s English fashionable among the younger set, but rather a word of Turkic origin, presently referring to a round, quasi-conical portable dwelling, common among the various nomadic peoples of Central Asia.  The yurt itself is constructed of a circular latticework, topped by roof ribs, in turn topped by a crown or compression wheel.  

The crown serves to both provide structural strength and as an expedient chimney for an internal hearth.  Originally, the Turkic word meant the impression in the ground left by the aforementioned dwelling, and gave rise to the Russian word, “yurta” in the Latin alphabet, from whence the English word, yurt.  In Kyrgyz, the dwelling is called “boz uy,” being “grey house” from the color of the wool felt which surrounds the framework and provides waterproofing and insulation.  The self-supporting wooden frame, once covered by the felt walls and roof, is bound together by rope or ribbon, and may have an additional cover of canvas or other material, depending upon availability.  We here pause for web page identification, and then will return to the “The Wide World of Central Asia.”

ANNOUNCER:  This is “Whateveristrueandnoble,” your blog page for all things Kyrgyzstan, Crocheting, and Cooking, tonight featured by the wonderful people at Studebaker Corporation.  Studebaker – the oldest name in American automobiles:  have you driven a Studebaker recently?  Probably not, since the last one rolled out of the factory in 1966.  But, don’t you wish you could?  We do!  Now back to “The Wide World of Central Asia.”

IMPRESSIVE NARRATOR:  The yurt is an exceedingly common dwelling across the steppes of Central Asia, and is of great antiquity.  The famed Ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote of the ancient Scythians, a supposedly “barbarous” people also mentioned by St. Paul in the New Testament.  Herodotus described the Scythians living in yurts roughly twenty-five hundred years ago, and the design has little changed since then, if at all.  Indeed, it would seem the various nomadic peoples of the steppe are firm believers in the proverb, “Don’t reinvent the wheel,” and small wonder, when the wheel-like tent has performed able service across so many centuries in such difficult circumstances?  The yurt’s distinctive round shape has been used by pastoralists and warriors alike from Mongolia to Afghanistan to the Kazakh steppes; its efficient design handed down from father to son over innumerable generations.  Among the Kazakhs, for instance, it is a matter of no small pride as the crown of the family yurt becomes increasingly stained by hearth smoke across generations, even as the remainder of the yurt is rebuilt and repaired as time goes by.  The yurt, a marvel of practical portability, can be raised in about two hours, and is carefully configured for disassembly and packing on the back of the yaks and Bactrian camels indigenous to the region.

IMPRESSIVE NARRATOR:  It would be difficult to overestimate the immense cultural significance of the yurt.  Its fabric designs are literally woven into virtually every aspect of traditional life on the steppes; a variation of the yurt’s distinctive crown design forms part of the national coat of arms of Kazakhstan, for instance, and is at the center, again literally, of the national flag of Kyrgyzstan.  It is this continuing connection to the steppes of yesteryear that results in the yurt’s features being a popular choice for museums, cafes, and souvenir shops in the Central Asia of today.  However, the yurt’s appeal is no longer limited to the traditional habitues of the steppes; today, there is a multiplicity of firms in North America and Europe manufacturing variations of this time-tested tent for Westerners seeking, perhaps, to experience a little of the fascinating cultures of Central Asia for themselves, or who have simply recognized excellent engineering when they see it.  However, the western yurts are, generally speaking, not as portable as their forebears, being intended in the main more as permanent structures rather than nomadic homes.  Still, the enduring popularity of the idea of the yurt, spanning generations and continents, remains a testament to the wondrously rich traditional life of Central Asia.

A Kyrgyz yurt with the Tien Shan mountain range in the distance.

ANNOUNCER:  This has been “The Wide World of Central Asia” here on whateveristrueandnoble.blogspot, your blog page for all things Kyrgyzstan, Crocheting, and Cooking, brought to you in part by the good folks at Studebaker Corporation – Studebaker:  the oldest name in American automobiles – and by a quirky sense of humor on the part of the guest lecturer.  On behalf of all of us here at whateveristrueandnoble.blogspot, thank you for joining us, and we’ll see you next time for “The Wide World of Central Asia!”

(Fade out classical music)

If you’re interested, most of the information in this posting was taken from Wikipedia articles (again, I know!) about yurts (and Studebakers) along with the websites of various private companies who make yurts in the USA.  No, I didn’t have to consult a thesaurus.  Yes, it was hard to keep a straight face while I wrote it.

Local Kyrgyz Crafts

So, we've talked a bit about the country of Kyrgyzstan, where it's located, and some history behind it's flag. Then last week Jeff regaled you with some information about the yak, one of the most well known animals living in Kyrgyzstan. Today, I thought I would write a bit about the handicrafts that Kyrgyzstan is known for...some of which use yak wool and some that use sheep wool, the other very common animal in the region.

Kyrgyzstan's national art is their shyrdak felt rugs, made out of a non-woven, woolen fiber that is created by using pressure and agitation. In essence they take the wool from sheep and yaks and get it wet and then work it around and press on it until it is formed in the shape they want it to be when it dries. They make shoes, hats, bags, and most famously carpets that have intricate patterns found in nature, like horns and the shapes of plants.

A store selling Kyrgyz crafts.

Remember, the Kyrgyz people are a nomadic group, traditionally they don't make a lot of furniture, because that is heavy and awkward to move around. Their yurt is made out of wool, felt coverings, and the wife is traditionally supposed to decorate her home, so they spend hours, sometimes whole families or tribes, making elaborate carpets to cover the floors of their homes and to hang as the door covering that you would see as soon as you come upon their home. Carpets are their primary home decor.

The inside of a very decorative yurt.

A shyrdak used in a more modern setting, still beautiful!

Other uses for the felt is in making household items, like clothing, but also gifts and toys for children. Many artisans specialize in make "stuffed animals" of sheep, yaks and other animals and then use needles to overlay different colors of felt to stick in the "fuzz" that an animal would have. There can be thousands of needle jabs to make one needle felted animal.

A donkey, made by needle felting

Kyrgyz people also love music and so they make musical instruments and other items out of the local walnut wood.

A Kyrgyz komuz, a 3-string guitar-like instrument used to play local folk music.

I found a really neat Etsy store that sells Kyrgyz crafts made by women in the village of Kochkor, an area well known for their felt crafting. Check it out and see other pictures of Kyrgyz handiwork.
Kyrgyz Etsy Store

And, if you like videos, I found one on YouTube of a Kyrgyz woman spinning yak wool!
Kyrgyz Woman Spinning

"I want to know about the yaks!"

“Yak it up, fuzzball!” – paraphrasing a certain famous space smuggler speaking to his copilot in a certain famous science fiction movie…

A friend of ours recently asked a question that sort of “came out of left field.”  What is a yak?  And what do you do with them?  Now, despite the temptation to reply, “Do you always begin conversations this way?” asking about yaks really is an excellent question, at least to anyone with an interest in Central Asian geography and history, or, for that matter, anyone who is looking for versatile livestock.  These incredible animals have played a tremendous part in the story of Central Asia through the ages, and they still do today.

So, what’s a yak?  Picture a really furry cow that’s ok with pulling a plow, wearing a pack or even a riding saddle, and you’ve got a yak.  Yaks, both wild (Bos Mutus) and domesticated (Bos Grunniens, or the “grunting ox”), hail from the rugged, mountainous regions of Central Eurasia.  They have, as the International Yak Association has it, handlebar horns, shoulder humps, and shaggy “skirts” hanging almost to the ground; females average 600-800 lbs, while males average between 1200 and 1500 lbs, but can get to over 1600.  They come in a wide variety of colors, although the wild animals tend toward brown or black.  In the wild, they run in herds of 10-30 animals, and eat grasses, sedges (a grasslike plant with triangular stems and inconspicuous flowers), and even mosses and reportedly lichens in their alpine habitats, where they most commonly live between 9,800 and 18,000 feet.  Wild yaks are hunted by people for food, as well as by the Tibetan Wolf, Brown Bears, and Snow Leopards.  Domesticated yaks can live for over 20 years, although the lifespans of their wild relatives are probably shorter.  They don’t “moo” like cattle, but grunt instead.  They’ve been domesticated for millennia, and when one realizes just how useful the beasts are, it’s easy to understand why.

Talking with our aforementioned friends, I summarized the yak this way:  it’s the “Swiss army knife” of livestock – if you were going to have just one animal on the farm, other than your trusty dog, Fido, the yak would be a great choice.  You need milk?  Check, used for cheese, butter, you name it, and is a key ingredient in Himalayan Yak Butter Tea.  Hides?  Gotcha covered, and the leather is stronger than a normal cow’s into the bargain.  Meat?  Plenty of it, lean, and, since yaks aren’t usually raised “industrially,” all you get is what God put in.  How about this – wool?  Yep, yak fiber can be, and is, woven for a variety of uses (think Angora or Cashmere), and what’s more, the wool is naturally odor resistant.  Plow your field?  Been there, done that.  How about packing gear for travelling?  No problem, done it for ages.  Or even just a ride to town?  Go on and saddle up; in some parts of Asia, such as Mongolia, folks even race ‘em.  Moreover, tough environments don’t bother yaks; this ain’t no city slicker cow.  Raised for millennia in the high country of Central Eurasia, yaks need less forage than “normal” cattle, climb astonishing mountains and withstand severe cold (Swedish explorer Sven Hedin used them to cross a glacier at over 20,000 feet on one Central Asian mountain in the 1890’s), and are disease resistant to boot.  Wait, put away your checkbook, there’s more:  yaks are gentle enough for children to ride, and if all that isn’t enough, they’ll help with your heating bill:  in Tibet, dried yak dung is a significant fuel source.  Here’s the deal clincher:  a secretion in yak sweat is used in traditional Nepalese medicine.  Talk about an offer you can’t refuse.

That’s a brief, believe it or not, overview of one of the most generally useful critters God put on His Earth, and one that has been a huge part of the heritage of many peoples, stretching from India northwards across Central Asia.  Even today, folk festivals in places as far apart as Pakistan, Tibet, and Mongolia hold Yak races and, in Mongolia, “rodeos” with the animals.  For my part, I’m looking forward to living among peoples whose culture seems so different from America’s, and yet perhaps it isn’t in some ways, at least to the guy who grew up out west, still loves a good rodeo, and can appreciate the value of an animal that can really earn its keep.

If you’re interested, most of the information in this posting was taken from Wikipedia articles (I know, I know!) about yaks, yak racing, and the Khangai Mountains (where those rodeos are held), The International Yak Association website, Sven Hedin’s book, _My Life as an Explorer_, and possibly, if I remember correctly, a newspaper article published last August or September in either the _Rocky Mountain News_ or the _Denver Post_.