Well first Thanks to Chris for his hard work at restoring the blogs I know how hard it is to spend a lot of time working on computer problems. Now the most recent developments around here. Athan had his 4th birthday on the 20th it's amazing how fast they grow although I shouldn't be surprized, I have a 31 year old son. Athan had a dinosaur party with a load of kids and grownups, I stayed outside most of the time barbcuing in the snow, I stayed under one of the outbuildings ports, it was quite refreshing.

  Rox and I have decided to raise Yaks. We went up to Montrose north of Ouray to check out a large herd owned by Bob and Anne at DelYaks. We were convinced and picked out our Hefer and Bull. We're getting yearlings so we can work with them before they start to have calves, they begin breeding at 2 years. For more detailed info on the Yak here's a link to an excellent ebook.

http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/006/AD347E/ad347e0g.htm

when you get there scrool down to the contents.

Yaks are very efficient animals to raise, 4 yaks can live on the same amount of land that one cow can. Their hair is weavable, the meat is high in protein and lower in cholesterol than skinless chicken. They can pack 300 pounds up to 20,000 feet and they are so sure footed and calm that the natives of the Himalayas prefer to ride them in the mountains rather than horses. The earliest known fossil of a yak is 2.5 million years old. The earliest known domestication occured 10,000 years ago by the Qiang peoples in the  Changtang (a Tibetan term meaning "the empty highland of the north"), an area that covers more than half of Tibet. Yaks eat almost anything including Lichen and they drink very little water prefering to eat snow in the winter rather than drink

Here's a couple of photos from Bob's herds

Click on the small pics:

A small part of his golden, black and trim herd.

A couple of the bulls (bulls are very docile)

A young bull

For those of you who have never seen Ouray (pronounced Yew-Ray) here's a photo I took from the Higway coming in to the town. The large road in the  middle is the main highway and the main street of town, pretty much what you see is all there is except a small part to the left I couldn't get in the picture.

Any how that's the latest from the home front, Thanks again Chris.