Yakety Yak

I'm always hoping to have new experiences that are interesting and maybe a little out of the ordinary. Little did I know it would include the hide of an animal I never thought I would touch.

I couple of weeks ago I had some friends visiting from Canada, Will and Ed, some of my motorcycle buddies. My friend Michelle from work (Aspire) and her husband Tom also joined us for the evening along with my special friend Russ.

So we are sitting around the kitchen table drinking a little and eating pizza and wings while telling stories and just enjoying each other's company and laughing quite a bit. Somehow hunting comes up and Russ starts telling about the time he shot a Yak. I had never heard this hunting story. I'd heard about the elk in Alaska and the turkey in Texas, but a Yak? So someone say "Where did you shot it?" to which Russ replies "right between the eyes". We all start laughing until someone says, "no really, they are from Tibet, so where in the world did you shot a yak". Russ once again just matter of factly replies "In Ohio". Now we all go hysterical with laughter.

A couple of days later, Russ stops over to drop off some things he had picked up for me. I'm standing in the garage and he tells me to turn around and not look at him while he gets something else out of his truck. Oh wow, I'm thinking, he's brought me a gift. A minute later I feel something heavy over my shoulders. It's the yak skin!

So enjoy some pictures of the Ohio yak. This skin is from the shoulders back as he had the head mounted. I guess he also had the meat butchered. I'm almost afraid to asked any questions about that after the funny answers we got to the other questions about this yak! The second picture is a close-up of the tail. I have since learned that the long yak hair doesn't shed out but the shorter fur that runs along the back can be combed out and spun into a very nice wool yarn that some people claim is nicer the alpaca yarn.

Just in case you are still wondering, Russ did shoot this yak on a game farm in Ohio. He had gone there with a friend not really planning on shooting anything. The owner of the farm asked Russ if he would like to shoot the yak as it was beginning to bother the other animals and was attacking the owner's kids when they were trying to feed the other animals. Yaks are normally a pretty calm animal but this was a Yak who had gone bad.