"The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion."Doris Lessing
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Barf And Raw Food For Dogs
Holistic Nutrition - The BARF Raw Food Diet A critique by John Burns BVMS MRCVS The BARF ("Bones and Raw Food" or "Biologically Appropriate Raw Food") diet is a system of holistic nutrition which is championed by Dr Ian Billinghurst who is an Australian ...
Does Your Dog Roll In Poop? Here's Why
Robin asks:I'm wondering if you could tell me why-- when I'm walking Yogi through some grass-- that he smells something and the next thing I know, he's stuck his head on the ground and starts to roll his body over the area he was smelling. On two ...
Know Your Afghan Hound
The Afghan Hound is a medium to large 55 to 65 pound dog that grows to between 24 and 29" in height. The Afghan Hound has long, silky hair and appears to be both elegant, reserved and agile. But, don't let the looks fool you. They can run, frolic and play ...
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Paleontologists tell us the camel family arose in the North American Great Plains about 45 million years ago. One group took the Bering land bridge into Asia to establish the populations of Bactrian camels and dromedaries, while the other chose the southern route through Panama when that land bridge rose from the sea about 3 million years ago. Several of those species prospered in South America, including the guanaco, vicuņa, Lama owenii, and Lama gracilis.
Ancient humans likely witnessed the extinctions of the latter two but, according to prevailing wisdom, bred the domesticated alpaca from the vicuņa and the llama from the guanaco. They prized the fleeces of all four, but to them the most precious and magical was that of the vicuņa. Type Microns ------------------- Vicuņa 6-13 Chiru 7-9 Alpaca 10-28 Merino 12-20 Cashmere 15-19 Guanaco 16-18 Llama 20-40 Chinchilla 21 Human 15-200
As you can see from the table above, only the chiru, a gravely endangered Asian antelope which is legally off-limits, rivals the fineness of its cinnamon-colored wool. Beyond that, vicuņa is exceedingly rare due to the amimal's small size (about 90 lbs, yielding only 6-8 ounces of fleece every two or three years), its obstinacy (supremely evasive and disinclined to eat or reproduce in captivity), its death-defying habitat (greatly surpassing 14,000 feet or 4300 meters) and the cashmere-like fragility of its fiber. If you were to own, say, a pair of trousers made of pure vicuņa, they'd look and feel heavenly but unless you resolved never to sit down in them you would quickly wear through the seat. To strengthen it or make it go further, the Incas would often blend their vicuņa fiber with that of the viscacha, an Andean rabbit-like animal; but in any case by law only their royalty could wear such exquisite fabric.
In 1958 vicuņa was on everybody's lips. President Eisenhower's favorite golfing buddy and Chief of Staff Sherman Adams got the boot after reporters learned that he had accepted various sumptuous finery, most famously a vicuņa coat, from a certain Boston textile magnate named Bernie Goldfine in exchange for some extra lenient treatment by federal regulators. The scandal even engulfed future columnist Jack Anderson, who was caught
bugging Goldfine's hotel room.
Since as far back as the Spanish conquest, hunting and poaching has been stressing the vicuņa to the brink of extinction. By the 1970s there were only a few thousand left. But thanks to vigorous conservation measures undertaken toward the end of the 20th century, most significantly on the part of the Peruvian government, their populations have recovered. In 2002 the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reclassified the vicuņas of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru from endangered to threatened and legalized exports from those four countries, subject to stringent documentation, for the first time in decades.
To the impoverished paisanos in the high Andes this new industry shows great promise. They've revived an ancient tradition called the chaccu that involves much singing, dancing, and feasting. Hundreds link hands and create a living human fence to gradually encircle the vicuņas and herd them into pens. There they shear the animals, sometimes tag them, and then turn them loose. The per-ounce price of this ethereal fiber spans a wide range from $10.00 wholesale (raw) to $250.00 or so retail. A coat like Sherman Adams's might cost $20,000.00 nowadays. The firms Loro Piana, Lanificio Agnona, and Incalpaca handle this sort of highflying yet eco-friendly couture and market it through outlets like Nieman Marcus. But mercifully you can also find such things as scarves and shawls, using vicuņa blended with other fibers, for $200.00 or less. So far there are very few legitimate sources for this species beyond those mentioned above, but among them the Gaucho Shop (www.gauchoshop.com) stands ready to take your order. And besides llama, vicuņa blends, and other wearables they also carry yerba matë -- a relaxing tea-like drink that has practically become a way of life in much of Latin America.
About The Author
Peter Blinn is a Web developer, writer, and veteran Hollywood animator who can be reached through the "Contact Me" link at www.CuriousNotions.com/index1.html
The article above comes from the Sui Generis "Curious Thing of the Week" archives section at www.CuriousNotions.com
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Hunting PLC Donates $100000 To New DanvilleMarketWatch (press release)HOUSTON, May 23, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Hunting PLC announced that it has presented a check in the amount of $100000 to New Danville, a self-sustaining, master-planned community dedicated to providing adults with intellectual and developmental ...and more » |
msnbc.com (blog) |
Biggest mistakes made by job-hunting gradsmsnbc.com (blog)"Recent graduates might be dreading the job market, but if they know the common mistakes people their age are making, they can hopefully avoid some job-hunting pitfalls,â said Josh Tolan, CEO of online jobs site Spark Hire. âThe biggest mistake recent ...and more » |
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