Kicker
Pie, face.
A “Photo Journal: A Mongolian Nomad Family” caught my eye while following another linky. I love this kind of stuff so I cliked thru.
As autumn closes in and the night temperature falls well below zero, the stove is kindled morning and night. It is fed with animal dung, in the absence of trees to provide firewood.
When the snow sets in, the temperature can fall to minus 40C. [-40F] The family will move into the mountains, where firewood is available.
Deforestation is a serious problem in Mongolia, because of the demand for winter fuel.
The women do most of the milking ... Dairy products are the staples of the nomad diet, along with rice, flour and a little meat. ...By October, there is little grass left ...so the livestock’s meagre diet is supplemented by the family’s scraps.
[The men are] responsible for herding the family’s animals and making occasional trips into town for staples such a rice and flour. ...[and] the heavy work, such as the dismantling of the yurts every few months so the family can move on.
The felt walls [of the yurt] are supported by a wooden framework that can be collapsed quickly and packed onto yak wagons or vans.
Some yurts have their own generators for electric lighting and television.
Wow. A life so entirely different from my own. Sure, they raise cows; we raise cows—but ... And they’ve been living much like that for thousands of years, except they’re coming slowly into this century with their generators and their TV.
There’s a certain appeal to that life for me, out with the endless views, the rhythms of life based on the milking cycle, the seasons and the rise and set of the sun. No ‘tards shouting into cellfones, waiting in lines, fighting strangers to get to the produce racks or the cheese bins. No traffic… Yet I think I wouldn’t do it so well.
Oh yeah; the ‘kicker’ I promised? The last line of the story:
Life here is almost entirely sustainable.
Next time ya hear an enviro-greenie or a planner say “sustainable,” know that this kind of life is what’s really being talked about.
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