Speaker 1: Hell no, And welcome to Saber Protection of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: I'm any rec and I'm Lauren Voblbaum and today we
Speaker 2: have an episode for you about YAX.
Speaker 1: Yes, yas. Yeah, I've heard that correctly. Wow, Lauren, was
Speaker 1: there any reason this was on your mind? You know?
Speaker 1: Yaks are cool? I did.
Speaker 2: This is one of those where I did an episode
Speaker 2: about them over on one of my other shows, brain Stuff,
Speaker 2: and I was like, you know, I want to read
Speaker 2: more about.
Speaker 1: YAX and more was rich. A lot was read about YAX. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So sometimes with these, sometimes with.
Speaker 2: Like agricultural related episodes, like I feel like like we
Speaker 2: are almost ready to go open a ranch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from how having done this episode reading, Oh, savor
Speaker 1: ranch retirement idea, We'll put that in the backpacket. Oh man,
Speaker 1: oh no, that would be great.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, all right, I'm not made for ranching,
Speaker 2: that's I'm I'm a city girl.
Speaker 1: But but we'll put it in the back pocket. That's
Speaker 1: a nice place to visit anyway. Yes, yes, I do
Speaker 1: not have any stories to share about YACK. I feel
Speaker 1: like I've seen them, but I have not tasted any
Speaker 1: of the products me neither.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yes, I'm pretty sure that I have not. Now
Speaker 2: I'm really curious though, so.
Speaker 1: I have as well. And I have to say this
Speaker 1: was this was a tricky one in terms of there
Speaker 1: are a lot of yack products to go down rabbit
Speaker 1: holes about. One of my very favorite things I found
Speaker 1: about this when doing the research is this quote from
Speaker 1: a research paper following this review of Yack dung energetics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we will talk about that a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But I was like, Okay, wow, not where I thought
Speaker 1: this was going. But I'm really having to expand my
Speaker 1: brain and take some things in that I wasn't expected.
Speaker 1: And you're reading for a food show. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is nice. Yeah, it's nice and sometimes a little complicated,
Speaker 1: but nice. Well, we have done similar episodes to Yack,
Speaker 1: but YAK it's pretty specific, it is in some ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we haven't gone too deep into cattle the animals, So.
Speaker 1: No, we have not. That's futures. Oh yeah, we'll deal
Speaker 1: with that. But in the meantime, I guess this brings
Speaker 1: us to our question yas what are they?
Speaker 2: Well, yax are large, long haired bovines in the same
Speaker 2: genus as cattle that are also raised for their milk, meat,
Speaker 2: and lots of non food products. Their milk is creamy
Speaker 2: yellow in color, high in fats and protein, and used
Speaker 2: fresh or to make butter and cheeses. Their meat is
Speaker 2: lean and nutritious, and every part of the animal can
Speaker 2: be used in crafting things like textiles, tools, and art.
Speaker 2: They're like big and sturdy and useful as work animals,
Speaker 2: and they're also essentially amenable to being herded and doing work,
Speaker 2: which helps one of the reasons why like zebras are
Speaker 2: not a hurt animal because they're not nice.
Speaker 1: They're impolite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yaks are like big, shaggy cattle that kind of
Speaker 2: look like the Henson company designed them. Yeah, like a
Speaker 2: broad face, like a very broad cattlely face.
Speaker 1: Snuffle uf. I guess I can feel yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but okay, so there are wild yaks, but domesticated
Speaker 2: yacts is what we're mostly talking about today. A tax
Speaker 2: nomical name boss Grunnians. Sure it means grunting ox because
Speaker 2: they do not move. They start a grunt and squeak.
Speaker 2: They can grow up to two meters or about six
Speaker 2: and a half feet tall at the shoulder, which is
Speaker 2: their the highest point on their body. They've got like
Speaker 2: a hump on their upper back near the neck. They
Speaker 2: can weigh easily over one thousand pounds, with male bowls
Speaker 2: about twice as heavy as the female cows. And this
Speaker 2: is all a little bit bigger than like the biggest
Speaker 2: cattle can get. They grow long horns. The bulls horns
Speaker 2: curve back and under, whereas the cows horns curve upward
Speaker 2: and are smaller. Their fur can come in shades from
Speaker 2: black to brown to gray to white, and in different
Speaker 2: patterns in bowls. That fur can get so long that
Speaker 2: it sort of swings around their legs like fringe on
Speaker 2: a shawl. They reproduce in the boring old mammal way,
Speaker 2: typically with only one calf per pregnancy and a gestation
Speaker 2: period a tiny bit shorter than humans. But calves are
Speaker 2: capable of walking within like ten minutes instead of two years,
Speaker 2: so that must be convenient. Yeah, And yaks are just
Speaker 2: really well adapted to their cold, high altitude native environment,
Speaker 2: which is around the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountain regions.
Speaker 2: They can live in altitudes of up to twenty thousand
Speaker 2: feet above sea level. That's six thousand meters. That's higher
Speaker 2: than any point in North America aside from the Summit
Speaker 2: of Dnale in Alaska. So yeah, to cope with that,
Speaker 2: they evolved to produce more red blood cells than other bovines.
Speaker 2: And also these extra large lungs that are so big
Speaker 2: that they also evolved an extra pair of ribs to
Speaker 2: support them. Like cattle have thirteen pair, yaks have fourteen pair.
Speaker 2: That's metal so cool, and that long, multi layered fur
Speaker 2: keeps them warm, and temperatures that can get down to
Speaker 2: negative forty degrees, which is so dang cold that it's
Speaker 2: the same in celsius and fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: Both. Yeah, yaks are YACs are cool. They are.
Speaker 2: Uh it's kind of a pun because we just talked
Speaker 2: about how they live in chili environments and then note
Speaker 2: that those environments are extremes like most domesticated yaks will
Speaker 2: hang out and like slightly more forgiving climates because most
Speaker 2: humans want to hang out and slightly more forgiving climates.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yaks.
Speaker 2: Grays on fresh grass and other forage in the summers,
Speaker 2: and in the winter they'll use their horns to like
Speaker 2: dig into the snow and find shrubs and a withered
Speaker 2: forage stuff like that. We are ostensibly a food show
Speaker 2: a note here at the top like, while yaks are
Speaker 2: not very widely raised around the world, the cultures that
Speaker 2: do have like ranching and or herding traditions around yaks
Speaker 2: are super varied, like over forty different ethnic communities in
Speaker 2: ten countries around Central Asia, and these cultures are not
Speaker 2: a monolith culinarily or otherwise. That being said, yeah, so,
Speaker 2: yak milk can be consumed fresh by itself or more
Speaker 2: often in a hot milk tea, or fermented into alcoholic
Speaker 2: drinks or further distilled into neutral spirits. It's also used
Speaker 2: in cooking and made into butter and many, many, many
Speaker 2: varieties of cheese after summer grazing. Yac milk can reach
Speaker 2: up to twelve percent fat content. Under more like constrained
Speaker 2: dietary circumstances, it's like merely around six percent, and also
Speaker 2: it's got like five percent each protein and sugar, and
Speaker 2: all of that is nearly twice as much fat and
Speaker 2: protein as cow milk contains on the low end. So
Speaker 2: this gives yac milk a rich yellow color and slightly
Speaker 2: sweet flavor. However, one like up the cattle have is
Speaker 2: that they can produce larger quantities of milk Yac dairy
Speaker 2: is basically never going to be like an industrial level
Speaker 2: production the way that cattle dairy is. Where yak products
Speaker 2: are commercially available, It's a specialty product. The butter nice
Speaker 2: and thick and yellow used. However you like to use
Speaker 2: butter mixed with black tea and salt, it creates pocha,
Speaker 2: sometimes known as Tibetan butter tea, which is a big
Speaker 2: part of the culture in some areas. It can also
Speaker 2: be mixed in small amounts with a flour like maybe
Speaker 2: barley or oat flour to form a staple grain product,
Speaker 2: and is also used to fuel lamps, sometimes ceremonially, to
Speaker 2: bring like a buffed shine to fur coats, and to
Speaker 2: create a base for traditional butter sculptures yep sculpting. Butter
Speaker 2: is probably more widespread than you think, and I love.
Speaker 1: That me too.
Speaker 2: The cheeses, you know, you get everything from like fresh
Speaker 2: cottage style cheeses to hard like Swiss type cheeses, to
Speaker 2: smoked and or dried cheeses, which can be stored for
Speaker 2: much longer. YACs can also be slaughtered for their meat.
Speaker 2: Yak meat is leaner than beef, with a similar but
Speaker 2: perhaps more mild flavor from what I understand, And it's
Speaker 2: more efficient to rear YACs for meat than cattle because
Speaker 2: yacks only consume like a third to half of the
Speaker 2: food that cattle do, and they produce less methane. The
Speaker 2: meat can be used anyway that you like, preparing meat,
Speaker 2: from fresh steaks to sausages to jerky yack bone marrow
Speaker 2: is also a thing, and now I need that. Hope
Speaker 2: that's not too creepy. I'm like, look at this majestic animal.
Speaker 2: I definitely want to crack open its bones.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yacks are also used for transportation and for moving supplies around,
Speaker 2: plowing of the other work.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The hide and hair are used to make all kinds
Speaker 2: of things. They've got this coarse outer fur that's good
Speaker 2: for making like tents and ropes, mid coat that might
Speaker 2: go to things like coats or rugs, and then this
Speaker 2: soft undercoat that's like cashmere that they shed every spring.
Speaker 1: Well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2: Right back to the food, Yeah, uh. Compared with other
Speaker 2: dairy and meat, yak products generally carry heavier punches of
Speaker 2: both macro and micronutrients. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, indeed, and we do have some numbers for you,
Speaker 1: we do, okay.
Speaker 2: So there are an estimated sixteen million ish yaks in
Speaker 2: the world, about ninety percent in China, but a solid
Speaker 2: million or so in Mongolia, the rest mostly scattered around
Speaker 2: nearby highland areas. There are small numbers in North America,
Speaker 2: maybe like five hundred animals. Total production of yak meat
Speaker 2: per year is a bit less than four hundred thousand tons,
Speaker 2: around sixty percent of which is consumed locally.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: There is a Guinness record for the longest horns on
Speaker 2: a yak, don't. I don't know how far they looked
Speaker 2: to find competitors, but this record was awarded in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one to this beautiful brown colored buddy named Jericho
Speaker 2: that lives on a farm in Minnesota. His horns are
Speaker 2: curved in the spiral and if you could stretch them
Speaker 2: out and lay them end to end, they would measure
Speaker 2: a little over eleven feet that's like three and a
Speaker 2: half meters. He is so handsome.
Speaker 1: Look up pictures.
Speaker 2: And there are a number of yak festivals around the
Speaker 2: regions that heard or ranch yaks. The ones around Mongolia,
Speaker 2: for example, tend to occur in July or August and
Speaker 2: have events like agricultural demonstrations, yak parades, yak polo, yak lassoing,
Speaker 2: music and dance that, as far as I'm aware, the
Speaker 2: YACs don't particularly participate in yack milking competitions, yak dairy
Speaker 2: product competitions, fashion shows with yak fiber garments on humans,
Speaker 2: and I specify on humans because there's also a competition
Speaker 2: for the most beautiful and or best bedecked yak. Sometimes
Speaker 2: this is referred to as the nice yak competition. Oh,
Speaker 2: I love this so much. And then there's yak racing,
Speaker 2: which is the slowest event of any given festival because
Speaker 2: most of the yaks kind of saunter casually across the
Speaker 2: finish line, assuming that they have not gotten distracted and
Speaker 2: wandered off.
Speaker 1: Oh that's the best. That makes it so much more fun, right,
Speaker 1: fun for us and fun for the X. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: yaks are having a nice time. I don't want a
Speaker 1: fast yak race. No, The fun is what are they
Speaker 1: gonna wander off? Will they ever get back on track?
Speaker 1: That's the best, that's the best part. Okay, Well, we
Speaker 1: do have quite a history for you, we do, and
Speaker 1: we are going to get into that as soon as
Speaker 1: we get back from a quick break for a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. So all right. The yaks ancient ancestors, are
Speaker 1: believed to go back to at least two million years
Speaker 1: ago or ish. The estimated range is very very wide,
Speaker 1: but you know, probably long time ago. However, researchers have
Speaker 1: uncovered fossils what we would more modernly recognize as yaks
Speaker 1: in Mongolia, estimated to be at least ten thousand years old.
Speaker 1: They are indigenous to that area. The current theory is
Speaker 1: that the yak was domesticated in Tibet by the Chiang
Speaker 1: people around two thousand, five hundred years ago, though the
Speaker 1: process has been in motion for much longer, like seven
Speaker 1: five hundred years. Based on currently available evidence, yak products
Speaker 1: were fairly important in Mongolia beginning sometime around two hundred
Speaker 1: BCE to two hundred CE art and the appearance of
Speaker 1: yas on belt buckles recovered in this area suggests that
Speaker 1: the yak was really respected. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff if you want to look it up, which
Speaker 1: we always recommend. Oh yeah, And yaks were useful in
Speaker 1: this area in a whole lot of ways. For their meat,
Speaker 1: their milk, their leather, their fiber, their dung. As few
Speaker 1: as a beast of burden. Their meat was preserved, perhaps
Speaker 1: dried for later or turned into sausage, sometimes in combination
Speaker 1: with yac blood. Some parts were incorporated into animal feed.
Speaker 1: They were really beneficial too in terms of their ability
Speaker 1: to survive in the Himalayas in this area, and researchers
Speaker 1: often discuss how they were one piece of how people
Speaker 1: in this region adapted to these high altitudes where it
Speaker 1: was cold with a lot of snow. We've got this creature,
Speaker 1: this animal that can really handle that. It is hard
Speaker 1: to overstate how important yaks were for the people in
Speaker 1: this environment. They provided sustenance, labor and fiber for warmer clothing,
Speaker 1: heating elements, and fertilizer when it came to butter, fat
Speaker 1: or dung. The horns were useful, as were the bones.
Speaker 1: Just all around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that fuel thing is serious. Like the Tibetan
Speaker 2: plateaus tend to not have trees, so you know, no firewood.
Speaker 2: And furthermore, luckily, yak dung has little to no smell.
Speaker 2: As long as the animal has enough water and forage,
Speaker 2: it can be used as a construction material as well.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so here's the thing what I was talking
Speaker 1: about with the multiple paths here or here some of
Speaker 1: those paths. So yack milk was probably being consumed by
Speaker 1: around twelve seventy CE, and likely before that. That's when
Speaker 1: the written record indicates it. However, the scientific and historical
Speaker 1: record is lacking when it comes to the evidence around this.
Speaker 1: Researchers suspect the later date might be because the milk
Speaker 1: of other animals was the preference, or just wasn't recorded yep.
Speaker 1: Or I read in some sources that in most places
Speaker 1: with ready access to it, yack milk went to butter.
Speaker 1: At some point, yak butter ended up in tea. As mentioned,
Speaker 1: it was generally viewed as somewhat medicinal, especially at high
Speaker 1: altitude and as special occasion tea, and probably early on,
Speaker 1: yak milk was used to make cheese. It was and
Speaker 1: remains a fairly intensive process. It involves hours of churning
Speaker 1: or at least in some traditional cases. On the plus side,
Speaker 1: though a lot of this cheese lasts for months or longer.
Speaker 1: So it was another excellent option for those who were
Speaker 1: working in these harsh climates. Taking all of that into consideration.
Speaker 1: Yak products were fairly popular in pockets of Asia during
Speaker 1: the twelve hundreds, and.
Speaker 2: Butter sculpture aside. All right, So Tibetan practices around butter
Speaker 2: sculpture might have developed in like the fourteen hundreds or
Speaker 2: thereabouts during the Ming dynasty. So the tradition today is
Speaker 2: that for Tibetan Buddhist New Year celebrations, which happen in
Speaker 2: late winter like February March, some people sculpt and pigment
Speaker 2: butter into these elaborate, elaborate pieces depicting the Buddha and
Speaker 2: you know, religious scenes and symbols, architecture, animals, mythical creatures,
Speaker 2: a lot of flowers. It's an offering slash decoration at
Speaker 2: temples and monasteries, and they are very bright and intricate
Speaker 2: and can range in size from something handheld to like
Speaker 2: a few meters tall, like maybe like twenty feet, like
Speaker 2: a couple of stories high. And it's thought to have
Speaker 2: developed due to not having fresh flowers to use its
Speaker 2: offerings in the dead of winter.
Speaker 1: Butter sculpture always recommend look it up, look it up.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah no, And these truly they are gorgeous and
Speaker 2: I don't understand physically how they work.
Speaker 1: They're super cool, Yes, yes, indeed, okay. The written record
Speaker 1: indicates that a handful of yak were sent to Europe
Speaker 1: in the early eighteen hundreds. In the early nineteen hundred,
Speaker 1: some yaks were sent to North American Zoos. People also
Speaker 1: did a couple of tests around hybridization that was centered
Speaker 1: around meat production and the cold climates of Canada and
Speaker 1: the northern United States.
Speaker 2: Nepal established a yac cheese industry in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 2: and they were apparently the only country in the world
Speaker 2: with one until around about the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Wild yak were believed to be on the verge of
Speaker 1: extinction in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, they're still.
Speaker 2: They're currently listed as vulnerable, with a fewer than ten
Speaker 2: thousand left in the world wild and these days climate
Speaker 2: change is impacting some of the traditional herding and ranching regions. However,
Speaker 2: in expanded regions, yaks are being looked at as a
Speaker 2: way to offset some of the harms of the global
Speaker 2: cattle industry. You know, they produce that high quality dairy
Speaker 2: and meat on less feed and with less greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaker 2: There's there's research into like how to keep the genetic
Speaker 2: stock good, how to keep the animals healthier during long
Speaker 2: lean winters, and how to encourage people to adopt yack
Speaker 2: agriculture and yak products on a larger scale. This might
Speaker 2: be the first time that we have a future date
Speaker 2: in our timeline, but twenty twenty six is going to
Speaker 2: be the United Nations International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.
Speaker 2: So A, that's brad B. Hopefully that that will help,
Speaker 2: you know, like prod along further research in po to
Speaker 2: help out yaks and their humans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully. I mean they seem very well loved. Obviously
Speaker 1: we're fans, but of course they're facing these issues, but
Speaker 1: you know they're kind of limited and where people can
Speaker 1: get them access them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because they do not tolerate warm weather. They're like, nope,
Speaker 2: I don't like that. Unhappy So no, So we're going
Speaker 2: to have to travel somewhere.
Speaker 1: I'm what I'm hearing.
Speaker 2: Yes, if I if I achieve what I really want
Speaker 2: to do now, which is hug a yack, we're gonna
Speaker 2: have to take a field trip. It's not gonna happen around.
Speaker 1: All right, Okay, if.
Speaker 2: Anyone knows how if anyone can facilitate me hugging a yack.
Speaker 1: Yes, and if any of you listen do have experience
Speaker 1: with yak products, please let me.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, I'm so curious. I'm so curious about it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that that is what we have to say about.
Speaker 1: Yaks for now.
Speaker 2: And we do already have some listener mail for you,
Speaker 2: and we are going to get into that as soon
Speaker 2: as we get back from another quick break for a
Speaker 2: word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1: We're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're
Speaker 1: back with Snooth. Yeah was that snuffle off? I guess like,
Speaker 1: was that? You know? Maybe I kept thinking of Kung
Speaker 1: Fu Banda, But okay, in Kung Fu Panda it's master Ox.
Speaker 1: It is not a yak. Oh all right, Yeah I
Speaker 1: double checked because I'm may that mistake in the show before.
Speaker 1: Actually not Kung Fu Panda mistakes. I've made a Kung
Speaker 1: Fu pan A mistake before, so I was like, not again,
Speaker 1: good looking out, good looking out? Yeah yeah, yeah, just
Speaker 1: a fun creature until it's storming at you.
Speaker 2: Oh, especially is what I was going for. Yeah, there
Speaker 2: you go, there you go share.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Sheldon wrote, listening to the Chilula episode, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't help thinking about my granddaughter, Florence, or as
Speaker 1: I call her Flow Flow Annie. She's someone you'd love
Speaker 1: to meet, a girl after your own heart, and maybe
Speaker 1: you will when you are up this way for the
Speaker 1: Cheese Curd Festival. Flow is only seven, almost eight years old,
Speaker 1: and she loves hot sauce. I find that age kind
Speaker 1: of young for liking hot sauces. I was in my
Speaker 1: late teens before I developed a taste for them. Flow
Speaker 1: likes Chilula bottle but says that it's not hot enough.
Speaker 1: That's her biggest complaint about most things I make for her.
Speaker 1: They're not hot enough. She started liking hot sauces at
Speaker 1: the age of six and has wanted them hotter and hotter.
Speaker 1: She likes a sauce that is too hot for her
Speaker 1: sister and mother, and she's always trying to trick my
Speaker 1: wife into using some on whatever. My wife has a
Speaker 1: hard time with pepper, but Flow always seems to be
Speaker 1: able to trick her. She also likes impressing her friends
Speaker 1: by eating something that they can't handle at all. Take
Speaker 1: a tiny taste, they say it's too hot, then she
Speaker 1: takes a big taste and they are amazed. She doesn't
Speaker 1: speak much English, speaks French, but one of the few
Speaker 1: English words she can say is hot sauce. For Christmas,
Speaker 1: she gave me a T shirt that says, I put
Speaker 1: hot sauce on my hot sauce. Wow. Oh that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: I feel connected here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's seven years old. That's that's precocious, that's terrific.
Speaker 1: That is that is that reminds me of my niece
Speaker 1: who did something similar to that but really sour thing.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, she just would like eat a whole
Speaker 1: lemon and I was taken aback by it. But hey,
Speaker 1: good for you. Oh yeah, right, I do.
Speaker 2: I do feel like that is a good age for
Speaker 2: like that kind of stunt, eating that kind of Yeah.
Speaker 2: I want to be impressive by how like mildly abusive
Speaker 2: if I can beat to my own taste buds.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, uh, because I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: at that age. I think I liked very mildly spicy things.
Speaker 1: I don't think I had branched out to even chilula
Speaker 1: at that point. Yeah. Hey, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think so, I can't even remember. So the
Speaker 2: answer is probably no. The answer is I probably did
Speaker 2: not branch into that kind of stuff. I don't think
Speaker 2: I really encountered that much very spicy food until I
Speaker 2: was a little bit older. But yeah, mine was supposed
Speaker 2: to be at Mexican restaurants in my small town, where
Speaker 2: you put like maybe mildly spicy hot sauce on your
Speaker 2: on your dish.
Speaker 1: But I love this. I think this is amazing, and
Speaker 1: also I love that she gave you this shirt. I
Speaker 1: put hot sauce on my hot sauce. Yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. Oh wonderful.
Speaker 2: Kate wrote, you have finally done episodes about both of
Speaker 2: my favorite at aliens, Meet the Fruit Ninjas, Mango and Guava,
Speaker 2: and attached is a photograph of two cats. One is orange,
Speaker 2: that one is mango, and one is gray, and that
Speaker 2: one is guava. Kate continues, I am admittedly a couple
Speaker 2: of months late. Their supervillain origin story is long and squiggly,
Speaker 2: but the short version is that in June of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, a heartbroken, newly cat free me found Mango
Speaker 2: at fur Kids Atlanta thanks to some serious Facebook kismet.
Speaker 2: I'm from Alabama for distance reference, and when I emailed
Speaker 2: about Margo. They told me he came bonded to his
Speaker 2: sister Coconut flakes. Spoiler, his sister was actually his brother,
Speaker 2: And obviously, either way that name needed to be something else.
Speaker 2: I suggested Papaya, but the other half suggested Guafa. And
Speaker 2: since he needed convincing that we even needed one cat
Speaker 2: much less too, he got the win. Been waiting a
Speaker 2: long time to tell you about them. Funnily enough, I
Speaker 2: don't prefer mangos, and I can't say I've ever tried Guava.
Speaker 1: Well, they're so cute. The pictures, the pictures attached are
Speaker 1: very very adorable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Mango. There's a photo of Mango like on
Speaker 2: top of a bookshelf, just with both of his front
Speaker 2: pause just hanging hanging down like he's clearly just belly
Speaker 2: flopping on top of that bookshelf and surveying his domain
Speaker 2: in the way that only a very orange cat can.
Speaker 2: And yes, and Glava seems a tiny bit more contained
Speaker 2: as gray tabbies tend to be. But but both look
Speaker 2: so cuddly and sweet.
Speaker 1: They do, they do. And you know, we love getting
Speaker 1: pet pictures and we love if they have food names.
Speaker 1: Any any will do? Oh yeah, yeah, but food names
Speaker 1: are great. Yeah, the food names are great. I love
Speaker 1: that you don't particularly have any experience with these fruits,
Speaker 1: but I think they are excellent names and they fit.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Now mango is a high quality orange cat name. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: oh absolutely, Guadala is great as well. I'm just I'm
Speaker 2: also slightly biased towards orange cats because blessed like, just like, what.
Speaker 1: Are they up to? Which? Behind the scenes, listeners, I
Speaker 1: have gotten to witness some of Lauren's kittens chaos lately,
Speaker 1: and I have to say it's a lot of chaos
Speaker 1: and it's been entertaining for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so bonus story, all right, so it is food related.
Speaker 2: I was carrying my lunch upstairs to my office a
Speaker 2: few days ago, and the kitten ran up behind me
Speaker 2: and slapped it out of my hands like she was
Speaker 2: stealing a dribble.
Speaker 1: Okay, And it was curry.
Speaker 2: And the plate goes flying, and there's curry on the walls,
Speaker 2: there's curry on the cat. She had one little yellow
Speaker 2: paw from the turmeric for days.
Speaker 1: I still don't know why. I can't. There is no why.
Speaker 2: Only chaos, just purs and murder. Murder, that's what that
Speaker 2: one is made of yep, that's it's it's been fun.
Speaker 1: We were talking about horror movies and there was a
Speaker 1: terrible sound and it turns out the kitten was behind it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I figured that the kitten was behind it.
Speaker 2: But there was a big like clang and like yeah,
Speaker 2: like like clutter noise, and I was like.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go check that out.
Speaker 2: And Annie absolutely thought I was about to die.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's well, that's the end of savor.
Speaker 2: Fun. She had somehow knocked over the dish. The dish
Speaker 2: rack I.
Speaker 1: Pushing over books. She has an interesting character.
Speaker 2: She's very special mm hmm. I love her unconditionally and and.
Speaker 1: And it's yeah, yes, that'sous well listeners, thanks to both
Speaker 1: of these listeners for writing it. If you have bet
Speaker 1: stories you want to share, yeah, we would love to
Speaker 1: have them. You can email us at hello at savorpod
Speaker 1: dot com. We're also on social media.
Speaker 2: You can find us on blue Sky and Instagram at
Speaker 2: saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Save is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 2: your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Speaker 2: Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
Speaker 2: and we hope that lots more good things are coming
Speaker 2: your way.