Scotland

One of the perks of the priesthood is jumping-in on random adventures with other Catholic Cowboys. This time it is with my buddy Donte Dawson from Wheatland, on a trip to Scotland.

Donte is a young man finishing up an ag degree down in Casper. Through FFA, he learned of a study abroad program with the Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) that he hopes to take part in. When he told me that he was planning on going over to check out the different campuses, I gladly offered to be his chaperone. We landed in Edinburgh first thing Tuesday morning. Let's ranch. 

Craig Davidson and Donte have met at the FFA national congress in Indianapolis the past couple years. Craig is involved in recruiting international students to the SRUC program. For our first couple of days, he's been our tour guide. Good man. 

Driving on the left side of the road is wild. Think I'll stick to the back seat.

SRUC has several campuses spread across this great land. Our first stop was at the Oatridge Campus, outside of West Lothian. 

Craig passed us onto Alister who showed us around the campus. The school prides themselves on teaching hands-on, practical agriculture skills. 

These tractors have been taken apart and put back together more than they have seen action in the field. Though the technology has far surpassed this era of Massey's, it is still good for students to learn the basics of mechanics. 

Same with welding. Here they get to gain experience in blacksmithing if students so desire. 

Count me in.

Most of their campuses have farm ground attached to them. We strolled around the 500+/- acre plot. Beautiful!

Then we toured their cow barn.

And sheep working quarters. 

Later that first evening, we hitched a ride up to the town of Peebles. Once a month, Craig and his crew offer a dinner and talking session to local farmers. Downtown Peebles is pretty iconic Scotland. 

I went with the Shepherd's Pie, made with lamb. I wasn't disappointed. 

The talk that evening with quite interesting. Here we heard two local farmers speak about their experience and challenges in farming today. Enjoyable, but I had a hard time staying awake after 36 hours of no real sleep. 

Thankfully, we got a good night's rest at the Merriott Hotel in Edinburgh. This is my kind of continental  breakfast. 

Our first stop the second day was to some of the SRUC research facilities associated with their campus located at the University of Edinburgh. 

After we got suited up, Abid showed three of us around their poultry research facility. 

SRUC has some of the leading agriculture research centers in all of Europe. Here they are doing a several week study on meat birds. These chicks are about 28 days old. 

They are also leading the way in bovine research and innovation. 

This is a breed of Luing cattle, which was famously developed by the Cadzow brothers on the Island of Luing in Argyll off the west coast of Scotland. This breed is a cross with the Beef Shorthorns and the Scottish Highlander, combining the fleshing qualities of the Shorthorns with the rugged hardiness of the Highlander. Kinda cool. 

SRUC is also quite involved in environmental sustainability and wellbeing concerns. This is what they call the GreenShed, which seeks to capture the methane gas that cattle produce and use it to hydroponically grow crops in a green house. Interesting. 

Here, they can close the doors and extract all the air out of the building, including the methane gases that cattle naturally exude. 

Through this compressor system, they extract the gas and pump it into the greenhouse, which somehow helps their plants grow. 

For more information. 

All the country seen here is part of this campuses farm ground. 

Pretty fun. So far we have been blessed with sunny skies. The temperature during the day hangs right around freezing and in the higher elevations there is snow. We have a couple more campuses to visit in a couple more areas around the country.

The priesthood is far from boring. Full-on on following Jesus Christ is an adventure. Traveling to Scotland with a buddy to check out ag schools may not be a standard part of the priesthood. But radically being open to opportunities that God puts in your midst, is. We'll keep ranching and see what the rest of the week brings.