Fish Tale

If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts. Even if He says to say nothing! 

           https://youtu.be/9vXEusgIYe4         

Horse Care

I bet it in the last two months I have visited these horses twice. That's the beauty horses, if their pasture conditions are right, they can fend for themselves.  

It's been an open winter, which allows the water to stay open and grass exposed. A couple honks of the horn at Jack's place, and the kids come running. 

A bucket they'll dive right into. Out of the hand, they need to test first. 

Oats don't take too much convincing. 

Chief is weathering well. Still got to look into his limp. I hope to have a vet take a look soon. 

Buck's pretty happy. 

Mollie always enjoys a good treat. 

Happy campers. 

We've got a good set up at Jack's. There are cows still in the country or I'd supplement them with a lick tub. Hopefully we can soon. My wheels are already turning about spring. We'll see what kind of fun we can find out here in the months to come. Ranch on. 

Attractiveness

Our Lord's authority is attractive.

           https://youtu.be/T28LET1VZc4         

Authority

Jesus speaks with true authority.

           https://youtu.be/5Sz9_Oqgsdw         

Pilgrimage Sunday

Every good Catholic vacation needs to have some sort of pilgrimage attached to it. That really isn't hard to do, beings the Church is everywhere in the world and saints come from all corners of the earth. For us, this took place in downtown Edinburgh. Oh yeah, we picked up a straggler too. 

Spain really isn't that far away. So, Gerry jumped the pond and joined us for a couple days of Catholic Cowboy fun. 

Our first stop on Sunday morning was at St. Mary's Cathedral. I had made arrangements beforehand to concelebrate at their 9am Mass. 

Beautiful church. Built in the late 19th century. There are different areas where Christianity, and Catholicism is particular, are alive and well. There are also other places where it is barely hanging on. It remains pretty lively in downtown Edinburgh. Our Mass was fairly full. 

Why this cathedral is entrusted to Our Lady...? Why not? Can't go wrong with Mary. She always leads us to Jesus. Every pilgrimage I take, I like to renew my entrustment to Mary. Just following in the footsteps of Jesus. 

Tradition holds that Scotland was evangelized by the Apostle Andrew. He, like most of the Apostles, died a martyr's death. Andrew was crucified on an X shaped cross. You often see him figured holding this cross and you see it in different symbols around the country. Particularly on the Scottish flag, which is blue with a white shaped X across it. 

Fr. Jeremy and Dcn. Peter were quite friendly and accommodating. 

After Mass we took a stroll downtown. 

There's a bagpiper on every corner around here. 

Our destination was the Edinburgh Castle. 

Back in its day, this place was a force to be reckoned with. Hard to describe the magnitude of this fortress and its purpose to protect and defend. There's a lot of history in these stone walls. 

The highlight of our Pilgrimage Sunday was St. Margaret's Chapel. Queen Margaret of Scotland was not from Scotland, but married the king after her family was forced to flee England. After that, she bore eight children and lived a holy life dedicated to God and neighbor.

This chapel was built in the 12th century and was a common place for the royal family to pray and have Mass celebrated. It remains the oldest standing building on the castle premises. 

Beautiful, noble simplicity. Here, we prayed for ourselves and for others just like St. Margaret would've done. 

Bring it. 

Fun stuff. Vacations are always funner when God is the source and summit. Our Lord was the leading force on this trip. And it was Him, who was our great culmination. Just like life. When Jesus is our alpha and omega, everything in between falls nicely into place. This trip to Scotland has been a good gig. Wonder what awaits us next? Only one way to find out... Let's ranch. 

Day Four

The adventure continues. Next on our dock was two schools to see, one south and one north. The Barony campus near Dumfries and the campus in Aberdeen. 

The kid and I seem to still be getting along. 

Before we started our Thursday morning we had our standard two link sausage breakfast. A staple in Scotland is Haggis, the ground meal at the top of the plate. Haggis is comprised of a lot, mainly sheep organs and oatmeal. Not bad, but not terribly tasty either. 

The drive down to Dumfries was spectacular, snow, sunshine, and rolling rural farm ground. The Barony campus is comprised with old and new buildings; all well kept and ready for action. 

Heather showed us around. 

The school's main agricultural focus is on dairy and the feed that goes with it. 

Dairy cows are a different duck. Often you have to bring them in and tend to their hooves. This is one way of doing it!

They also teach a bit of forestry, including sawmilling. 

We had lunch on campus. Irn Bru is the Pepsi of Scotland. 

Then we took a field trip with the students to a local farm. 

Here, they focus mainly on fattening cattle. 

Down south, the main crop they use for high protien feed is silaged maize. 

Around here, any big truck is called a lorry. They use this guy to haul fat cattle to the slaughterhouse. 

That afternoon we jumped on a train and headed north to Aberdeen. About a five hour venture. 

Friday morning we met up with Phil who gave us a grand tour of the school and the area. 

Less dairy up here and mainly beef cattle. 

Similar systems for working cattle as us. They call a squeeze chute a crush, however. Also, almost all their paneling is galvanized. 

90% of all the cattle getting fattened live under a shed. The UK in general is not a big fan of feedlots. Keeps them out of the rain, I guess. But the air is stale and damp in here. One thing you see on almost all the cattle being fattened are shaved backs. The main reason for doing so is to keep them cool. Interesting. 

Up north, no maize is grown. But a lot of barley is. This is mainly for malting at whiskey distilleries. But if it doesn't make malt, they feed it to cattle. 

After a tour around the SRUC Aberdeen farm, we went to the local sale barn. No small matter. 

The barn in Aberdeen is grand central station for all things farm. It's also where producers come to socialize, just like in the States. 

This is probably the biggest sales ring in the Scotland and likely the UK.

They grow their cattle big. These Charolais average 682 kilograms, which is 1500 pounds. That's a big T-bone. They didn't go for cheap either. As far as I can figure, about $3300 a critter! The locals said that was incredibly high. Just like in the US, the biggest driving factor in the market is the low cattle numbers. 

Giddy up. 

Fun stuff. We're pretty much done with our college tours. I think Dante likes what he sees. We'll see which school best suits his fancy. Now we'll head back to Edinburgh and see some history. Let's ranch.

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 Dante Dawson from Wheatland, on a trip to Scotland.

Dante 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 Dante 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.