A quick recap of Scotland in photos!

I can’t believe this experience has already come and gone. This week felt like a minute and a month all at the same time. We were able to plant 500 trees at Troqueer Primary School, home to some of the most precious children I have ever met. I was so sad to leave them, but I feel like a better person for having met them and experienced their school.

Even though the work didn’t feel like work all the time, we still got time just to play around and sight see while we were across the pond. We visited Caerlaverock Castle, which was built in the 1200s.

We were able to experience traditional Scottish culture through a meal of haggis, neeps, and tatties (for the uninitiated, haggis = sheep intestines ground up with oatmeal and spices, then cooked in a sheep’s intestine, neeps = turnip roots, and tatties = potatoes). This meal also took place at The Globe Inn (established 1610), which was home to famous poet Robert Burns.

We visited the UK version of the dollar store; Poundland (which is a magical place, let me tell you!)

Our accommodations during the week were outstanding, despite being in a former insane asylum. The grounds are now home to the University of Glasgow-Dumfries Campus, The University of the West of Scotland, the Southern Rural University and College, and Dumfries & Galloway College. Crichton memorial Church is a part of the grounds as well, and it is absolutely stunning.

We visited Whitmuir Organic Farm, which was really interesting. Sometimes it feels like conventional ag and organic ag cannot coexist peacefully, but they totally can!

We loved that they take tea breaks at least twice a day, but we especially loved this milk that they left for us to use in our tea!

Really, I don’t think there’s anything that isn’t beautiful in Scotland.

Thank you to all of the faculty and staff in the College of Ag that enabled us to have a fun and productive trip learning about agriculture in Scotland. It’s such an incredible place that words can’t do it justice. I hope that when they say “a picture’s worth a thousand words” it’s true!