The Many Uses of Grass

 

When you travel on a bus tour, one of the most important things on the tour is where do you sit on the bus. Everybody has their favorite place, their favorite side. Heaven forbid that anybody encroaches on your spot. Gate 1 came up with an equitable solution – assigned seats. After we found our seat on the first day, we were told that every day, they would move your seat three seats forward. Eventually, during the tour, you would sit on each side and also toward the front, toward the back. Some days my seat was wonderful, some days not so much but it was fair. 

We are off to St. Andrews to visit the St. Andrews Links, regarded as the “Home of Golf”. It is one of the oldest courses in the world. They have been playing golf here since the 15^th century. When we arrived, we found that they were setting up for an event that weekend and we could not access the clubhouse or more importantly, for some people, the gift shop.

The view of the golf course - ok, I guess I was a bit underwhelmed

The town of St. Andrews is definitely a golf town with the difference that the shops were all in old, old buildings. Note: In Scotland, they usually call Main Street, High Street. High Street is generally also the main shopping street.

All that is left of Blackfriars Chapel. 
They say that it is haunted.

I was lucky enough to stick my fingers in the North Sea.

Our next stop was the Lindores Abbey Distillery because what is Scotland known for but it's whiskey. Here, at Lindores, whiskey is known as 'aqua vitae', the water of life. Lindores is considered to be the birthplace of single malt whiskey as the monks were distilling over 800 years ago. We were given a tour and showed the process to make the whiskey. After the tour, we were subjected to whiskey tasting. In case you can't tell, whiskey is not my favorite although I have to say, this whiskey was so smooth and different from what I have ever tasted before, maybe I should reconsider a bit.

These are not the barrels that they store the whiskey in.  This is where the cooked grains and mashed barley are added to warm water which converts into a liquid called Mash.  Lindores gets their aging barrels from Kentucky which are old bourbon barrels. 

These copper 'stills' heat the fermented mash to the point where the alcohol turns into vapor, but the water remains liquid.  The alcohol is collected, water is again added, and it goes into barrels to be aged - anywhere from 3-4 years to 15 years.  

For me, the highlight of the day was our next stop – the sheep herding demonstration. It took a bit to understand the shepherd, his accent was very thick, but after a while you started to get the hang of it. He had maybe six or seven dogs ranging in age from 10 years old down to 7 ½ weeks old all ready and willing to herd sheep. I also had a chance to hand shear part of a sheep. It never was on my bucket list, but it was so much fun.

The sheep.
They are a breed called Black-faced sheep.  Imaginative name.

The second video is of the 7 1/2 old puppy.  I think he might have been misspeaking about the age because this puppy seems to be a bit more mature than that.  On the other hand, she is definitely a puppy and one of those brilliant border collies so perhaps?

I'm shearing!!!

Somebody on our tour asked the shepherd what happens to the dogs when they don't want to or can't work anymore. He said that the dog will tell him that it isn't going to work anymore. At that point, the dog retires and lives the life in the house because 'these dogs are my best friends'. He said that he had 18 dogs in his house.

There was also an 18-month-old Highland cow, named Anita, roaming around the farm.  Highland cows (they call them coos) have the original Beatle haircut.  Anita's hadn't grown in yet.

And finally, my traveling buds - Dave and Lou