FFA group enjoys Scotland competition

Scotland: Report No. 3

Hello again!

Yesterday (June 25th), consisted of a short tour by bus of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and then continuing on to the Royal Highland Show, where we made ourselves a little more familiar with the breeds of cattle we would be looking at.

We saw many interesting monuments, including the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which the queen visits periodically, and Edinburgh Castle. The adults and non-judging individuals were left to explore the town. The four of us, as well as the other dairy and livestock teams, continued on to the Royal Highland Show.

We were left to explore the fair for a few hours, tasting foods native to Scotland - such as Haggis, the national food. We were then taken on a guided tour of the barn by last year's Scottish winner of the Young Farmers competition. He briefed us about what the judges would be looking for in the cattle judging, as well as what we should expect in our dairy-cattle evaluation competition.

Today (June 26th) was competition day! We arrived at the fairgrounds at 8 a.m. and met with group stewards, who guided us down to the contest area. My, what a hectic, chaotic contest it was!

At our U.S. contests, we are accustomed to having 12 minutes to judge non-reasons classes and 15 minutes for reasons classes. However, at this contest, we were only given FIVE minutes for both types of classes! Needless to say, we were feeling quite rushed the entire time!

We saw a class of Ayrshires (native to Scotland), two classes of Holsteins and a class of Jerseys. Then, we hurried off to memorize our reasons for the oral part of the contest.

We met back up at the Strathmore Restaurant on the grounds at 5:30 p.m., and received the results of the U.S. division. Our California team had an amazing day! We were the first-place pair (Scotland judges in teams of two, not four, as we are used to), and our Petaluma teammates, Rocco Cunningham and Sam Cheda, came in second. Only one point separated the top two pairs.

In the individual competition, Rocco placed first, Mandy second, Kelli third, and Sam 10th! We had a wonderful contest. It was a great opportunity to compete with the Scottish Young Farmers teams and FFA and collegiate teams from the United States.

We head to England tomorrow, so we will be sure to update you on our happenings again soon!

- Kelli Carstensen and Mandy Brazil