“Squirrel!” ... I mean, “Pheasant!”

We’re at my mum’s cousin’s place in Scotland right now. It’s been like stepping into a different world. They live in what used to be a steading and carriage house, which used to belong to a mansion down the hill. When you pull off the road, you drive through the trees up a narrow lane and along a gurgling brook. “Allt Mor”, the house, is a a stone structure with arched doors and windows, surrounded by colourful flowers.

Bud used to be the gamekeeper for an estate further north, and still has something to do with the local deer culling (hunting is very different here from hunting in the Yukon. If you don’t cull your herd, the Crown comes in and does it for you. And charges you for it. And you don’t shoot the biggest buck.) For dinner we had venison layered with homegrown potatoes, salad from the garden, and freshly baked bread. For breakfast, porridge. Very Scottish.

Bud and Jennifer have done a LOT of work to the steading. We looked through some pictures last night. When  they bought it, the animals were still living in it. The room I’m staying in used to have sheep. Over the last 20 years, they’ve gutted it, pulled up the various flooring, bashed out the bricked up windows, and rebuilt it using old-time techniques. I don’t think Bud used a single nail in the whole house. And Jennifer has done an incredible job decorating the inside.

They still have a couple of their old bird dogs too. I hadn’t realized how complex their training is! We took them on a walk last night and Bud was showing and explaining some of it to me There are pheasants everywhere here. On our walk we met the gamekeeper for a neighboring estate out doing his rounds. He laughed as he told us that it was his job to baby and painstakingly take care of the pheasants for 6 months of the year, and then help shoot them all the other 6 months of the year.

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