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30.06.2012 22:05

Sightseeing

As the weatherforecast for this weekend was not as good as we hoped, we decided to delay our campingtrip with Bensi and his family. Instead we went for a daytrip. 
We started from Húsavík around 11 o'clock and the first stop was at Tjörnes, where we lit a small fire to grill sausages and marshmallows. The kids definitely liked it and the grownups too. From there we went to a place where you can watch a lot of birdlife including Puffins. First it was difficult to spot them, but it got easier and easier, the only trouble was not getting close enough to take a good pic. Ingólfur, Hjördís and Kristján found a few Puffins sitting close to the top of the cliff which were good motives. I got 2 fine pics and was really happy about encountering these cute birds so close.
Next stop was a shop on the road as Kristján managed to get his shoes and socks completely wet at the first break. He got new woolen socks and could go on with dry feet. 
The most spectacular place we visited today was Forvöð, where Grettir according to the Saga jumped over Jökulsáriver with two big rams on his back. This truly is a nature pearl, unspoiled and I think not so many travellers know about it. It is a fantastic place to take pictures and the light was just perfect. 
On the way back we took a short stop in Bjarnastaðir and went from there to Skólagarður, where we had delicious dinner. It was a nice change to see so many typical Icelandic meals on a menue instead of Burgers and Pizza. 
Last stop before we came home was Húsavíkurfjall. We went on top and enjoyed the beautiful overview. 
Thanks for this wonderful day!












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29.06.2012 00:59

Þeysir

...is the name of our little stallion out of Aldís and Þeyr. It means "He who rushes off at great speed.", which is exactly what he did the first days of his life when somebody came too close.
Nevertheless it looked like we maybe have to rename him as he and his mum were not rushing at all when we came to visit them this evening. They were both very relaxed, lying in the grass and not even getting up when I came close. I was able to sit down close to them and even pet Aldís and give her some bread. It was a very touching experience. 
Þeysir is in fact very nosy, even nosier than Þokki. We have to take care to set him clear borders, which will be a bit difficult as he's really cute. But who wants a foal walking over them? Not us, so there will be rules...







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27.06.2012 14:12

...and here's the last one!

Better to say our last foal for this year! We visited Aldís on Mondayevening and were quite sure it was not long till she was going to give birth. There were no milkdrops, but she behaved the way it made us think of maybe one or two days more. Yesterday evening we got a phonecall that there was a foal, very light in colour. But not easy to take a pic as Aldís was running with the little one, just to make sure nobody would come close. 
The first thing this morning was to take a drive and have a closer look. I took my camera of course. Aldís was a bit shy in the beginning, walking away with the foal, but turning back when she heard the breadbag. Now we could examin the foal closer. It is a little stallion and it looks like he's reddun. Soon Aldís got enough and walked away with her babyboy again. Þokki, Maggi's foal, is on the other hand really interested in people and even calling you when you walk away from him. Funny little guy!
We are looking forward to getting to know our stallion a bit better and finding a fitting name for him.




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24.06.2012 14:05

Sigtýr

Sigtýr spent his last summer and the following winter and spring at Helluland with a bunch of other young guys. He grew big and strong there, playing with them a lot. Now it was time to get him home as we'd like to use him for 1 or 2 mares. 
At the moment he's together with Farsæll and of course he had to show him what a big guy he already is ;) If you wanna have a look, then just take a peek in our albums.




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22.06.2012 01:32

Longest day

The longest day of the year was today and a long day it was. My parents ended their visit at our place and we drove them to Akureyri to catch their flight South. It is always difficult to say Goodbye and that was no exception. But I hope and think they enjoyed their time here.
Afterwards we met the owners of Freyja and showed them our horses and of course gave them some time to meet Freyja. 
As the weather was really still and beautiful we used the opportunity to have a look at the Midnightsun. We were so lucky to do Whalewatching at the same time as some minke whales were feeding close to the cliffs. They were blowing and diving and waving with their huge fluke.
When we arrived home we had some unexpected visitors in our vegetable garden. 2 babybirds were waiting for their mum to come and feed them and used the sparetime to dig after worms in my garden.


 












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18.06.2012 23:24

Visitors

Summer is here and we are getting visitors! This time my parents are visiting us for a week and we are trying to show them a few things they haven't seen before. Friday we took rather easy and allowed them to arrive and relax. Saturday we went with Bensi and his family up to Þeistareykirarea, where we had a look at a small cave before we had a nice coffeebreak in the mountainhut. But after that the adventure should really start. We decided to have a look at 2 craters closeby and followed the mudtrack up there. First it was very steep and stony, then it got better, but suddenly we realised that there was still snow on the road. Bensi drove in front of us and made a track, he was our pathfinder ;) One time he underestimated the deepth and got stuck. Good that we were still on hard ground and had a rope in our car. We managed to drag him out again and could continue our trip. It was a bit spooky to see how grey the countryside still was in middle of June. Difficult to imagine that soon the sheep of the local farmers will be allowed to walk loose in this area.
We made our way back to Hólmavað, stopped on the road to have a look at Aldís, Þokkadís and her foal and visited the lambs in the sheepstable. Pollý and Mirra welcomed the visitors and Pollý was very quick making friends with my parents asking for more and more claps ;) 
To finish a wonderful day we went to Bergstaðir to have a look at Vaka's newborn foal. It is a beautiful, bluedun spotted stallion, very well raised neck and long legs. I think Bensi is very proud of him.
Sunday, 17th of June, the Icelandic Nationalday we spent with the local parade, where 16 members of the local ridingclub Grani lead the people to the Sportshall. Afterwards we invited the kids of Húsavík horsebackriding. Some kids liked it so much, they went again and again in the row to take another round.
We used the perfect weather to go and have a late beachtour and watch the sun going down.
Today, my parents had a day off as we had to move our young horses. Nökkvi and Embla went to Helluland where they are going to spend their summer with Kiddi's young horses. Then we collected the 2 young stallions and 5 geldings from a big field and brought them inside to clip their hooves and get them more used to humans. Some of them were not so happy about that with the result of one broken rope and a broken halter. Finally we drove the 5 geldings up Kiddi's trailer and brought them to the stable in Helluland, where they are gonna stay a bit to handle them more. The 2 stallions went on our trailer and we took our Sigtýr back home to Saltvík. I was very happy to see him moving when he was showing off for the mare Ingólfur was riding when they were collecting them from the field. I was not so happy to see what he had done with the little of mane he had... But well, that'll grow again. Sigtýr is gonna stay a bit inside now, to handle him a bit more, clip his hooves and deworm him.
Tomorrow we are gonna go to Skagafjörður as my parents haven't been there yet. Gonna have a look at Vordís and Þyrnirós if we have time.
Great to have such easygoing visitors!










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10.06.2012 00:06

Sad news

Friday afternoon Ingólfur got the impression that Perla was slimmer than before and was in doubt that she ever has been in foal. She did not behave different from before, seemed normal and really interested in us and the bread we are used to bring. We decided to let the vet check her during the next week to make sure if she was with foal or not.
Today, when we went to get Aldís, we discovered the reason Perla was suddenly so slim... She had a miscarriage and had lost her foal, obviously between Thursday and Friday. It was a very small, bay foal she missed and we are very sad about this. Perla seems to be just herself, not upset at all. We'll have the vet check her soon to make sure, she is ok.
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09.06.2012 23:12

Busy Saturday

A busy day it was indeed. In the morning we went to catch Vordís and Þyrnirós as they were supposed to go to Skagafjörður, where Vordís has a date with Þórálfur frá Prestsbær. It was easier than we thought to get Vordís, Maggi had done quite good work with his breadbag the days before. Þyrnirós was not so happy about being grabbed and put into the trailer, but she decided to behave well.
Then we picked up Iðunn and all her stuff she needed for the Landsmótsqualification at Akureyri. We dropped the horses off in Helluland, from where they would travel to Akureyri and then to Skagafjörður later that day. We went on to Akureyri and met Dagný Anna and Thelma Dögg there. The girls were quite nervous about the competition, but did their best in the showring. Iðunn and Dagný Anna got very good marks, but for Thelma it didn't work out that well as her horse Taktur went on cross-canter so she didn't get any marks for that. Nevertheless all three of them are going to Landsmót in Reykjavík. Hope they are doing well there!

Kiddi picked us up in Akureyri and off we went to Saurbæ and then Dyrfinnustaðir. 3 mares and a foal in the trailer. Lukka and Myrká were going to meet Hágangur frá Narfastöðum again as Kiddi got very good offspring out of this match already. First stop was Saurbæ where we put Vordís in the fence with around 17 other mares and some foals, which will be a lot of fun for Þyrnirós. We didn't see Þórálfur at first as he was not really aggitated about getting a new mare into his group. He acted very calmly and was polite. I definitely liked that. Vordís had a good look around in the fence and then went to have some fresh grass.

In Dyrfinnustaðir we got to know the young owner of Hágangur and I was quite impressed about how this young lady has everything well organised. She marked the mares with yellow tape and then wrote down all the details about them and their owner. Think Kiddi can be sure that everything is in the right order there. 

As Kiddi's car was quite thirsty we went to get gasoline and had dinner at the same place. The journey home was fast, the weather beautiful, just a little bit too little space in the back of the car for me. We came home around midnight, just put Negla and Röst in the stable and went home and straight to bed. We definitely had a very good day in wonderful weather.



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08.06.2012 22:52

Þyrnirós and her brother

Our Þyrnirós is very happy about her little brother as she now finally has another foal to play with. At the moment the young guy is still very attached to his mum and not so much interested in playing, but that will change soon. We are again and again surprised, how much the foals are changeing in very short time. Þyrnirós is growing and growing, you can nearly watch her doing that. I attach a pic of sister and brother I took today in the evening sun.






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05.06.2012 16:10

...and another one!

Looks like somebody told Þokkadís what I wrote in our blogg yesterday! She hurried and got her foal this morning. When we saw it around 7.45 it was still wet and looked very "fresh". It's a little colt, red with a small star. Now Maggi has to find a name for him and I'm sure he'll get a lot of suggestions from his grandchildren ;)
So far Farsæll's foals this year all have a bit of white, but he was obviously not too generous with his spotted colour. Looking forward to see the other foals.
Have to have a better look at the little fellow later, but here comes the first pic. 


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04.06.2012 22:24

A name and another foal

After thinking for quite some time, writing a long list with names, striking through most of them, looking through "Hrímfaxi" and Worldfengur and thinking a bit more, we decided to call our filly out of Farsæll and Vordís "Þyrnirós" which means "Sleeping Beauty" in English and "Dornröschen" in German. She does her best to fit her name as she is sleeping quite much and when she is awake, she is trying to be beautiful. Looking forward to see her grow up!

Þokkadís has still no foal, but Toppa, the mare of Sigurveig and Guðrún got her foal today. Eventhough both parents are spotted, the foal is solid red. But at least it has a big star and a snip and it is a filly. I'm quite nosy to see her dry and running around.
Maybe time for Þokkadís to hurry a bit, at least she was supposed to be the first one...



Þyrnirós frá Húsavík



Newborn filly out of Toppa and Farsæll

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02.06.2012 10:37

Sjómannadagur - Sailorsday

This weekend is the so called "Sailorsdaysweekend", which is held annually to honour the sailors and think about those that died during their hard work on sea. No ships are on sea, all the sailors have a weekend off. The weekend is celebrated with a sail, competitions between the crews of the ships, a Mass on Sunday and of course a dance on Saturdayevening.

Jói, Ingólfur's brother in law, invited us to sail with him on his boat "Soley". We took Hjördís with us and met Jói, Hulda, Jói litli (son of Laura and Hjalti), Haukur and the kids, Benedíkt, Jón Hafsteinn, Sigrún and their daughter Hulda Briet at the harbour. We were 8 grown-ups and 6 kids on board. The weather was great and everybody in good mood when we sailed out of Húsavíkharbour, following all the others on their way to the sea. Most boats were going to Lundey, but we stopped a bit and Jói showed the kids part of his daily work. Looked like the fish knew he was not allowed to take them that day and were biting like crazy. So we drew them up, Jói showed them to the kids and then we of course let them go back to their habitat again. 
Northsailing's Garðar had spotted a whale and was following it a bit and we did that too. It was fun to try and guess where it would come up again and we got a glimpse of it before it went down again.
Afterwards we stopped a bit and had Prins Polo and soft drinks. We watched 2 aeroplanes flying quite close over the ships, but didn't get good pics of them. Then we made our way back to Húsavík, where we decided to have a look at the competitions going on. 
It was announced that they were still looking for teams to compete and Jói got the brilliant idea to sign a crew for his boat. He needed 7 members, but had only 5 (Ingólfur, Jón Hafsteinn, Benedíkt, Haukur and himself). I didn't hesitate and signed up and then we could talk a friend of Benedíkt into it too. First task was to row a boat, which sounds easiert than it actually is as we were not experienced in that. Think we did quite well, got over the finishline in exactly 58 seconds and ended in the 4th or 5th place. We thought that was everything and went to get ourselves some free hot dogs. But suddenly we were called to the obstacle race...
It was a relay race, everybody had to do something different. The first one had to nail a long nail into a block of driftwood, the second one to eat a whole box of unsweetened skyr, the third to put yarn into a needle, the forth to dress himself in oilclothing and run front and back, the fifth to eat icelandic "kókósbollur" and drink a glass of coke afterwards (makes great foam), the sixth to sack race and the seventh and last one to carry 28 tin weights front and back. Each of these weights has 2,5 kilos, so it was 70 kilos they had to carry.
We did very well and ended in second place! Last thing to do was rope pulling. I said "Pass!" there and prefered to take pictures. By thinking very well about when to start and winning our first opponent, we came to the finals and ended there in second place too. Think we were to overall winners ;)
We had a lot of fun and I think nobody was disappointed that we took part in all this.
Takk fyrir okkur, Hulda og Jói!








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28.05.2012 11:26

Busy weekend

Saturday morning, after feeding the horses, we moved Vordís and Þokkadís to a different field where they have a bit more peace. No nosy youngsters disturbing them all the time. Vordís' filly just followed her mum like a shadow, but somehow I think she's not gonna do that for very long as she ist really nosy.
After having quick lunch we went to Hólmavað, where we were supposed to watch over the lambing ewes while Ella and Bensi were not home. The last times I did that, not a single ewe was giving birth, but it was different that day. Bensi and Ella showed us, what we had to do for the already born lambs as there were some having difficulties drinking. With 2 their mum didn't allow them to drink and one more had difficulties to get started so you had to help it and milk a bit before it was able to do it on its own. The plan with the lambs their mum didn't want was to smuggle one of them under another ewe that was just getting one lamb. When Ella and Bensi left, there was one already giving birth and got 2 big rams. Ingólfur helped her a bit getting the lambs out as they had quite big horns. She was taking really good care of them, being busy cleaning them.
When everything was calm again we had some coffee and afterwards Ingólfur went to try and catch some delicious fish in Laxá. I made myself comfortable in the stable and checked regularly on the ewes if there wouldn't be one to start giving birth. Finally a grey ewe started and according to the books she was just with one lamb. So best to prepare everything to smuggle one lamb under her. Hrund and Kristján were already home again and told me what their dad is doing in a situation like that. We had to catch the amniotic fluid in a bucket and then bathe the lamb we wanted the ewe to foster in it. First we had to help her a bit as her own lamb was really big and not so eager to get out of the warm and cosy place ;) Ingólfur bathed the little ram completely in amniotic fluid and put him with the ewe that was straight away trying to clean the little guy. But the only thing he was thinking about was getting to the milk bar ;) We hope they are getting along well.
It was time to think about our dinner and so Ingólfur went to prepare pizza with the kids. There was another ewe giving birth but unfortunately the lamb didn't come the right way, you could just see the nose but not the legs. So I had to get the huge glove (gonna ask Bensi to order some smaller too next year) and try to get the legs in the right position. Awfully little room in a sheep... Had to push the head back to get my hand in and find the legs. That went well and after helping a bit she gave birth to a big ewe. The second lamb came without help. Afterwards the other sheep decided to wait again for Bensi ;)
Kristján and Ingólfur went fishing again and brought home a quite big trout.
We were both quite tired when we came home, but happy that everything went well.

Sunday morning we made a new fence and in the afternoon Ingólfur showed Negla on the track in Einarsstaðir as her owner was thinking about letting her show in a breeding show. He was really happy about what he saw and called a lady that will show her. So we left Negla in Helluland and took Kapteinn instead back home. Bjössi and Ingólfur are going to train him together. 







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24.05.2012 20:17

Next round ;)

Yesterday we got a foal, today we got the expected lambs ;) 
Around lunchtime I got a SMS telling me that my ewe was starting to have her lambs. Unfortunately I had to work till 3 o'clock so I couldn't just leave and watch.
After work, we rushed home, changed clothes, grabbed the camera (nearly forgot the memory card) and off we went. I was counting on getting two big white rams, but hoped to get at least some coloured lamb as the father is grey.
When we arrived in Hólmavað, Bensi was getting ready to check out Mysa a bit better as she still hadn't got her lambs. It was good he had a closer look as the first one had forgotten to bring it's frontlegs in the right position and so he had to help it. The first thing I saw was a dark foot... Bensi tried to hide it from me, but I already had seen it and was waiting for to see the whole lamb. It proved to be a light grey ewe, so I got finally after 3 rams in the last years a female and a different colour than white. The second lamb was even more of a surprise! I first thought, it was just bloody around the eye, but in fact it a dark spot. Lucky me got a spotted ewe too! She has small spots on her ears, a spot around each eye and three dark spots on her back. The little lady looks a bit like a "Kärnter Brillenschaf" an endangered breed from Austria.
Thanks to Ella, Bensi and the kids in Hólmavað for taking so good care of them! Special thanks to Rut for loaning her ram ;)


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23.05.2012 23:50

First foal

Well, it looks like Vordís listened to me and decided to give birth to her foal a bit earlier than expected. When we went to have a look at the mares in the morning, there was something small and brown outside the fence of our pasture. A foal! It was easy to see it was Vordís foal, as Þokkadís cannot give this colour and Vordís was really worried inside the fence.
After getting the little lady back to her mum, Vordís ran off with her. Well, it will be like that the next days till we are allowed to get closer to her. Bread of course will help ;)
The filly is a baypinto, with very small white markings on her body (just a small spot), small socks in front and stockings in the back. We are very happy about her looks and are now looking for a fitting name.








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