Yesterday the herders came from the highlands with around 5.000 sheep after a very wet Thursday (the stuff was still soaking wet when I fetched it on Friday evening), a dry and beautiful Friday and a sloppy day's ride with the sheep not ready to take any break, just heading home. Fortunately we could stop them at Þverá and give the herders and horses a bit rest. Hjördís came with me and together with Kristján she did a very good job keeping the sheep away from the road. It would have been great to get helpers like last year, when Bjarni and his guests joined the herders and us there. As soon as possible I grabbed 2 horses and drove them home to Hólmavað where they got a dry place in the sheepstable to warm up and get dry again. They were quite happy to get inside and get some hay. We just managed in time to come back and watch the herd arriving at the gate and starting the way uphill to cross the last pass before heading to Hraunsrétt. The plan was to drive both men and horses home from there as everybody was drenched and definitely needed a good break before the sorting today. 
After a good rest we got ourselves ready to ride to Hraunsrétt in the morning, five riders in wonderful weather. The sorting startet at 10 o'clock after Gunnar was finished reciting the rules. As usual it was rather busy in the collecting ring, so many people trying to recognise the different earmarks and grab the right sheep and lambs. After 2 rounds of sorting there was a break to rest people and sheep and afterwards there were another 2 rounds. Snilld of course just came in with the last group but then started begging for treats immediately. Think she emptied all of Hjördís' pockets...
Then it was time to drive the herd home. It was not that willing to start going as there was a delicious meadow just on the way and most sheep stopped there to grab a snack. Hrund did a very good job there trying to get them going again, whilst I was trying to keep the leadersheep calm. I really like Bensi's leadersheep Kvíka and Axa and the young Þyrla. They are listening to you and are not so much thinking about overtaking and just running home. With good helpers we got the sheep home just before a busy busdriver thought there was no reason to wait any longer in line and decided to overtake all the cars waiting for us to finish and leave the road. It was just a lot of luck there was no accident as he didn't slow down despite people, horses and dogs still being on the road. What an .....! Of course we called straight away at the company he's working for and complained about this stupid and dangerous behaviour. Don't think his schedule was that tight. Would be interesting what the passengers thought about all this. 
Anyway: good that nothing happened and everybody arrived safe and sound at home. Now we'll soon have to take the lambs from the ewes, check all numbers and find out, who's still missing and might come home from another area or during the second roundup.
I put an album online, hope you can get a bit an impression of what was going on.