After being in doubt about List's pregnancy we finally let our vet check her just to get to know, that she was just obese but not in foal. Luckily Bósi had just arrived from the south and Vignir offered us to put her with him again if we'd like to, which we did.
I rushed with List and my camera to the field to be ready when the stallion would be released to his mares, which is usually quite an interesting moment. Bósi and Vignir came by car and as expected there was quite something going on, when Bósi was put into the field. Great opportunity for me! Now we just have to hope the best for List and probably doublecheck if she's pregnant or not, this time...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oliver and Aurelia from Austria came to visit Fjördís and her foal today. After spending quite some time with the foals and horses, we went out for delicious dinner at Naustið and after that for a drive to Tungulending, where we had coffee and a nice chat, before ending the day at the top of Húsavík mountain, enjoying the view. Think they liked their little filly a lot and it was nice to watch how interested the horses were in our visitors.

 

 

 

 

The last days have been really busy as we are preparing the annual riders' ball in our riding hall. Next weekend there will be the local festival called "Mærudagar", which means "Sweets' days". On Friday evening there'll be the ball, the 4th year in a row now.
There's a lot to prepare, muck out and thouroughly clean the stable, clean and paint the boards, water and condense the floor and a lot more things. People have been very helpful and everybody joing in as much as he/she can. So we hope for it to be a big success as the years before as our riding club uses the income to pay back the loan for building the riding hall.

 

 

 

 

As you remember, I made a little experiment with some potatoes I found in our fridge. 
Today I stopped by and checked on them and in fact some of them had started to grow. Now it's just wait and see if and what I'll get in autumn.
Anyway, it's exciting to try new things out!

 

After getting a small glimpse of Þrá's and Fjördís' foals yesterday, we spent quite some time there to watch them and see how they'd react to having us around for quite some time. And of course to check if List already had her "red stallionfoal" (Ingólfur is always teasing me that I'll get a chestnut stallion instead of the colourful mare I'm hoping for). Well, she hadn't and it doesn't look like she'll go into labour very soon. Hope she won't explode until then...
At first both mares and foals were really cautious and preferred to flee instead of talking to us, but after sitting down and Fönix and Svipur deciding to check us out and get a good scratch, everybody calmed down and both foals couldn't resist coming and having a look at us. I really liked what I saw and am all agog with curiosity how Ingólfur's colt will develop, he's such an eyecatcher.
Afterwards we checked out our horses in Hagi. They were quite far away but after whistling Snerpa started to come towards us followed by Kóngur and Rögnir. Pandóra seemed not to know what to do, wanting to follow the teenagers, but her mum banned it and ran away instead. As I had feared the flies had been that aggressive that Snerpa had nearly scratched off all of her mane... Well, it will regrow and I was already prepared for it. So no Tina Tuner looks until late winter.
The youngsters were happy to see us whilst Vordís and Pandóra were just dashing to and fro, which made it possible for me to get some nice pics. Anyway, hope she'll be more relaxed next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm back home again after a rather long stay with my friends and family in Germany and Austria.
First stop was at my friend Gabi's place, where I got the chance to see newly hatched tortoises. They are really cute, but already look very adult when hatching. In fact just tiny little grown up tortoises. I was really faszinated about their inital behaviour as I'm really new to the tortoise way of life. Their parents have a beautiful place in the garden, where they can roam around as they like. Faszinating creatures!
There were a lot more things we did when I was there, for instance go for a walk with the dogs in the nearby forest or visiting her horses at their stable. Great time!
Afterwards I visited my family in Austria, helped a bit here and there, took care of my mum's balconry garden (I was especially good at harvesting and tasting tomatoes), met with our friend Gerti, visited her horse and chatted with friends I met there.
Of course I went to Waldviertel, enjoyed looking for mushrooms in the forrest and a perfect Sachertorte at our neighbours' place. Busy, but very good times. 
Now I'll have to have a look at all our horses and then be active moving my horses, eventhough Ingólfur and Hjördís very really diligent on back when I was gone. Good to know them in good hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Ingólfur and Hjördís checked the horses in the morning they were surprised by Fjördís and her little filly after Óskasteinn frá Íbishóli. The little lady belongs to our friends in Austria and are we pretty sure they'll like her very much. She's spotted like her mum, but with more white. Her base colour seems to be red dun, which makes her red dun spotted. Looking forward to meeting her when I'm back home. Now there's just List left to give birth. Hope she'll wait for me.

 

Þrá didn't wait for my calculated birthdate but already had her foal during the night. Ingólfur found the pair in the morning, Þrá and her silverdapple son out of Bósi frá Húsavík. Looking forward to getting to know him when I'm back home.

 

 

 

 

Time to empty the pasture and so we fetched Fönix and Fjördís in the afternoon. Of course they had to get dewormed and their hooves clipped. But first of all, we had to get them. No problem with Fönix as he just walkes towards you and stands still when putting the halter on. Fjördís isn't that keen on getting caught, so we had to put up a little fence to get her.  She wasn't keen on getting her hooves trimmed, either and so we had to release her with 1 hoof untrimmed. We didn't want to tranquilize her as she'll be due to get her foal soon. 
Fönix was happy to be the guy in the group and showed off a bit with all these pretty girls around. We are looking forward to getting to know the foals soon.

 

 

 

Could have been the motto of Bensi's sheep today. After "cleaning" the homelands, it was time to fetch the sheep at Hjarðahagi and drive them to the mountains. Snilld and her lambs were there, too, so I tried to get some pics of them since I haven't met them since their day of birth. They definitely hav grown a bit and are looking fantastic! Snilld is as greedy as always and was happily chewing treats while calling her boys. 
When sorting we realised there were some lambs missing and as Hrund had seen a dead lamb, we decided to have a look at it and maybe find the number. Arnar showed us, where they found the dead lamb and told us, it was looking really strange, the head was missing. When we arrived, we soon realized, that more or less the whole carcass was missing, no head, no spine, no other bones except the legbones. And the skin was "inside out", which means the wooly side was inside, the flesh side outside. In my opinion, somebody caught and slaughtered the poor lamb. No fox or raven could do things like that... Very unusual and very disturbing. Hope the sheep are safe in the highlands, but you get news about more and more lambs missing in autumn...

 

 

 

Tonight was the annual Club competition, where the winners drag a company that get's the trophy for 1 year. This year not too many were participating, which is a shame as it's always nice to meet and see different horses on the track. The riding school kids were allowed to take part and each and everyone got a medal for taking part. We were really proud of them after just 5 lessons riding tölt/trott on the ovaltrack. 
I didn't participate, but took pics. First I took care of our kids, getting them ready and then changeing saddles and horses, then I concentrated on taking pics of the participants.
Ingólfur and Magnús won karlaflokkur and am I really proud of these two. Looking forward to seeing them compete more.

 

 

 

 

This week we've been busy teaching 6 kids from 1st to 6th grade on horseback. Some of them have never sat a horse before, but all of them did really well and we were able to see progress in each and every lesson. I think the key to success in teaching kids is to give them responsibility, trust them to do things instead of doing everything for them. Our group had to lead, brush and saddle their horses, of course with assistance, but mostly on their own. In my opinion it's necessary to make them independent and able to do the basics on their own. Looking forward to teach them until Friday and allowing them to take part in our riding club competition on Friday evening.
After ridingschool we fetched Kóngur and Snerpa, cut their hooves, dewormed and put them in the trailer heading to Hagi. It's time for them to go to their summerpasture. It was no problem putting a halter on them and then just clipping whilst all the others made nonsense around them in the field. They went up into the trailer like pros so really looking forward to starting them in autumn. Think they'll be pretty quick getting the basics. 
Afterwards it was time to get Pandóra, Vordís and Rögnir. It was no problem catching Vordís and Rögnir, but he wasn't keen at all entering the trailer with Fjördís and Fönix running crazy all about. Vordís was worried about Pandóra, who of course didn't follow her mum into the trailer. In the end we decided to grab the little lady, put her inside and close and then walk Rögnir to the stables and try to get him loaded there. He just walked with me there, not even looking back to his friends calling him. Wow, if it would have been that easy handling him in there... Well, at the stables he more or less just walked into the trailer. Fönix and Fjördís were left behind, we'll fetch them later and move them to the field near Húsavík.
The five friends at Hagi went on an inspection tour and I really hope, Pandóra will forget a bit about how fond she's about people there.

 

 

 

 

 

As you cant't stay at home everyday and it is nice to go and visit other horsepeople, we took a drive to Helluland and checked out some of the young horses Kiddi has for sale. 
Barði í a very big, black gelding, a bit looking like a small Friesian, he definitely has the look! He was gelded last autumn, which makes this his first summer in a mixed herd. It's going pretty well and I think it'll improve with the years. At the moment his name in WF is still Krummi, so don't get confused when looking him up. 
Barði frá Hellulandi IS2013166421 (F: Dimmir frá Hellulandi, M: Hanna Valdís frá Grímshúsum)
Number two was Skýfaxi frá Hellulandi IS2014166423 (F: Mjölnir frá Hellulandi, M: Lukka frá Hellulandi), who's a halfbrother to List. Quite contrary to her, he shows amazing trott with quite special and high movements with the hindlegs. It was amazing to watch him!
Then we watched 2 mares, Örk IS2013266420 (F: Dimmir frá Hellulandi, M: Súla frá Hellulandi) and Stör frá Hellulandi IS2013266422 (F: Búi frá Húsavík M: Röst frá Hellulandi). Búi is already worldfamous because of just 1 pic taken of him, which went viral. Just click on his name and you know what I'm talking about.
Both mares are fivegaited and showed themselves nicely.
So if you are interested in any of these, just send me a line and I can hopefully give you more information!

 

Barði

 

 

 

Skýfaxi

 

 

 

Örk

 

 

Stör

 

We'd like to use our big meadow down by the sea for our riding horses during summer as the field near Húsavík is in a little attractive surrounding for going for a ride. There's a big gravel pit and they already closed more or less all path directly leading from our field with huge piles of gravel and sand.  So no fun to be there anymore and we are possibly going to miss the field anyway when they start to enlarge the gravel pit. But what to do with all the wonderful grass there? And where to put the youngsters, pregnant mares and Vordís and Pandóra. After talking a lot about what would be best to do, we decided to move Vordís, Pandóra, Snerpa, Kóngur and Rögnir to the countryside like we did during the last years. There's hardly a better place for a young horse to spend the summer and autumn. Those will be moved some of the next days. Fönix, Sveipur (after updating his getting caught and putting a halter on skills) and the 3 pregnant mares will spend their summer at the pasture in Húsavík, which will serve as a delivery suite. 
So today it was time for List and Þrá to move to their summer place. After clipping their hooves and deworming, they were released into horsey paradise, as we call it. Tons of fresh, luscious grass and nobody to tell them how much they are allowed to eat. Þrá's foal (Ingólfur is sooooo much hoping for a silverdapple mare) is due in about 1 month (I'd say between 10th and 15th, but Ingólfur says it will be born earlier), List isn't due to the beginning of august (if she's gonna keep it that long inside...). Next days will be busy moving horses and getting everything ready before I leave for a visit at Vienna.

 

 

 

..move it could have been the motto of our horses today. They were very playful when I came to visit in the evening, chasing each other, hopping, bucking, rearing just name it. Pandóra is really much into people and her mum is in great trouble to make her obey and be a good girl. She's far too independent and yet not even 1 month old. It's jut too good to get a scratch... Indeed I had to push her away to make her go back to Vordís. To make her behave again, Vordís ran a few rings fullspeed with the herd following. After that her daughter had to take a break and rest a bit. Goal reached!