The lights were again strong and I was trying a new place with a nice foreground (at least I think so). As my remote control decided to work, I took about 250 pics and put around 200 together into a very short timelaps video. Hope you like it!

 

 

 

 

As every year Grani, our local riding club, invited it's members for a summer season finish ride. This year, we met at the older stable village and went for a scenic ride to Botnsvatn and from there all the way to our riding hall, where we did some games and finished the day with a great barbecue.
The weather was perfect, really warm and sunny and we were about 30 riders taking part and a got bunch of them were kids, which was just great as it is always nice to have these young and unspoiled riders around. 
As it was that warm, we used the chance and walked our horses into the lake. List really loves water and waded until I was wet up to half of my lower leg. Didn't matter as it was so warm. We splashed on quite some other riders, when we rushed out of the water. List definitely had a lot of fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The season already started on 13th of August, but tonight I went for the first time hunting Northernlights. I decided to get a nice foreground and try to take pics at Æðarfossar, closeby Húsavík. The forecast was very good and I'm happy about the Aurora alert website, which gives quite precise forecasts, when you actually should be ready for a good shot.
And what a show I got! So many lights, dancing, different colours and all over the sky. I tried my fisheye lens, too and got some nice shots with it. Looking forward to a great season!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Vordís, who is mother and grandmother of our youngsters, is babysitting the bunch at Haga in Aðaldalur. Well, in fact she's chilling whilst 2 year old Fönix is in charge. He seems to be a very fair leader and always ready to play with Kóngur and Rögnir. Snerpa on the other hand would love to hang around with her granny. We visited them today, as we were asked to help moving the sheep that shared the pasture with our horses to another field. Ingólfur was very popular, especially with the yellow bucket filled with horsetreats. Everyone tried to get some and Rögnir was so nosy, he had to say "Hi", too. He has changed his colour radically, now being darkbay. They were all in very good shape, Snerpa still looking like a punk with her mane just standing up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The days are getting shorter and the air definitely has started to cool down, the first Northernlights start to appear, the geese are festing on wild berries, people collecting berries and mushrooms, sheep starting to decend from the highlands and the horses changeing to their winterfur. All these are little signs that autumn isn't too far away. As the sheeproundup is getting closer, we are training the horses, which are supposed to take part, a bit more and went for a ride at Hólmavað today. On our way back we stopped at Laxamýri to fix some shoeing and whilst Ingólfur was taking care of that I used the beautiful scenery to shoot some pics. Nökkvi is doing just fine there, he got a new best friend and enjoys his life.

 

 

 

 

Our horses had been on a trip during last week, trying to make them loose some weight. This weekend we started our own trip with 6 horses. We went to Laufahlíð visiting Bjössi and Rakel. The horses were allowed to stay and we go there every evening for a shorter or longer ride. Yesterday we went down to Aðaldalur, where we met Baldur and Guðny for a chat, before Kiddi and Sigurjóna arrived to join us for the rest of the way.
Today we again got company for the way back. Bjössi, Helga and Guðny accompanied us. The best thing about riding at Hvammsheiði is, that you never have to ride the same path twice, there are soooo many of them. Think it's one of the best places to take rides in our area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, the cat escaped, so we had to get on the roof and paint it. This had been planned for the last few years and now it was finally time to start working. I'm not very keen on going on the roof, but when you are up there, it's not that much trouble. We were 4 painting today and managed to cover 5/8 of it before we ran out of paint. That means, there will be a second time in the near future. The colour was not as dark as we thought it would be but at least you can see the stable now very well from an airplane flying over. Hope we won't have to do that again too soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was quite a surprise waiting for me at the field where Þyrnirós and Fjördís are staying. It was a very cute surprise, black and white, with long legs, a highrised neck and very nosy, just 2 weeks old. Fjördís had given birth to a surprise stallionfoal on 30th of July. The little guy was rather weak in the beginning, but now he was fine, following his mum and aunt everywhere and even having a look at these strange humans. 
We didn't even notice Fjördís was in foal as she was rather fat after last winter, there hadn't been any stallion discovered with our horses last summer nor had Fjördís escaped. Ingólfur named the colt Jesus...
Well, there must be a father to the foal and there is one mainsuspect, who was arrested without resistance outside the fence where our horses stayed. DNA will tell us in time if he's the right guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I told you I was going to a seminar during this week. It was at the FabLab at Sauðárkrókur and we got to try everything you could do there. Started Monday learning to use the free program Inkskape, which is used to work with the laser- and vinylcutter. First project was a figure designed by each and everyone, which was so cut out of acrylicglass and put together by us. We soon learned the "hard" way or better told learned by our mistakes, what worked and what didn't. Fun to use machine and I hope we can work with the lasercutter at Húsavík with our students, too. 
Tuesday was dedicated to making a two- or more colored sticker, cutting it with the vinylcutter and putting it together into one. As usual I didn't go for the easy stuff and decided to transfer a photo of Aldís into a sticker. Lot of work and I couldn't print out before Thursday, but I think the result is great, so it paid of. Later that day we got to interview the dean of a rather new branch at the local High School, which was very interesting as she's fighting the same problems we do at the Elementary School. 
Wednesday was dedicated to Electronics, interesting, but we didn't do a lot of practical stuff that day. In the afternoon we went to the local tannery and got a guided tour there. Would have been interesting to get to know about their cooperation with the High School.
On Thursday I made my sticker and did some acrylicglass horses and additionally we were introduced to Arduino, a system with microcontrollers, where you can do a lot of really cool stuff, like programming lights, measuring temperature and so many more things. And last but not least, you learn a lot about programming. Think I'd like to use that with my students. In the late afternoon we were invited to our teacher's home, to check out how he's using new technology in his house and chatting with his fiancée, who is running her own design business Skrautmen. They were lucky to get rid of us again, the place was just amazing and so many things I wouldn't have thought about.
Friday was mostly about making stuff, but we tried the 3D-printer and the huge router, too. 
Now I'm tired, but happy at home and hope the next days will be calmer.

 

 

The original photo

 

3 different layers

 

Finished sticker

 

Lasercut horses

 

 

 

 

Whilst Ingólfur was taking care of the horses and everything around (especially my flowers), I went first to Germany and from there to Austria to visit family and friends. 
First stop was at my friend Gabi's place, who was so nice to fetch me early in the morning from the airport to have me for a few days. I really enjoyed being around her, her family, dogs, horses and beautiful garden. Thanks for having me!
Next stop was Vienna, where my mum and uncle got me from the airport. Happy to meet them again. The first days were busy with shopping and getting everything I needed so I'd have time to relax, meet friends and go places later. We spent some time at my parent's summerhouse with my niece and nephew, roaming through the forrest to find mushrooms, feeding the neighbour's chicken, ducks and geese, having a birthdayparty for my niece and nephew and a lot more. Best place to stay when it's too hot in the city!
I met twice with our friend Gerti, who will hopefully come and visit us in late autumn, met Rita and her kids for delicious icecream, went to the Zoo (hope they'll get another Panda cub this year) and last but not least, finally had a look at my friends Karin and Gerlinde's stable. Looks like a very nice place to be! Tomorrow evening I'll fly back to Iceland, just to stay overnight at the busterminal and flying north on Sunday morning. Monday I already have to leave for a 5 days workshop, which I hope will be really interesting.
I'll put the pics in albums, too many to have all of them here!

 

 

 

 

As we are not very happy about the very common Nootka lupin flowing over hillsides and berryland, we decided to do a bit to stop her. At least close to our summerpasture. Wouldn't be too good if it would overtake the meadow. So we put up a fence where we allow our horses to climb and look for grass, which grows inbetween. The lupin obviously doesn't bear the horses stepping on it and starts to retreat. As you can see on the pic the horses where very busy looking for grass and didn't even want to come back down to their field.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First thing today was fetching Þrá from the stallion as he decided on not having her in his herd and attacked her during the night. She'll stay a few days at the stable now to recover and then go to Gisli's young stallion after Korgur frá Ingólfshvóli. Hope he'll be nice to her. 
As Ingólfur helped Bensi with making hay, I had lots of time to visit Vordís and the youngsters at Hagi. The poor treat's bucket got a hard treatment from Fönix, Snerpa and Kóngur, but it took quite some time till they managed to break it open. Rögnir decided to have a really close look at the strange human and realised that it's not at all so bad to get a good scratch. After that it was rather difficult to get rid of him. Vordís on the other hand seemed to be quite happy that she didn't have to babysitt for a while. It looks like Rögnir is getting dark bay, just like his big sister Þyrnirós, but we'll see about that.

 

 

 

 

 

That's our mating this year and we hope it'll work out. Þrá was just starting to get ready for the stallion so we put her with the silverdapple stallion Bósi and hope they'll match and we get a beautiful foal next year.

 

 

Well, part 2 in exploring the country. After fetching Hjördís at Varmahlíð we drove further south and stopped close by Hvammstangi at Sæból, where Hanný Heiler and Tobbi Norland live. It was our first visit there, but really nice to stop, have a look at Skuggi's offspring, chat and of course pet Húni, their Alaskan Malamute. We just closely slepped through taking him back home with us, Hjördís liked him so much.
The journey continued on Vatnsnes peninsula, which is the perfect place to watch seals. In fact, there are two kinds of seals, Harbour seals and Grey seals, at Vatnsnes and we saw both of them. First we mistook a Grey seal for a stone as it was just poking it's head out of the water not moving at all, but the pic I took revealed the true nature of this stone as I've rarely seen a stone with whiskers.
Next stop was Hvítserkur and the seals at the estuary mouth of Sigriðsstaðavatn. I have to admit, I thought Hvítserkur was bigger as it looks rather huge on pics, but nevertheless it was a wonderful experience to see it that close. On our way back we took the detour to Siglufjörður. We endet the day after driving about 750 km back home at Húsavík.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good to use your holidays to travel a bit. Today we decided to take a drive to Lake Mývatn and take a closer look at Námaskarð. There's a very active geothermal field, where you can witness fumaroles and mudpots. 
We decided to start our trip by walking up Námafjall and get an overview of the area. On our way up we encountered different types of geothermal activity and beautiful sights.
Hjördís and me took the walk downhill whilst Ingólfur drove the car down to the parking area. It was a harder walk down than we expected, quite steep in some places and a lot of loose gravel, which made it difficult for Hjördís to walk without slipping. But we managed without slipping too much. Of course we took one or another photostop. 
After trying to get some food at the area and miserably failing at that, we got ourselves some pizza and fish at Dalakófinn on our way home. In the evening Ingólfur and Hjördís went for a very nice ride alongside the sea ending at Húsavík.