...way home. Well, in fact not so long, but quite hard, when you have to walk through rather deep snow with 7 horses.
Yes, 7 horses, and all of them ours.

You probably ask how this could happen. Just after work we got a call, that our horses broke out off their fence, followed Bjarni's herd to their pasture and were waiting there to be brought home again. There was quite some snow and the fences rather low at some places and easy for horses to step over them. Bjarni's herd decided to take a stroll, walked over their fence and visited our horses. Of course you have to join a big party like that, don't you? I think at least our youngsters were pretty excited about all these guests and the mares had no choice than following them.

When we arrived with 4 halters, 2 handhorsegirths and a big bag of bread, our horses were happy to see us and marched towards us. Now it was just getting the mares, putting a girth on 2 of them, putting the other 2 to the girth and hope that the youngsters would follow. I was leading List and Ögn, Þrá and Vordís were attached and Fönix and the foals loose. Our caravan needed more or less all the width of the ridingtrack... Everything went well, Fönix was just once thinking about taking a different turn, but came running again after a few meters and Ögn's son tried to follow some riders we met on the track. 

It looked like the horses were quite happy to be back in their fence with their hay. Bjarni told us, that Vordís kept her little group together and took care, no other horse would mix into it. We heightened the fence where it was lowest and just hope the best for the next days.

No pictures taken as I forgot my cam at home.

We got a lot of visitors in our garden. A huge bunch of snow buntings came to feed on the birdseed we put outside. Always fun watching them swarming in, taking off in a rush just to swarm in after a few moments again. They are really agile and I was wondering how they communicate to other snow buntings about where to find food as the group was getting bigger and bigger.

 

Using the good, but cold weather, we visited Kiddi in Helluland to have a look how things are going in the countryside. Kiddi and his wife sold all their cows and stopped being dairyfarmers around the turn of the year. Now Kiddi has plenty of time to train his horses and is hardly found anywhere else than on horseback. At the moment his biggest pleasure is riding on ice and he made a lot of tracks on ice-bound meadows and a nearby lake.

When we arrived he was on Krummi, son of Þristur frá Feti and Slaufa frá Hellulandi, a young gelding just started under the saddle in autumn. We liked what we saw and think he's quite promising, showing both trott and tölt. Afterwards Kiddi showed us his stallion Dimmir, which has taken some steps forward from last year. I think the overall goal is to show him again in a breedingshow.

 

Krummi frá Hellulandi

 

Dimmir frá Hellulandi

After checking the fences and putting up a middlefence we finally were able to put the horses in the big field again.
They had to climb over some snowdrifts, but that was no problem. Looked like they were happy to have a bit more space again.

 

 

Well, yesterday evening a strong storm burst in and we just made it home from 8th grade Þorrablót at school. The night was rather troubled, things crashing around and the storm rapping on our eastern window.

In the morning it was our turn to go and feed the horses in Saltvík, but around 7 o'clock it was still very dark and stormy, so we decided to wait a bit, listen to the news and check out, if there would be school today or not. Finally we got to know, there would be no regular day at school today, so we were able to wait a bit longer and started our journey to Saltvík around 8.30, when it was getting a bit brighter and the storm started to go down.

I took a short video, which I attach at the end of this blogg. The drive was a quite an adventure, low visibility and strong sidewinds. We saw 2 cars, which were blown off the road, but the passengers and drivers were already in security, so we didn't stop but kept driving. 

The horses were all well, eventhough there was quite a snowpile in 2 boxes in our neighbours' stable. Hay was very apprechiated and everybody was content with staying inside.

After visiting at school we took a short drive around lunchtime. The sun came out and pretended there wasn't any storm, but the sea at Höfðagerðissandur was still rather rough and I got a very nice shot of rainbow sea spray.

 

Thursdayevening, going home from Þorrablót

 

The visibility on our way to the stable   Rainbow sea spray at Höfðagerðissandur around noon

 

 

 

As you maybe remember, we started to change the barn in October and now it was time to finish this first step.

In January Ingólfur built the frame for our future tack room and the "attic". But first we had to insolate the big wall made just out of timber and corrugated iron. After getting all the stuff including the insulant at the hardwarestore the adventure could beginn. Somehow the insulant kept appearing miraculously and soon our stable was filled with piles of insulant and a lot of timber. Ingólfur's father was the secret supporter, fetching insulant, which would have been dumped otherwise, but was perfectly fitting for us. Now we could insulate more or less the whole part of the barn where our tack room and the sitting room will be.

By now, both tack rooms are up, the attic is full of stuff we don't need during wintertime and the ceiling is insulated. We are really happy to have accomplished this in such a short time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our website had the same look for the last years and it was time to give it a little facelift.

I'm still working on it, so things will probably change a bit here the next days and weeks, but we hope you like the changes!

Exactly one month before Christmas, my first present arrived. In fact not a present, but 2 huge boxes with my cushion covers. I was so excited and really happy when I opened the boxes and everything was just the way I wanted. Elín and her company Lagður did a pretty good job and I like the results very much.

We just repeated the procedure from last Saturday and started our day early at Saltvík. All horses were trained today before they went outside in the field for their weekendbreak. Nökkvi and I went for our first longer trail, down to the house, where I had to get off and lead him a bit to get through between the house and the constructionsite. He stood like a statue when I mounted again and then we went upphill and back to the stable, where we met Ingólfur and Sæla going on their first outsideride. We accompanied them a bit and both horses are very selfconfident outside, easygoing and not worried when the other horse is leaving. Just the way it should be!

The last days respectively nights have been quite generous with their lightshows. Tonight was no exception and I took a quick trip to our local lighthouse and shot around there a bit.