Eldra efni

Tenglar

clockhere

07.03.2014 11:33

Mývatn

What a wonderful day! Sunshine, not so cold, little wind - the perfect conditions for the annual ride on Lake Mývatn the day before the competition.

We took part for the first time, cleaned our tack and horses, put Magnús and Aldís in the trailer and off we went. There were more than 50 riders taking part, 2 groups of tourists and a lot of cars. Our horses were really good and it was a fast ride to Hrúthólmar, the ram's island, on the frozen lake. There we got delicious sandwiches and hot kakao. It was nice to chat with friends and foreigners before we rode back to the trailers.
I'd say we meet again next year! Thanks Barla for taking pics with my cam.

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

03.03.2014 11:22

Changes

Our stable is rather full these days, we've got 3 trainingshorses additionally to our own horses and those of Magnús and Bjössi. So the 11 places are completely booked and when we want to get a new horse inside, another one has to leave. It was time for a change now, Flugar went out to the winterpasture and Ösp came inside instead. She was not sooo happy about it as it was rather warm for her in her thick wintercoat, but after clipping she seems to be content. She shares the box with Magnús and the two of them are getting along very well.

Talking about Magnús: we got ourselves a co-trainer for him. Iðunn is very happy to help us out and trim him a bit. Think they are both having fun.

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

24.02.2014 11:04

Home, sweet home!

After thinking a lot how we could get our Sigtýr home the easiest way, we were lucky to get to know about a transport stopping at Laugar, which is not so far away from Húsavík.
Today we got him back and are looking very much forward to try him out and see how he is.

First of all he got a nice haircut and looks a bit strange right now. But the hair will regrow soon. Hope his mane will grow a bit more, too. It has already regrown a lot since he left, but a bit more would be even better.

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

16.02.2014 23:27

Húsavík - Sauðárkrókur and back again

That was the plan for our weekend.
Friday afternoon Venus' owner came to check her out and was happy about what he saw. It was in fact better than he hoped, so we were rather proud.

After feeding the outsidehorses Saturday morning, we packed our stuff, grabbed Hjördís and off we went to Akureyri. Hjördís stayed there with her cousin and we kept going further west to Skagafjörður to have a look at Sigtýr, our young stallion. Tóti and his daughters were waiting for us and ready to show us our horse under the saddle. He made good progress since we saw him last time, but trott isn't his favourite and best gait. Sigtýr offers clear fourbeat tölt with good movements and it wouldn't be a surprise if there'd be pace somewhere around. We are going to take him home now and give him a break from riding. The plan is to take him as a handhorse and build up muscels. Think he'll like very much to go outside with the boys and play a bit.

Tóti showed us 2 stallions he has in training right now, Þórálfur and Narri. Both show impressing movements and gaits, but I liked Narri a bit better.

On our way back to Akureyri we made a short stop in Miðsitja and said "Hi" to our friends there. Always nice to meet them!

When we arrived at Akureyri, we had quick dinner and then off we went to Hof, the cultural center, as we had tickets for a concert with Eivör and the Northicelandic Symphony Orchestra. Lára Sóley, Ingólfur's nice, played 1st Violin there. The program should last for 75 minutes, but it seemed like just 5 minutes overall, as time was flying and it was so interesting to listen, watch and enjoy. So if you have the opportunity to hear Eivör live, take it!

This morning we slept in and then left Akureyri in the late morning. We went straight to Hólmavað, where we were supposed to help Bensi moving the horses. Farsæll, List, Vordís, Vaka, Katla and Amór went home to Hólmavað, Vigri and Mánahringur had different destinations. Vigri went to Bergstaðir for further training, but Mánahringur is going to stay with his brother and sisters at our place. Enough to eat, a warm drink and free vitamins. Think it'll be good for him to be with other horses his age and hope the boys are going to play a lot.

On the way back we took Venus home and hope she'll do well in her future.

Back at Hólmavað we got delicious waffers with cream. I had a quick look in the sheepstable and while I still was wondering how to find my sheep, it already came hopping and running through the crowd. So nice to be greeted like that.

It has already been a busy day, but there was even more to come. The stable was already clean when we came, the haynets prepared and Bjössi's mare Glæta had joined the group. I took Kátína for a very nice ride (had been waiting the whole weekend) and then we waited for 2 more horses to arrive. They are going to stay with us for more training and we are looking forward to work with them.

I attach a few pics.

Þórgunnur & Gola, Þórarinn & Sigtýr

Sigtýr

Þórálfur

Narri

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

09.02.2014 21:54

Rekstur

is it called, when you send your horses jogging. Bjarni and Jósi already prepared a 3 km circuit to allow their horses to run free once in a while. They allowed us to use the track and showed us, where it would be best to have a person or car standing to prevent the horses from taking wrong turns. After checking everything, closing roads and gates and putting our horses and those of Jón Óli and Siffi in the paddock, their first jogging round could start.

The horses had a quickstart and then lined nicely up in a row as they should do when you go on a longer trip. I was waiting with my camera at the gate down to the mainroad to make sure the horses would take the turn there and not try to keep going straight. It was so much fun to watch them running and enjoying their freedom.

Afterwards we went to sort our outsidehorses. The fatter ones went to a different field where they get less strong hay than the mares and youngsters. They were not entirely happy about it, but will have to get used to it.

Last but not least it was time to go for a ride. Ingólfur went with 2 handhorses, Magnús and Geisli. Bjössi took Venus and therefore more than half of the horses on this ride were out of Gustur frá Grund.

While I was coaching Guðrún and her youngster, the guys went for another ride so all horses in our stable, except for Kátína, went out twice today.

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

04.02.2014 21:24

This and that

There are so many things going on at the moment, I hardly have time to write!

Last Thursday the local ridingclub Grani had a small competition in the riding hall. This time it was a kind of skills course, where the riders had to solve different problems on horseback. They had for instance to fetch rings with a stick, ride over a bridge and step off the horse and on a chair.

There were rather few participants, but those who took part had a lot of fun. Hjördís and Þokkadís ended in fifth place and got a medal. We were all very proud of them.

The trainingshorses are doing fine! We used the good weather and bright afternoons to introduce Venus and Flugar to trailriding. Both had been outside on a leadrein, but this time they were loose. Both of them did very well, eventhough we met a big car when going out with Flugar and a tractor was following us, when we took Venus for a ride. Well, better for them to get used to it!

Þyrnirós is growing and growing, soon reaching her mum and not even 2 years old. It was fun to watch her and Þokki speeding towards us, when they realised that we were about to give them hay.

Hope the weather stays like that and we can use the next days for trailrides.

Hjördís & Þokkadís on their way over the bridge

Still not believing she got a medal

I'm flying...

Þokki doesn't want to miss anything either.

Bjössi and Flugar

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

27.01.2014 22:04

So proud...

...of our traininghorses! All of them are making big steps forward and it's so much fun to work with them and see how proud they are when they do something right. Aldís and Kátína being the more experienced of the group have to serve as leadinghorse, teaching the less experienced how to be a brave ridinghorse.

We have been preparing Flugar and Venus the last days inside, riding free and allowing them to follow Aldís or Kátína in the ridinghall. That went well and so we were waiting for our third man Bjössi to have time and join us for an outsideride.

Today we got the opportunity to do that and went for 2 short rides, first with Kátína, Aldís and Venus and afterwards with Flugar instead of Venus. It was already getting dark when we started for the first round (we weren't crossing any roads) so we put some reflecting gear on, just in case we met a car on our way. In the start we had the less experienced horse on a long security line, but let them go the last part to the stable. Things went very well and I'm so proud of the bunch of trainingshorses we have inside at the moment. Think they have to be rather courageous to go out in the dark with these strange humans on their backs.

I attach some pics from yesterday when we let them go in the bigger field.

Soooo good to roll over in the snow

Hard to believe they are the same breed!

Careful! Slippery!

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

19.01.2014 22:36

Weekendtrip

It had been planned since autumn but there was always a reason not to drive east and visit Pétur and Marietta. Well, now we finally managed and drove to Egilsstaðir on Friday. The journey was rather tiring as the road was very icy and slippery, but the delicious dinner definitely made up for it. Benni Lindas joined us for dinner and it was very interesting and nice to get to know him a bit. Best about it, was to realise, that he's just like you and me, easygoing and with good humor.

Saturday was mostly used to visit Hrannar, his daughters and their foals and take a lot of pics there. When you see the pics you'd never guess that Hrannar is going to be 27 this spring. The foals were very interested in us, but willing to show a bit off, too. I specially liked Snilld. Benni came over for coffee and cake in the afternoon and later Ingólfur and Pétur shoed 3 horses while Marietta was training a horse and I was taking pics.

Sunday we worked a bit on their homepage and installed a new blogg for Pétur, where he can post his personal view on horsemanship.

After taking a few more pics of Magni, the stallion in training at their place, and his halfbrother, we had to go back home. Far too short time for a visit, but it was very nice anyway!

Dögg and Nói playing

Hrannar having fun like a youngster

Snilld & Embla

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

13.01.2014 22:14

More trainingshorses

The stable is starting to fill with horses and yesterday two more arrived unexpectedly. Halldór at Bjarnastaðir called in the morning and asked if we could take one youngster for him into training. Well, no problem as there's enough room at the moment. When he arrived with his horsetransporter he asked, if we should get the horses inside. Horses? Wasn't he just talking about one? Well, we fetched both of them. They are brothers born 2010, both sons of Gustur frá Lækjarbakka, winner of the youthclass at Landsmót 2008 and son of Gustur frá Grund, which we like quite a lot. Their names are Geisli (Gustur - Sunna) and Prímus (Gustur - Hespa). At the moment they are rather shy as they aren't much handled yet, but I think this'll change soon.

The other traininghorses are doing well, we are going for rides on Kátína and Aldís, which is going very well. Flugar is getting more training with the rider as is Venus. I'll take some pics of the new guys soon.

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

12.01.2014 21:21

Þyrnirós & Co

It was time to get the young horses home and the weather and roadconditions were good so we went to fetch them today.

First we took Vordís, which is in foal with Snillingur frá Íbíshóli, and Þyrnirós, old Perla and Maggi's Þokki came with the second ride. Now they have a huge field, good shelter, unlimited hay and warm water. After checking out the "new" place, the first thing to do was taking a good snowbath and roll over a lot. Then Þyrnirós and Þokki ran and bucked around a lot. So much fun to see them enjoy themselves so much.
Afterwards we had a look at Freyja and Fjördís. Both are well and good looking.

Vordís & Þyrnirós

Þokki trying the grass

Fjördís

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

10.01.2014 20:41

Helluland

Kiddi at Helluland called and asked us, if we'd have time to visit and take Barla and Sandra with us to show them the horses, Miriam was training in autumn. Of course we had time, grabbed the girls and went for a visit.

When we arrived, Kiddi had already chosen the horses for the first ride: Barla got Óríon (Keilir - Slaufa), Sandra Askur (Dalvar - Slaufa) and Kiddi took his young stallion Dimmir, a son of Kappi frá Kommu and Röst frá Hellulandi.

It was fun to see how much the horses have improved from our last visit and Miriam definitely did a good job.

Kiddi specially showed us galopp and asked me to take pics of it, which I of course did. But I'm not sure if it's good to show him the pics as I fear he'll be too proud of them. Nevertheless I'll put one in here!

Afterwards they tried 3 mares, Embla, Drottning and Sóla. These have improved, too, and I really liked Drottning, daughter of Andvari frá Ey and Dvöl. Embla is her halfsister, same mother, but her father is Galsi. If it were my mares, I'd definitely think about keeping Embla and Drottning for my own breeding.

I think the girls were happy about the nice rides and the invitation for coffee afterwards. It was a very nice afternoon!

Sandra and Barla riding the brothers Askur and Óríon

Kiddi and Dimmir

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

02.01.2014 20:30

Happy New Year!

We hope you had a nice New Year's Eve and not too much headache the day after.

Here it was rather calm, we had delicious dinner after visiting the big bonfire and watching the fireworks. Around midnight we went outside to have a look at everybody shooting fireworks and fire some small ones ourselves. Our neighbour had a big show, which was very nice to watch.

Now it's time to think about getting the ridinghorses inside and we already fetched the first ones.

That are Aldís, Kátína, Flugar and Venus, which is staying for her first training with us. Next we are going to get Magnús and Maggi's Ísak. The horses, which are going to stay at the stable until spring, are getting a new haircut so they won't be too hot when staying inside. They take it rather well and most of them just stand still.

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

30.12.2013 22:50

Christmasholiday

On 16th of December we, that is Ingólfur, his father Jón and me, packed our stuff and drove to Reykjavík as we had a flight from Keflavík the next day. We stayed at Ína's and Haukur's place overnight, the kids being really happy to meet us and their granddad.

For Jón it was the first trip out off Iceland in his whole lifetime and I think he was rather anxious about it. We told him to pack as little as neccessary and just buy a bit of new clothes in Austria. Took us a bit of time to make him buy things, but in the end we succeeded . emoticon

The first obstacle on our trip was the firealarm at Keflavík Airport just 30 minutes before boarding. First I thought it was a joke, but then got rather stressed when I realised it was for sure we had to leave the building. At least they discovered shortly after that there was no fire and we were allowed to go inside again. Of course we had to do the Security Check a second time...

Finally on board I could relax a bit and enjoy the trip to Copenhagen and then to Vienna.

My dad fetched us from the airport and we got a delicious meal at my parents' place. We stayed at their second flat in the same building. To our surprise Jón, who usually denies to drink alcoholic beverages, instantly said YES, when he was offered a glass of beer. A day later, he even tried some snaps after dinner! We had actually thought that we could use his Duty Free amount on the way back, but he used it all alone.
We did a lot of sightseeing the following days, went to St.Stephen's, The Museum of Nature History, The Museum of Art History, Schloss Schönbrunn, the zoo and so on. I think it was very interesting for Jón to see all the architecture and walk through such an amount of history. Sometimes I had the feeling, it was a bit too much for him, so many different impressions. But I really hope, he enjoyed it. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family, enjoyed delicious food and had fun watching the kids unwrapping their parcels (not so many for the grown-ups). On 26th of December we took a drive to Kahlenberg, Leopoldsberg and Klosterneuburg before we cooked a delicious fishdinner for my family. We had 3 different courses: fried cod, catfish and shrimps in creamsauce and halibut with garlic. Think everybody liked it.

Of course we didn't forget to visit some of the numerous Christmasmarkets, had Punsch, fresh Krapfen and a lot of other delicious stuff.

My parents took us for a drive to our summerhouse in Waldviertel and I think both the old buildings in Zwettl and the big trees in the forest were quite impressive. Prater was another "Must see" during our trip and of course we went for a ride with the Giantwheel to enjoy the view.

Time, as usual, just flew and far too soon we had to say Goodbye. I was rather unnerved about Austrian Airlines as they technically can check our luggage through, but don't allow their groundpersonal to do so when you haven't booked all flights at the same booking. This has never been trouble going from Iceland, but nearly every time going back. At least we had booked the flights that way it wouldn't matter too much in Copenhagen. There we were lucky and able to check in straight again after arriving and we were allowed to go through the fast lane at the Security Check. Think I've never been that fast there before! We got some seats at the Quiet Zone and relaxed a bit there before boarding the plane to Iceland. We arrived there safe and sound at the right time, went through the Duty Free Store, fetched our luggage and off we went to Reykjavík, where Jón left us to stay with Ína, Haukur and the kids. We continued our trip North and it was good, we did so as we just escaped the bad weather that stopped all travelling on 30th of December.

I attach a few pics and will put a few more in an album for you!

At the Museum of Nature History

Skál!

Art is all around you...

Winterapples at Waldviertel

Who's watching whom?

You got some sweets in there?

Always good to check out some trees

Delicious Icelandic halibut

Enjoying the view over Vienna from the Giantwheel

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

15.12.2013 10:37

Lazy?

Well, it looks like we are really lazy writing here after we released the horses to their winterbreak. In fact we have been rather busy sorting horses, driving them around, organizing more hay and preparing our Christmasvacation. Do you remember Fjördís, the spotted filly born in late May? Well, she and her mum Freyja stayed with some of our horses in a huge pasture and it was time, to check, if they are fat enough for the winter. As usual, there was no sign of the horses, when we arrived. Think they are hiding on purpose... After a short search, we found them and could check all of them. Of course List is still very fat, no idea how she manages that. They move a lot between grazingareas, so she should get enough exercise. Well, anyway, we decided to take Freyja and Fjördís home the next day. And guess what! They were as far away as possible, when we arrived! At least, they are easy to catch and Freyja followed me without trouble. Fjördís on the other hand was more interested in the rest of the herd than following her mum, but in the end, she came along, like she was supposed to.

We were surprised and happy how well it went to put them in the trailer, just being the two of us. Freyja helped a bit by calling her daughter. Now they are both staying in a field nearby with unlimited access to hay.

Afterwards we helped Kiddi driving his herd to a pasture in the next valley, where the horses are supposed to stay until he has to feed them hay. Of course the foalmares and youngest horses are at home and already getting hay.

Tengill á færslu

Bæta við áliti

Sýna álit

30.11.2013 10:57

Sigtýr

has been away for his first training and it was time to visit him and have a look what he's already learned. We didn't know what to expect, but were of course very nosy. Þorarinn Eymundsson is taking care of Sigtýr and we could see how well he has taught him and how much Sigtýr is trusting him. Tóti doesn't have to tie him in the stable when he's putting the saddle on. He stands free in the aisle and waits for what is going to be asked from him. As it should be, he stands still when mounted and walks on the loose rein. New things are very exiting and a bit scary, but Sigtýr is ready to have a look and when he discovers, the thing isn't dangerous, he tries to eat/play with it. I really appreciate the patience Tóti shows with horses, giving them time to learn at their individual speed. Sigtýr seems to be a fast learner and it's easy for him, to carry himself, he's very flexible and offers clearbeat tölt. Trott is his weakest point at the moment, but he's only trained for 8 weeks alltogether, so we are not worried about that.

We were happy to see that things are going so well and hope it will stay like that til we visit them again.