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Færslur: 2011 Júlí

21.07.2011 22:19

Ridingtour

Finally, after planning for a long time, we managed to get our friends together to take a small, private ridingtour in the area. We used the quiet afternoons and evenings to ride in wonderful weather in one of the most beautiful areas Iceland has to offer.

We started on Monday evening from Húsavík and rode all the way up to Viðiholt in Reykjahverfi. We that were: Svanhildur and her daughters Thelma and Sigrún, Laufey and Dagny Anna, Bjössi with Vignir and Berta and of course the two of us. A whole bunch of horses followed as you can imagine. We took Magnús, Negla, Ögn, Amor, List and Kátína, who went on her first longer trip as a handhorse, with us. The weather was good, the air clear and fresh, good horses, good riding tracks, nothing to complain. Ingólfur had a good laugh when Kátína tried to ride Amor over the first small river. He was not on the same page about that and so she had to walk herself through the water.

After a good rest we took the way over Hvammsheiði to Helluland on Tuesday afternoon. Laufey couldn't join us, but Rakel came instead. The kids were great, showing how well they already can ride even with one or two handhorses. It was a pleasure to see all of them having the stamina to go for longer rides and having good fun doing that. The highlight of the day was for sure crossing river Laxá close to Helluland. Kiddi and his dog Sparði met us on the way, Sparði swimming over Laxá right in front of me. It looked like Kátína had learned something the day before and she didn't try again to mount Amor to not wet her own feet.

Yesterday we took a circle up Þeygjandadalur over a small pass down to Laxárdalur and Halldórsstaðir. Kátína was left behind to take a restingday. It was quite warm when we started, the sun burning down from the clear sky so we went rather slow not to tire the horses too soon. There were some small brooks we had to cross and one or the other horse thought it was a crack in the ground and safer to take a huge jump over it...

After taking a wonderful break in the valley, herding some sheep, seeing two blue lambs and fighting some flies, we arrived in Halldórsstaðir around 8 o'clock in the evening. The sun was still shining from an amazingly blue sky and everybody in Halldórsstaðir waiting for the barnconcert at 9. We took a good break there, had some cookies and something to drink, a nice chat with the former headmaster and started our way back refreshed on fresh horses.
We met Kiddi at the bridge over Laxá and gave Sparði, the dog, which had followed us the whole time, back to its owners. Sparði is getting a bit old and it's not the best for him to run long ridingtours eventhough he loves it.

Now we entered the dreamland for riders! Perfect soft tracks on the riverbanks, untouched nature, no flies and just the thundering hoofbeat on the ground. This part of the day was far too short!

We made our way back to Helluland and arrived around 11 o'clock there. Still sunshine!

Today our ways seperated. Bjössi and the kids went to Reykjahverfi, Kiddi, Sigurjóna, Hrund and we went all the way to Húsavík. We were riding along river Laxá on soft tracks (where they were not spoiled yet by putting stones and sand on them for the cars of the fishermen), watching a lot of waterbirds with their young ones, were nearly run over by a truck (the driver didn't slow down at all when he saw us coming on the gravelroad! I swore quite much at him), meet some loose horses in a fence, crossed 2 bridges and speeded home to our fence. The sun was shining all the time and I think we all got quite some tan today. Thanks to all the participants, it was great riding with you!

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18.07.2011 21:21

Sail Húsavík 2011

Sail Húsavík is a coastal cultural festival, held for the first time this year. The aim is to put a spotlight on coastal life and everything connected to it. There are a lot of exhibitions and workshops going on. You can have a close look at the beautiful ships that came from Northern Europe sailing all the way to Húsavík. There are all different kinds of ships and boats, some of them already very old. The kids from the Icelandic Sailing Association have a trainingscamp in the harbour and it is interesting to watch them.

Here the link to the official homepage: http://www.sailhusavik.is/english/

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17.07.2011 20:49

Farsæll and his mares

Things are calm and easygoing in the big field near the sea. All the horses relaxed and happy. Quite often they are relaxing alltogether in the sun, not even standing up when we are coming to check them.

Farsæll is taking good care of his mares, even being the nanny for their foals, playing with them and not getting annoyed when they try to make him play eventhough he wants to take a nap.

I attach a pic so you can see in which beautiful surroundings our horses are at the moment.

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14.07.2011 09:58

This and that

Just a few words so you see we are not disappeared, but busy outside in the good weather!

You may ask yourself: what the hell are they doing all day long?

Well, in fact there are a lot of things to do (except going for a ride). We went to find some driftwood to build a shelter for Magnús' horses. Not so easy to find the right pieces and some of them were really heavy. Would be good to have a chainsaw, then we could cut those that are far too long to the right size.

Mærudagar, the sweet days, are on the calender soon and people start to think about their decoration. We are in the orange quarters and have decided to decorate with orange flowers (well, in fact I'm not much for decorating and putting all kind of orange stuff outside, which you have to take down again). So we went to Hveravellir and bought a few more flowers for the garden. There they do not only breed summerflowers but a lot of vegetables. Most of the tomatoes and cucumbers you get here come from there. We used the opportunity to buy some really ripe tomatoes, just fresh picked. They were delicious, just the way real tomatoes should be.

From Hveravellir we took a drive to Laxádalur to have a look at Perla, who is in the fence with Djákni frá Hellulandi, and visit Sigtýr and his friend. The first attempt to go closer to the two youngsters failed completely and the fleed to the other end of the fence. We followed and when we walked at them again we came across a lamb that had caught itself in barbed wire and was stuck. The wire was wrapped completely in the thick wool and there was no chance to loose it. So Ingólfur went back to the car to get a knife and cut the wool off. Not as easy as it sounds and we were really worried the lamb would die out of stress. Well, finally we got it loose, it jumped on the feet and walked away, calling its mum.

After having a quick dinner we went for a ride. I was on Amor for the first time this year. He is already 19 years old, far too fat, but still behaving like a 5 year old when you ride him for the first time a year. At least he has learned to wait for me to be ready to go. Good feeling to be back on him!

We went to Saltvík to shoe 2 horses for Bjössi. That went well and after riding back to our summerfence we had a look at Farsæll and his mares (we check them at least twice a day). Everything was peaceful there, the horses just laying and relaxing under the midnightsun.

When we came home it was already 0.30... So you can see, we are busy the whole day (and part of the night) outside!

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09.07.2011 09:51

Cavesvisit

We had talked about it a lot, planned it for ages, but never actually done it til today, when our friends Bjössi and Rakel called to invite us to go and visit caves in Þeistareykirarea.
After a drive over a gravel road we stopped to visit the first cave, right beside the old road to Þeistareykir. The ceiling had partly crushed, but you could still walk in there and have a look at tiny drippstones in the shine of your pocketlight.
We continued our drive in a lot of dust, turning into a small track leading straight to the huge lavafield. Well, partly it was really hard to call it a track, climbing over lava, avoiding holes in the ground and driving tiny turns. At the end of the track we left the cars, equipped ourselves properly and started to look for the caves. First we went to see Togarahellir, which has water and ice in the bottom. We had to climb over a snowfield to be able to go down, but the view was worth it!
Vignir and Berta, the kids of Bjössi and Rakel, were with us too and enjoyed the trip very much.
Afterwards we went to look for another cave with drippingstones. It was quite a walk as Bjössi didn't remember exactly where that cave was. As a matter of fact we had a look at every hole in the ground. That lead into finding caves, they had never been into before. Nice to see the drippingstones in some of these caves, but sad to see, that other people already had been there and breaking stones off or turning them over by stepping on them.
When we were about to turn around and walk back, Ingólfur finally found the cave they had been looking for all the time! It was a bit strange feeling to go down into the earth, just with a tiny light on your head and no idea what would expect you. As I said before, it was worth every step we took and beautiful drippingstones hanging from the ceiling and growing from the ground. We took quite some pics in the shine of our lights.
After walking back to our cars and having a coffee and some sandwiches, we drove all the way up to the hut in Þeistareykir, signed the guestbook and continued our drive down to Hólasandur and home. We grabbed some pizza for dinner and had a good chat about the day.
Ingólfur and I finished our day Whalewatching from our stallionfence in the eveningsun. Nice to see so many whales blow in the bay!

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04.07.2011 21:44

Landsmót 2011

Last Wednesday we made our way to Skagafjörður to put up our tents at Landsmótarea. The weather at Húsavík was awful, cold and rainy, but it changed a lot when we drove west. After making our home for the next days ready (we made a "camping"-village with a lot of friends) we had a first look at the competition area and watched the first 2 runs of the paceraces.
I was a bit disappointed that so many horses did not pace, but those who did, achieved good times.
Thursday the weather changed from cold and dry to warm and dry so we were busy trying not to get sunburned. Well, that didn't work out and we were happy to have some suncream to protect us a bit. Magnificent horses, difficult to chose favourites.
I used the possibility to get close to the startboxes for the paceraces and took some pics from the starts. The light was just perfect and it was really interesting to see how different the horses and rides cope with the startboxes.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday just flew and it was great to see all these fabulous horses and the perfect choreographed breedingshow of Bergur and Olil!
The A-finals on Saturday and Sunday were interesting, good horses, but it was already clear who would win. A pitty to see the horses in 5-Gait just in 3 gaits and those not even specially good. Trott and pace were quite a problem for some of them. How would it have been, if they'd have had to show walk and canter too?
The finals in kidsclass were amazing, but I'm a bit worried about the fact that the kids are already riding stallions! No matter how well behaved the stallions are, if there is something going wrong, the little riders have no chance to do anything! I think it is worth thinking about that a bit.

My highlights: Díva frá Álfhólum, Kjarnorka frá Kálfholti, Spuni and the other offspring of Álfasteinn, the breedingshow of Bergur and Olil and of course to see Bragur, Ingólfur's former horse, compete in 100m Flying Pace and reaching a time of 7,70 sec. and the 4th place.