Hestar og aftur Hestar

24.06.2013 09:36

Visiting the Icelandic Yulelads

Yes, you read right! We visited the Icelandic Yulelads at their home last night. As everybody knows, they have a cave in Dimmuborgir and invited everybody there to celebrate Midsummernight.

It was a beautiful evening and everybody was in good mood. When we arrived, we had to follow a lot of clues to the right spot as the exact whereabouts of the cave are a bit a secret. Kjötkrokur (Meathook), one of the Yulelads stood on a cliff to bend people to the right place and give a warm welcome. He was more than ready to pose for some pics.

The cave itself was not too spacious, but big enough for the 13 of them. We had a look at their stonebeds, watched one of them preparing a meal with a lot of dietary fibre, took a game of cards with another one and chatted with those we met there.

I attach some pics and put the rest in an album for you! Looking forward to visit these guys again when they go to their annual bath at Christmastime.

22.06.2013 10:22

Busy days

That's what we had the last days. Ingólfur was shoeing a lot of horses and there are still a few left. We got 2 horses for a diet and endurance training, which means Amor and Vaka have arrived. Not sure how long Vaka has not been ridden as she had alltogether 3 foals from 2008 to 2012 and I can't remember if she was used between her first 2 foals. Anyway, you could see that she had a very good life the last years and collected quite some fat. I managed to close the saddlegirth on the second hole on one side and the third on the other and already thought that wasn't easy... But when I wanted to try Amor, I nearly couldn't close it at all. Managed in the end to put it in the first on both sides and tighten it to the second on one side.

I tried Vaka inside and she definitely hasn't forgotten anything. Nicely forward, nice neckposition, easygoing and easy to handle. Took her for a bit longer outsideride the day after, which went nicely, too. I think, Hrund won't be in trouble riding her during summer. Then I tried Amor, who I preferably just call ball-lightning, round like a ball and fast as lightning emoticon

. He hasn't forgotten anything either and so we went from 0-100 in 1 second, which means, he was so nice to wait until I was ready and told him to go and then I just had to hang on. Unbelievable he's already 21... Think we did the Saltvíkring in a new record time, eventhough I had to get off to open and close a gate on the way.

Kristófer, Ingólfur's nephew, came to help along and go for a ride, which he really enjoyed. Hrund came and tried her Vaka, Hjördís and Thelma had a good time at the stable, too. So nice, to have all these kids with us in the stable!
Yesterday Þokki and Prins were finally castrated and chipped, which went well and smooth, as they were both already haltertrained and rather calm. Don't understand when horseowners don't do that before they call the vet to castrate. It's dangerous for everyone and just think about how the young horse feels when it is just grabbed, doped, castrated and wakes up with pain. No good memories.

Well, I like it better the way we did it. The boys got the chance to sleep out and stay in the paddock overnight. I attach a pic of them after just waking up and still being a bit drunk.

20.06.2013 08:55

Embla, Prins, ...

...Þokki and Þyrnirós are those of Farsæll's offspring that are inside at the moment. Embla is getting 3 on 15th of August, but when you look at her you'd think she's a lot older. Sooooo big.
The other 3 are just yearlings, but rather big too. Yesterday we measured their hight on withers and here comes the result:

Þokki - 125 cm
Prins - 127 cm

Þyrnirós - 130 cm

So all of them already as tall as breeding mares just a few centuries ago... Will be interesting how big they'll be after 3 years! As Ársæl, Guðrún's foal, and Mánahringur, Bensi's foal, are rather big, too, it looks like Farsæll made quite big foals with strong legs.

I attach a picture of Prins, who just came inside 2 days ago. Both he and Þokki are supposed to get castrated soon.

14.06.2013 10:52

Fishing...

...is not that easy! At least I'm really not good at it. Tried a lot of times, but never got a single fish, just weeds. Nevertheless we went on a short fishingtrip with Bensi and his family at Laxáriver. Ella was the lucky one to catch a trout and what a big one!

Think I'm better at taking pics, so I set the fishingrod aside and grabbed my camera emoticon

08.06.2013 23:17

Spring...

...arrived here a few weeks ago, the snow is melting and causing quite some trouble. River Laxá is floating over a lot of meadows, the farmers can't start cleaning up after the winter, fences are under water, some of them so damadged that they have to be rebuilt completely. Nobody knows when it will be possible to release the sheep to the highlands as there's still quite a lot of snow up there.
The warm weather and rain caused rather big mudflows in our area, most of them near the farm Ystafell, where the local car museum is. As far as people remember, there haven't been any mudflows in this area. The biggest one took the road away, so when you want to go to Akureyri, you have to take the route passing Góðafoss. Here you can see air images from the mudflows.
Of course we were interested to see, how Góðafoss looks with all this meltwater and it was a very impressing view. Where usually tourists take a walk to go as close as possible to the edge, incredible amounts of water were rushing down. In the news they were talking about tops 679 m³/second, usually it's about 50 m³/second...

I attach some pics for you.

03.06.2013 23:06

Youngsters

Today we fetched the youngsters Embla, Þyrnirós and Þokki and put them in the stable. Embla is going through an "update" in all the necessary things she has to know in daily life and care, the two others are learning to be led, lifting their feet, being tied and so on. Þyrnirós is very big for her age and of course we're going to measure her, when she is tame enough for that. All three are doing very well and we are looking forward to work a bit with them before they go outside again.