We are still having beautiful weather so after taking care of our garden, I took a countryside drive, having a look at birdlife, sheep and lambs alongside the road. When stopping at the first meadow at Hólmavað I was happily greeted by Kvíka, the leadersheep, who came running towards me with her lambs. Of course she got some treats.
Snilld and a big bunch of other sheep are already at a different farm, where they are allowed to roam the pastures and pick the best food they possibly can find. Nice way of living!

 

 

 

 

During the last day I've been preparing the patch for my potatos. Unfortunately I didn't keep them at the best possible place during winter so they were already sprouted a lot more than they are supposed to be when planting. Well, we'll just give it a try the way they are.
There were a lot more sprouted potatos and instead of throwing them away I decided to make an expirement. I found a patch with very little vegetation, spread the potatos there and then covered everything with a layer of grass clippings. Now I'll leave it that way and check on it during summer. It will be interesting if there will be any plants coming up and if there will be any potatos in autumn. 

 

 

 

 

At least here in the north of Iceland we had beautiful weather the last days. Today around 20 °C, sunshine and just a light breeze. It was quite contrary in the south with very heavy winds and rain. So better be in the north and east at the moment, the forecast was talking about up to 22°C tomorrow.
Perfect conditions for gardenwork, taking care of weeds, blending compost soil into the ground and planting summerflowers. And great conditions to go for a ride. In fact we went for 2 very relaxing rides this evening before checking our horses and getting more compost for the garden.
When arriving at the pasture, Pandóra had playtime and was running like crazy, stopping, turning and speeding off again. Just a pleasure to watch so much lust for living. The older horses just watched or kept minding their business i.e. grazing or checking us out. 
Snerpa still looks like Tina Turner and I'm afraid that won't change in the future. Well, at least the maine won't get tangled into my reins when she's a ridinghorse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can't stay at home all the time we took a drive to Helluland in the afternoon. We arrived in time to help Kiddi putting some of his ewes, their lambs and the 2 rams in a trailer to move them from the stable to a new pasture. Within this group was his purebred leadersheep with its 2 lambs. When it saw the trailer it went straight in, the lambs and some of the others following. There were a few that decided it wasn't a good idea to enter the trailer and tried to get away, but it was easy to turn them around. After a short drive they were released in a big meadow where they are going to stay until they are allowed to go to Laxárdalurvalley.
Back at Helluland I managed to get a few pics of the kittens there. They are really cute and show a lot of genes which were hidden in their mum. There are 3 of them getting long hair, which is inherited as a recessive gene, which means that both parents have to have it so it shows in the offspring. In fact the mother cat is a black shorthair with uncertain father. Then there is a regular black shorthair kitten and a shorthair kitten, which was born more or less white and started to get siampoints when getting older. This special colouring is on a recessive gene, too. Very interesting how these colours inherit.
And finally we managed to get Kiddi to our place to take a ride with us at the seaside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weatherforecast was good (it was supposed to rain later in the evening and during night) so Bensi decided to call and come with his big tractor to fertilize our big meadow (~ 3,5ha). We'll again put about 1,2 t of fertilizer there and about 600kg on the other fields, where we have to distribute it by hand (gonna be fun...).
We only put on the part where our horses are not at the moment, but they were really interested in the tractor and what was going on. Mostly watching with big interest. 
And believe it or not: the moment he was finished it started to drop! Now the grass gets the best possible start enough humidity and warmt. 

 

 

...take pics of your foal and horses? Well, that's sometimes not so easy, especially if you have nosy youngster and an overprotective broodmare. So when I entered the pasture with my camera Fönix and Rögnir came running to check out if I hadn't brought some treats along. Snerpa, Fjördís and Kóngur joined whilst the other mares and Pandóra stayed a bit away. I sat down hoping to be less interesting for the bunch, waiting for them to finally wander off and do something else. After about 20 minutes it finally worked but by then Vordís was as far away as possible. So I had to move, which resulted in the youngsters coming back and standing right infront of me and my camera. I really am happy how interested they are, but sometimes it's a bit difficult to get nice pics when they are just attached to you. Anyway I got some nice shots of the bunch in the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...find out the hard way. Looks like Pandóra had to find out the hard way. She's really nosy, leaving her mum and getting herself in trouble. Ingólfur already had to fetch her from our haybalefence a few days ago. Poor Vordís was so agitated and worried when Ingólfur found the little explorer, who was just standing still when he grabbed her and put her back where she belonged. Vordís had to run her adrenaline off and galloped 2 big rings with the little one following before allowing her to drink.
Well, since then Vordís is "employing" a nanny. Snerpa takes care Pandóra isn't wandering off too much. Got quite some interesting pics when watching the horses today. Think Pandóra did what was best for her and ran as fast as she could back to her mum. I think it won't be too long til she's going to have a closer look at those strange people coming to visit.

 

 

 

 

 

After a great weekend (ok, bad weather, but the rest was great) in the south we came back yesterday evening. Of course we checked out the horses and made sure everybody was fine. The foal had already gained some weight and starts to look very "filled".
Today's Fönix 4th birthday and time to give his little fullsister a name. 
We chose a name from Greek mythology as Fönix is a name with greece origins, too. May I introduce Pandóra frá Húsavík!
According to Greek mythology Pandora was the first human woman created by the gods and gifted with a unique gift by each and every Greek god. The name translates "the all gifted" and we think it fits quite well as our little lady is just perfect the way she is.
As you can see, her big brother likes her, too and gave her a big kiss.

 

It's Kóngur's 3rd Birthday today and of course he got some extra treats when I visited the horses today. 
The little lady already controls her mum quite much, she goes in front, mum follows. And of course it's best to lay down in the hay, soft and warm.
The other horses are now allowed to approach and say hi, something Vordís didn't allow yesterday. As I thought Snerpa thinks she's the foal's bodyguard, keeping the other horses at a distance. Well, Rögnir managed to take a closer look anyway.

 

 

No foal in the morning (although I was very sure about finding one), but a very interesting day at work, with the pupils of the 7th grade performing at their own ESC. This time the winner was from the Czech Republic.
During my last lesson I got a message from Bensi that Snilld had given birth to 2 grey rams. I definitely had to go and have a look later that day! After work I had a short chat with my mum, niece and nephew via facetime. My mum was asking if there was already a foal, which I denied. But she said: you just go and have a look, maybe it's already born.
Well, she was right! When we were checking on the horses, there was a light coloured foal amongst them. Finally Vordís has passed on her dun colour. So the foal has a red dun coat, but no chance to see the gender as Vordís already fled with her foal. Suddenly they stopped and the foal had to pee. I was so delighted to see it was a marefoal! Looks like a small copy of it's mum, really dark red mane and a prominent dorsal stripe at the moment. We saw straight away all gaits. Now I'll have to think about a fitting name. Think it's gonna be something from mythology/fairy tales like her sibblings. 
In the evening Snilld and her twinboys got a visit from me. Eventhough they are both grey, they differ quite a lot in colour. Looks like Snilld is finally taking good care of both lambs, not just her favourite one. Well, we'll see about that.  

 

 

 

 

 

Still no foal (we are checking the horses every day before work), but a nice surprise when we were taking care of Jón's garden (he went for holiday to Germany). I heard a familiar sound and shortly after that I spotted a Wood pigeon, which is a rather rare sight at Húsavík. Big bird, probably a male as it was dislpaying. Going to send the guys from birdwatch the pic I attach here.

 

Today's the earliest calculated day for the foal to arrive. Vordís' udder's already rather big and she starts to get wobbly and soft. But well, no foal in the morning and I'm pretty sure she's gonna give birth during one of the following nights like she has done the last 3 times, always surprising us with her foal in the morning. Well, we'll see.
Instead of foalpics I took some flowerpics in my garden. My garden auricula have started flowering a few days ago and are sporting lots of different shades. And the daffodils are braving the wind in different shapes and colours. Looking forward to the tulips and roses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, already 3 years since Snerpa was born during a rather cold Maynight. She definitely has grown a lot since then and we are looking forward to take her in for her basic training in the autumn. Until then she'll enjoy life with her friends and family and if I'm not mistaken she'll be the guard of Vordís' soon to be born foal.

 

Not being able to show at Akureyri we arranged a small show for the residents of our area. The final rehearsal went very well and the kids were rather tense about how everything would go. But first we offered younger and older kids to come on horseback and have fun.
Finally it was time for the big performance! First we did a few training jumps before starting the program. The horses weren't used to so many spectators so they refused to jump in their direction at first. At last Sara and Vin took the first jump and then the others followed. It was great to see how much Sara's selfconfidence grew through training the program. 
I'm very proud of these young riders and looking forward to work together with them in the future. 
We got a visitor from the local press and you can see a few pics here.
Now it's the question who will be first the release their offspring: Snilld or Vordís. There are already the first lambs at Hólmavað and it can't be long til Snilld is due. We are not sure when Vordís was covered exactly, but after calculating a lot and having a look at her former pregnancies, we are counting on getting the foal in the next days. At least we hope she'll get it before we go south at the 18th. Well, we'll see...

 

I haven't been writing a lot here the last days as I was really busy training 6 young riders for the show Æskan og hesturinn at Akureyri. We wanted to take part this year as it was close by and we could go there for just 1 day without needing a stable for the horses. 
The kids were great, we studied a jumping quadrille, which wasn't that easy as neither the riders nor the horses were really used to jump over obstacles. But Ásdís Helga had already done a very good job teaching them the basics, so I could just go for the fun part. In fact I wasn't that sure they'd be ready for the show, but on Saturday eveything went very well. Unfortunately the weather today was far too stormy to go with the horse trailer. So we decided to leave the horses at home, go and watch the show, go to the swimming pool and have pizza afterwards. Now we have to think about how and when we can show what we have trained.