Þrá didn't wait for my calculated birthdate but already had her foal during the night. Ingólfur found the pair in the morning, Þrá and her silverdapple son out of Bósi frá Húsavík. Looking forward to getting to know him when I'm back home.

 

 

 

 

Time to empty the pasture and so we fetched Fönix and Fjördís in the afternoon. Of course they had to get dewormed and their hooves clipped. But first of all, we had to get them. No problem with Fönix as he just walkes towards you and stands still when putting the halter on. Fjördís isn't that keen on getting caught, so we had to put up a little fence to get her.  She wasn't keen on getting her hooves trimmed, either and so we had to release her with 1 hoof untrimmed. We didn't want to tranquilize her as she'll be due to get her foal soon. 
Fönix was happy to be the guy in the group and showed off a bit with all these pretty girls around. We are looking forward to getting to know the foals soon.

 

 

 

Could have been the motto of Bensi's sheep today. After "cleaning" the homelands, it was time to fetch the sheep at Hjarðahagi and drive them to the mountains. Snilld and her lambs were there, too, so I tried to get some pics of them since I haven't met them since their day of birth. They definitely hav grown a bit and are looking fantastic! Snilld is as greedy as always and was happily chewing treats while calling her boys. 
When sorting we realised there were some lambs missing and as Hrund had seen a dead lamb, we decided to have a look at it and maybe find the number. Arnar showed us, where they found the dead lamb and told us, it was looking really strange, the head was missing. When we arrived, we soon realized, that more or less the whole carcass was missing, no head, no spine, no other bones except the legbones. And the skin was "inside out", which means the wooly side was inside, the flesh side outside. In my opinion, somebody caught and slaughtered the poor lamb. No fox or raven could do things like that... Very unusual and very disturbing. Hope the sheep are safe in the highlands, but you get news about more and more lambs missing in autumn...

 

 

 

Tonight was the annual Club competition, where the winners drag a company that get's the trophy for 1 year. This year not too many were participating, which is a shame as it's always nice to meet and see different horses on the track. The riding school kids were allowed to take part and each and everyone got a medal for taking part. We were really proud of them after just 5 lessons riding tölt/trott on the ovaltrack. 
I didn't participate, but took pics. First I took care of our kids, getting them ready and then changeing saddles and horses, then I concentrated on taking pics of the participants.
Ingólfur and Magnús won karlaflokkur and am I really proud of these two. Looking forward to seeing them compete more.

 

 

 

 

This week we've been busy teaching 6 kids from 1st to 6th grade on horseback. Some of them have never sat a horse before, but all of them did really well and we were able to see progress in each and every lesson. I think the key to success in teaching kids is to give them responsibility, trust them to do things instead of doing everything for them. Our group had to lead, brush and saddle their horses, of course with assistance, but mostly on their own. In my opinion it's necessary to make them independent and able to do the basics on their own. Looking forward to teach them until Friday and allowing them to take part in our riding club competition on Friday evening.
After ridingschool we fetched Kóngur and Snerpa, cut their hooves, dewormed and put them in the trailer heading to Hagi. It's time for them to go to their summerpasture. It was no problem putting a halter on them and then just clipping whilst all the others made nonsense around them in the field. They went up into the trailer like pros so really looking forward to starting them in autumn. Think they'll be pretty quick getting the basics. 
Afterwards it was time to get Pandóra, Vordís and Rögnir. It was no problem catching Vordís and Rögnir, but he wasn't keen at all entering the trailer with Fjördís and Fönix running crazy all about. Vordís was worried about Pandóra, who of course didn't follow her mum into the trailer. In the end we decided to grab the little lady, put her inside and close and then walk Rögnir to the stables and try to get him loaded there. He just walked with me there, not even looking back to his friends calling him. Wow, if it would have been that easy handling him in there... Well, at the stables he more or less just walked into the trailer. Fönix and Fjördís were left behind, we'll fetch them later and move them to the field near Húsavík.
The five friends at Hagi went on an inspection tour and I really hope, Pandóra will forget a bit about how fond she's about people there.

 

 

 

 

 

As you cant't stay at home everyday and it is nice to go and visit other horsepeople, we took a drive to Helluland and checked out some of the young horses Kiddi has for sale. 
Barði í a very big, black gelding, a bit looking like a small Friesian, he definitely has the look! He was gelded last autumn, which makes this his first summer in a mixed herd. It's going pretty well and I think it'll improve with the years. At the moment his name in WF is still Krummi, so don't get confused when looking him up. 
Barði frá Hellulandi IS2013166421 (F: Dimmir frá Hellulandi, M: Hanna Valdís frá Grímshúsum)
Number two was Skýfaxi frá Hellulandi IS2014166423 (F: Mjölnir frá Hellulandi, M: Lukka frá Hellulandi), who's a halfbrother to List. Quite contrary to her, he shows amazing trott with quite special and high movements with the hindlegs. It was amazing to watch him!
Then we watched 2 mares, Örk IS2013266420 (F: Dimmir frá Hellulandi, M: Súla frá Hellulandi) and Stör frá Hellulandi IS2013266422 (F: Búi frá Húsavík M: Röst frá Hellulandi). Búi is already worldfamous because of just 1 pic taken of him, which went viral. Just click on his name and you know what I'm talking about.
Both mares are fivegaited and showed themselves nicely.
So if you are interested in any of these, just send me a line and I can hopefully give you more information!

 

Barði

 

 

 

Skýfaxi

 

 

 

Örk

 

 

Stör

 

We'd like to use our big meadow down by the sea for our riding horses during summer as the field near Húsavík is in a little attractive surrounding for going for a ride. There's a big gravel pit and they already closed more or less all path directly leading from our field with huge piles of gravel and sand.  So no fun to be there anymore and we are possibly going to miss the field anyway when they start to enlarge the gravel pit. But what to do with all the wonderful grass there? And where to put the youngsters, pregnant mares and Vordís and Pandóra. After talking a lot about what would be best to do, we decided to move Vordís, Pandóra, Snerpa, Kóngur and Rögnir to the countryside like we did during the last years. There's hardly a better place for a young horse to spend the summer and autumn. Those will be moved some of the next days. Fönix, Sveipur (after updating his getting caught and putting a halter on skills) and the 3 pregnant mares will spend their summer at the pasture in Húsavík, which will serve as a delivery suite. 
So today it was time for List and Þrá to move to their summer place. After clipping their hooves and deworming, they were released into horsey paradise, as we call it. Tons of fresh, luscious grass and nobody to tell them how much they are allowed to eat. Þrá's foal (Ingólfur is sooooo much hoping for a silverdapple mare) is due in about 1 month (I'd say between 10th and 15th, but Ingólfur says it will be born earlier), List isn't due to the beginning of august (if she's gonna keep it that long inside...). Next days will be busy moving horses and getting everything ready before I leave for a visit at Vienna.

 

 

 

..move it could have been the motto of our horses today. They were very playful when I came to visit in the evening, chasing each other, hopping, bucking, rearing just name it. Pandóra is really much into people and her mum is in great trouble to make her obey and be a good girl. She's far too independent and yet not even 1 month old. It's jut too good to get a scratch... Indeed I had to push her away to make her go back to Vordís. To make her behave again, Vordís ran a few rings fullspeed with the herd following. After that her daughter had to take a break and rest a bit. Goal reached!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the things to do in spring is applying fertilizer. Bensi already did the biggest part of it for us on the places where you can use a tractor. But there are areas where you can't use a big machine and there you have to do it by hand. As there was a rainforecast for Sundaynight, we rushed into fertilizing the bumpy areas today. Ingólfur is definitely better in this than me, but I did my best (too small hands I think). Now we hope for rain and the fertilizer to work.
Afterwards we got the field for List and Þrá ready, hanging up the wire and gates. Now we just have to fill the watertank and move them there.

 

 

Birgit, a friend of ours, who is a really good photographer (her speciality are animalpics) came to visit us today. She booked a short trip to Iceland spontaneously and we were lucky enough to have her here in our area. In the morning I got a message asking for where Pandóra and her family are and when it would be best to visit us. We fixed an approximate time and invited her for dinner, too. 
In the afternoon we met at our meadow, her having already spent quite some time there and the horses used to having her around. Don't know which kind of magic she worked, but Pandóra got that nosy that she decided to have a closer look at those strange humans and come around. After discovering that we are really good at scratching, she didn't want to leave anymore. Well, her brothers were of a different opinion as they would have loved to have our sole attention.
Afterwards Ingólfur showed us Magnús and Sigtýr under the saddle at one of our favourite spots to take pics. Magnús was in great shape and it was nice to finally see Sigtýr under a rider, bit difficult when you are in the saddle yourself.
We finished the evening with great talks and a very nice dinner. If you'd like to see a bit of Birgit's work, have a look at her homepage or Facebookpage.

 

 

 

 

We are still feeding our horses hay additionally to grazing as the grass isn't enough at the moment. It was time to get them a new bale before leaving south for Hjördís' last schoolday. In fact I didn't count on them coming running when we arrived with the trailer, as the fresh grass is sweet and they really love it. But we hardly could finish unloadig and opening before the greedy bunch started feasting on it. Pandóra was of course following, but she soon detected something more interesting than the hay. Think she'll soon take the next step and take a closer look at us.
The other pregnant mares start to look like big tons, eventhough it's still about 1 1/2 months until the next one is due.

 

 

 

Tomorrow is the Icelandic Sailors' Day and because of that there are a lot of celebrations in the harbour towns and villages around Iceland the whole weekend. Here in Húsavík there's always a sail on that day and we were so lucky that Jói and Hulda invited us over for a trip on their boat. Ingólfur's dad joined us as did Lára Sóley and her kids. When leaving the harbour we saw that another ship was in trouble and Jói helped the crew there to drag it to the pier.
Afterwards we headed west to where Jói knew whales are usually feeding. We were lucky and there were about 10 whales around and a lot of different seabirds. On the way back we had soda and sweets, what could be better? Thanks so much for a wonderful trip!