A wonderful sunny morning after the stormy  day yesterday. We decided to meet Friðbjörn at Ísólfsstaðir to check on the horses there, feed them and give them a special treat. We sometimes get leftover bread from the local bakery in big rubbish bags and our car was full of bread today.
I took a walk down to the meadow whilst Ingólfur and Friðbjörn attached haybags to the car and drove down to where we wanted to feed the horses. After lifting the bags over the fence the guys started to spread the hay around so all the horses would have access. Fönix decided to check out all the bags and see where the best bites were. After getting the hay they got a dessert of different kinds of bread which was very appreciated.
Back home of course our mares and foals got a breadtreat, too. It was fun watching them fighting the bread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and time to feed the horses! They were rather tense due to the weather and ready to run at the slightest occasion. But that gave me the chance to take some nice pics. When going through them I realized that Pandóra is just a little lookalike of her mum Vordís.

 

 

Hrund at Hólmavað got herself a Border Collie pub named Perla. It was time to get to know her and pay a visit to Snilld.
When arriving Lukka and Perla were playing in the snow and it was fun watching and photographing them even though the latter was rather difficult as they were so fast.
Inside the sheepstable Snilld was waiting for me and especially for getting some treats. She's pregnant with twins after Elín's beautiful darkmoorit ram. Will be interesting what colours I get, as this mating could reveal if Snilld bears moorit, too. I'm hoping for getting ewes now as Snilld is getting older and I have no idea how long she'll be in good shape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last autumn our friend Hanni Heiler contacted us and asked if we'd still be interested in a mare she got from Marietta and Pétur a few years ago. In fact she was talking about Flugsvinn frá Höskuldsstöðum, daughter of Geisli frá Sælukoti (our favourite) and Hrönn frá Höskuldsstöðum, first prize daughter of Hrannar frá Höskuldsstöðum, mother to very good horses, mostly situated in Swiss.
After thinking about it, we said YES, and today she finally arrived. We are very much looking forward to getting to know her and choosing a stallion to match her. You can get a bit more information about Flugsvinn here.

 

 

 

 

We came back home from our Christmas/New Years Holiday in Austria. First part we spent with my family in Vienna, where we had a fun time meeting the whole bunch. Lots of great food and nice people, did some shopping, too. Second part was planned to be spent in Bad Gastein skiing.
Well, we spent the second part in Bad Gastein, but just 1/3 of us actually went skiing nearly all days. I managed to injure myself straight away the first day in our first trip, which lead to us going to the Hospital in Schwarzach, taking x-rays, getting a bandage and crutches and the advise to check my knee out better when we are back home in Iceland. So I prepared myself for a quiet time, watching a lot of TV whilst Ingólfur and Hjördís were on the slopes. But things never turn out the way you expect and just the day after my accident Hjördís broke her right arm. Luckily she's lefthanded, so it wasn't that bad. So we orderer a taxi and went back to the hospital, where they made x-rays of Hjördís head (thanks to her helmet no damage there) and hand, she got plaster on the hand and then we went to the pharmacy and got the prescribed meds for her. Luckily we already had orderer a table for that evening as it was New Year's Eve and no way to get a free table without ordering. 
For us it was the first time we actually had to use the travelinsurance provided by Mastercard. They did a great job, checking daily on us, rebooking my flight with 2 seats for me and my knee, even arranging a transport from the hotel to the airport and so on. We made the best of the last days on our holiday, me and Hjördís went for walks whilst Ingólfur was skiing. 
Yesterday it was time to go back home and the transport was scheduled the way we'd be at the airport with good time to look around and do some shopping. Unfortunately it had started snowing heavily and a lot of roads were closed due to avalanche risk and everybody was trying to get back home that day. Our driver tried his best to drive not so much used roads and get away from the motorway and traffic jams. In the end I was already quite stressed about not being able to check in at all as there were barely 45 minutes left when we finally arrived at the airport. The counter was still open and a stressed family from Iceland trying to check in when we arrived. Our driver had to "pass us over" to the check in assistant but the family wouldn't let him do his job, started taking pics of us and just behaved really embarassing. In the end the lady at the counter had to rise from her seat and more or less shout at them. We of course let them check in before us and then went to the security line, where we were stopped because the ham in my suitcase looked like explosives in the scan (so if you travel with bacon or ham in your handluggage, be prepared to open it as it has the same colour in the x-ray as plasticexplosives) and I was checked for explosives, too.  Think we just managed to get onto the bus to the plane. I was soooo relieved when I sat in my seat and was finally able to tell my family in Vienna that we managed to get the flight.
The drive back north was peanuts after that!