Many days later

Now a lot of time has passed since I promised to blog again so surely you all have left me  but I still have hope so try to tell you what's going on.
The electricity-problem has gone or I should say, there is no problem with fences IF THERE IS ELECTRICITY ON but SSSól knows immediatly if a fence is dangerous or not. If I have a little bit more time we will build a real fence-system on my two pastures so that there is always electricity if needed.
Sonnie (her name if she is a good girl) seems to feel good at her new home and hopefully she knows that she finally arrived. I try to give her a peaceful life but of course I have to ride Baga and that's most time stress for SSSól because I have to leave her alone - but it's getting better and better. Further I was walking a little with her (two times since my last blog) and she is doing very fine! She noticed that I like more to have her beside me than behind me and I can walk with her like with an old horse. She only have not learned yet to respect my body because she is always jumping in my arms if she is afraid but of course she will learn this easily .
Baga is also doing very fine and I try to train her as often as possible. If SSSól will stay as cool as she is we can hopefully ride longer than one hour again. At the moment I am always thinking on her so I don't want to stay away from home for too long. A friend of mine is giving me riding-lessons and I noticed that I nearly know nothing about horse-riding . I have to be ashamed that I am owning horses but don't know how to ride them. Luckily we are learning and I have been told that we're improving each other.
Unfortunately we are in our main working season so I often have to work until 18 o'clock or longer.  And setting things like buying food, oil or getting photos from the photographic laboratory behind my working time means that I often only come home around 22 o'clock. Then I have to make my dinner and different stuff and go into bed much later than few weeks before. Before getting SSSól from Iceland I often felt asleep in front of my TV before 20 o'clock but I woke up again to watch TV until half ten. So I mostly slept during the time where I am now with the horses! Putting weight on is unpossible although I often take my dinner around 22 o'clock because my water-carriage was empty for many days and I had to carry around 100 liter water every day. Further I am always carrying the hey from one point to another and doing the shit-business day by day is also feeding my muscles .
Yesterday I dewormed my girls because I decided that SSSól is not low anymore. You can not longer see her rips and the other parts of her are also looking better now. I think in two months will nobody guess that she had a problem before. Hopefully I will get her through the winter but I am sure about this. I am feeding mostly 20 kg hey day by day (more than they need - so Baga will never be slim again) and SSSól is eating and eating and eating. I am feeding hey because grass is not good for Baga. There is too much protein in grass and that's bad for summer-eczema.
Luckily it seems that I am on the right way because at the moment you can not see that Baga has eczema. There is not one wound on Baga and her mane is still where it has to be. She is rubbing herself but not too much. I have to admit though that we have no summer since many many days. I would say 3 weeks. No problem for me because rain makes the grass growing faster and the horse flies are gone. Because of my less time am I never resting during raining-time. If everybody is fleeing into their houses I am putting the saddle on Baga and go outside riding. If people meet me they say "Hurry up to ride home!" and I am always answering: "Why? I am just starting my ride!" So you can imagine that people find me strangely. There are also riders who would never put a saddle on a wet horse but I am always telling them "What do you think how often icelandic people could ride their horses if they rest them in rain?" Old cowboys would also not say "I can not ride today because it's raining!" So I am going on . Only buying rain clothes should be done quickly or I am with a cold soon again! I would like to wait until the horse fair in december but then I have to wait for 4 months! I would more like to buy the stuff immediately but money... . There is a coat which I could buy for 60 EUR but it's rather lightly and will flap like hell if it's windy. I would prefer to buy a real oilskin coat but they most time cost around 200 EUR .
Aaaah, have I told you that I took pictures at a ranch horse competition? Frábært! Mjög spennandi! You can find a summary of my pictures here: http://skinfaxa.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=12251

Red devil in hell

Now after 1,5 weeks it seems as if SSSól supposes that she is at home now. She is still going on my nerves from time to time but she is not so very "loopy" like last week . She learned that it's no good idea to run over me and it's ok to wait 2 seconds until getting the breakfast/dinner. But not 3... After 3 seconds she is shoving Baga away from her feeding trough . Baga is higher-ranked than SSSól but if SSSól steals her food she is only standing there - starring at the red devil  and wondering why she is eating her food. But Baga is doing the same the other way round. That's comfortable for me.

 At the moment they are not getting a lot of fresh green grass because I can not let them in such a light fence we Germans are used to build for horses. I have a wire mesh fence around the two pastures - that's the only reason why SSSól is still where she is - but on the second pasture is one side only bounded through a light fence and on the other side is the garden of my neighbours. And they are not this kind of neighbours which like to have red devils in their strawberries  so I have to be very sure that SSSól has great respect for the fence before I let them go over there! The newest fence I built overlived 2 days and 3 nights until now!!!!!!! I was afraid that she will break it last Tuesday as I was riding out with Baga the last time but nothing bad happened. She only neighed and followed us behind the fence until we were gone. Maybe she got an electric shock - FINALLY!!! Hope so...  

During my holidays last week I was sitting hour for hour in front of the fence waiting that she comes toooooo near to the fence with her nose. But I had no luck. Today I will build a new one to challenge her . If this one overlives until Saturday morning they will get access to the second and green pasture.

 

Unfortunately I had not enough time to go on training Baga. I am only riding three times a week - mostly not longer than one hour because I don't want to let SSSól alone for so long. But it really sucks to ride out at the moment because there are big horseflies everywhere. And they are not only attacking the horse which possibly gets panic because of this - they also attack the rider and bring big pain .

Both horses are covered with bites. Poor girls!!! I'm using a lot of insect spray but unfortunately it only works for few hours - if indeed! That's one of the reasons why Baga and me often stay at home instead of riding out. Another reason is the heat: 30°C is nothing. Welcome to hell!  

But it seems as if the red devil likes the hell. She is looking a little bit better than last week - in my opinion. I am grooming her daily and she is rather patient with me. Creme here, oil there – lift up the feets, stand still. But it works ;o) Maybe I will exercise to walk with her during the weekend (few meters on the pasture - no stress ;o) But actually she is following me mostly if I take her on the beard so I think it's getting easier. I only have to explain to her that she can not jump into my arms if she is frightened. Last time she did - but 200 kg devil can be very heavy .

51 % angel, 49 % devil

Everything is fine in our little village in North Germany. I am wondering day by day what strange two years old horse I exported. She learned after two days not to shake her head if I try to put the halter on. I lifted her front legs up from time to time (but I don't know if Ransý has teached her before?) and unfortunately she had some big cracks in her hoofs so that I asked my blacksmith yesterday if he could try to cut her hoofs.

And he did it. He was deep impressed by SSSól. She was jumping a little bit and one time she lost the balance and fell on him but he only laughed and went on with his work. My blacksmith and me are totally sure that SSSól is not a normal two years old horse.

As I took her to lead her to the blacksmith she showed him the finest lull and not walk  but he immediately said "Oh, she is only full with tension." And as I brought her back to the paddock with her "new" hoofs she started immediately to fly over the earth in dreamlike fljúgandi brokk!!!! (like Biskup) Unbelievable horse. I think the blacksmith is now thinking that I exported my future competition horse and not a wormy slaughterfoal .
She was also very easy to lead yesterday - no comparison to Sunday as I wanted to do a little walk with both horses and SSSól stemmed her feets in the ground and shaked her head "I am not leaving this paddock!!!" Maybe she was afraid that she has to travel again .
Leaving her alone during riding Baga was also no problem yesterday. Sunday she were running like hell and crying after Baga. Is it possible that she learned after few days that we will always come back? Hope so.

@Sigrún: I don't think that SSSól wanted to put away the fly mask of Baga because it is ugly, I more think that she wanted to take this mask for herself. I noticed on Saturday that SSSól was very nervous because of the flies. She could not eat peaceful because of the insects. So I put her halter on with some twists which keep away the flies of the eyes (see above picture).

But SSSól is a little stupid and always hanging with the halter in the fence or wheel barrow  so I need to put the halter away if I am not on the paddock to look after her. That's why I bought a new fly mask in size XS for her (the one of Baga is much to big) which she got yesterday the first time. It's rather close and have to be put on like a halter but SSSól was not batting an eyelid and waited until I was ready to put it on her.

But although SSSól is this kind of perfect young horse I could have killed her Monday and Tuesday!!! Monday I came from work and found SSSól in the wrong part of the fence (I am giving parts of long green grass to the horses day by day) - in the green side of life . Baga was waiting on the right side - she has a lot of respect with fences! So I sent SSSól back to Baga and fixed the fence. After that I started to collect a full wheel barrow of horse shit (it was a very stressy evening because I had to work and was buying food and Jens were waiting at home). But suddenly I saw SSSól attacking the fence again so I ran to stop her and fixed the fence AGAIN! Meanwhile this small red devil found the full wheel barrow. Do I need to tell you what happened next? Yes, she knocked it over!!!!! I don't know for sure what the neighbours thought as I ran after this small foal - shouting and swinging the dung fork . After all I collected all the horse shit again and went away without giving them nammi - like I do if I am in good mood. So I could have killed her on Monday THE FIRST TIME.
Yesterday again! I arrived in the morning and all my fences have been broken down again so I fixed it all - nearly one hour - until the blacksmith arrived. She broke it again as the blacksmith was there and broke it again as the blacksmith were gone. Sometimes she was hanging in the fence and one time she was hinking because of it . After a lot of shouting and hunting the small red devil I thought to myself "Farðu til andskotans, helvíti trunta! Kill yourself with too much grass (normally she have to eat carefully because of the german grass is not the same like icelandic grass), get a colic and kiss my ass!!!!!!!!!" and I decided to ride out long with Baga - without checking the watch minute after minute and thinking if being alone is too much stress for her. Now I don't have fear longer that she could get a colic because of stress  - after all what happened between Saturday and today .
But she was ok as Baga and me arrived back after one hour and I know that she was not crying the whole time because we talked to a friend for maybe 15 minutes - only few meters near the paddock. So I know that she started early to eat grass and was not running the whole time like Sunday. That's very great!
The fences were broken as we came back  but SSSól was very happy to see us and showed greatest fljúgandi brokk again and after relaxing one hour with Baga I was relaxed enough to smile and be happy about my both horses. It's only a shame that I didn't found the time to do anything else than fixing fences yesterday. These 4 days (now only 3 days left) are my only summer holidays this year!!! My next free days will be in November .

I asked Peter to check my fence if the electricity is working and he told me that there is anything wrong so he put away all my fences yesterday evening! So both horses had the long green grass to eat - heaven on earth. Luckily I went to the horse-paddock in the evening because I wanted to use a new insect spray - and I noticed that Baga felt very bad because of all the insects. She knows that there are only few insects in the stable but if outside is green grass, she likes more to be biten til blood than going into the stable to sleep. So I took her and nursed her skin and suddenly she felt asleep. Red devil followed us to the stable and were standing inside of it - also sleeping!!! So I decided to let them both together into the closed stable (4x4 m) for the whole night! I was a little bit nervous because Baga attacked SSSól from time to time (I stayed for some time into the stable to check how they act) but it seems as if they spent a good night. Both were healthy as I opened the stable this morning so from now they will sleep inside every night!

Finally together

Everything went fine but like I joked my driver really slept over!  His alarm clock was not working and so we started at 2:45 not at 2:00 o'clock. As we arrived in Liege around 8 o'clock the last trailor was standing in front of the door and got its horse. I ran into the hall and saw her immediately - standing alone in her box and wondering why everybody has gone. It was easy to take her and put her on the trailor - THANK YOU RANSÝ!!!!
Then we drove back but we needed to do some breaks because my driver has driven all day alone - nearly 12 hours!!!!!!!!! and sometimes he needed to close his eyes for some minutes. SSSól was more than cool and only eating her hey and drinking a little.
We arrived around 14 o'clock at home and put SSSól in an extra fence which separated her of Baga. They could sniff on each other but not kick themselves. And after two hours I put away the fence and let them talk to each other. Nothing bad happened. Baga was squeaking a lot and sometimes kicking with her front leg (only in the air) but they did not fighted. SSSól was only telling Baga that she is a kid and needs to be handled nice but later she got more and more brave and started to bit into the nose of Baga . I think they don't love each other but they are acting like sisters and that's ok. Later they also fondled each other a little bit until one started to bite the other one again . SSSól was eating a lot of hey and tested some linseed pellets (to loose her winter coat as quick as possible) and Baga also got her normal food. Everything in peace.  As I left them they were calm. Today I will go riding with Baga - I am very excited if SSSól will stay cool but I am sure about this . Then I will walk a little bit with SSSól. Soon both will sleep inside of the stable together but first we have to build a new door and make some changings. Going out to see after the both girls and taking some new pictures and brushing SSSól. See you...

You can see the pictures of yesterday here: http://skinfaxa.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=11292&g2_page=6 and on page 7 of the same albúm.

Sólskin

Síðan skein sól...

Mynd © Ransý

Waiting

Hopefully Baga will get a friend soon. But it's not yet for sure so please keep all your fingers crossed for us! I can tell you more after the weekend. Further I am updating the photo-gallery with old photos of my horses, so if you click on www.gaedingur.com you can check the galleries by clicking on the horse-names in the banner.

Myndir af Bögu

Myndir af Bögu (29.05. - 06.06.)

Velkomín Sæladís!

Mynd: Ransý

Móðir: Sokkadís frá Ásgarði
Faðir: Stæll frá Neðra-Seli

My baby is born

Yesterday Sokkadís gave birth to a sweet little foal.  It seems to be healthy and fine. More details and photos of Ransý will follow soon.

Mittellandkanal

13.05.2008