News

27. august 2008

I updated our foal 2008 page for the last time. To see it click here!

24. august 2008

Þokkadís got a healthy stallionfoal yesterday. Great, as I had started to worry about her. She was very heavy and still nothing. But yesterday there came this big stallionfoal! I have seen several off spring of Akkur frá Brautarholti and they look very nice, big and strong with promising movements. We will bring Þokkadís later this week to Álfur frá Selfossi, that will be an interesting combination!

Slowly the mares start to come home from the stallions. Kantata is pregnant and will come home with the next truck, I look forward to see her, now we hope her foals will be as good as she is herself. You can see that the fall is starting to come here in Iceland, the colours change and even though the sun is shining you feel the fall is in the air. The horses start to become more hairy and fat. So not very nice to train, but we do mostly some long distance work to prepare the horses for the comming month where we fetch the sheep and horses. And they are in fine shape, good tölt on long distance, that is a lot of fun.

12. august 2008

Finally, Klóra got a marefoal yesterday! I am so happy with her, after 3 stallions we got a beautiful mare. The father of the foal is Akkur frá Brautarholti. He has a very interesting pedigree, after Galsi frá Sauðárkróki and a mother who is only giving top first prize horses. Last year Klóra had a stallionfoal after Galsi and this young stallion is one of the most promising horses that we have ever owned. So the little mare will be one to follow! Now only Þokkadís is left to foal, she looks like she is going to have twins............ but so far...........

Klóra will be covered by Hróður frá Refsstöðum.

5. august 2008

Kantata

3. august 2008

Summer flies. We are very busy with our guesthouse, have made a lot of hay, ride with the horses and do some other things are you have to do when you have a farm. The weather has been quite ok, many sunny days, sometimes a bit of rain so the grass keeps on growing and a few less interesting, foggy days, but all together pretty good. The ridinghorses are fine shape and we are starting two young geldings who do both very well. One is a palomino 4y. old gelding after Bjarkar frá Blesastöðum and the other one is a black, very big, 5y. old gelding after Kveikur frá Miðsitju. They are both very easy to handle, friendly and seem to have good gaits. Also we have a new 7y. old brown mare after Kolfinnur frá Kjarnholtum. Her name is Virðing frá Úlfsstöðum. Virðing is a very good tölter and nicely build (shown with 7,89). I like to train her and see how good she can become in the future, but so far she is a joy to ride.

Today I went to take a look at Fríða and Friður. The look very happy, the old lady is in good shape and the foal is growing and it is interesting to see his development. He has a very good building and a good way of carrying himself. So here are finally some pictures of him!

Ljósbrá and her daughter after Borði frá Fellskoti

15. july 2008

Funny summer here in this area. Sunny days are exchanged by some very cloudy, misty, cold days. Today it rained and rained. Superb for our grass, maybe less interesting if you are on a holiday here around. But now in the evening the clouds are leaving and my laundry is hanging outside again. So it isn´t that bad. But this rain made a whole lot of difference for our hay and the grass we need in the fall for our sheep. Really good.

Last saturday I was happily surprised by a new foal. Fríða gave birth to a chestnut stallion with a star. The father is Gammur frá Steinnesi. Fríða is our oldest mare, and I am always a bit worried about her giving birth. But it went really well, and Friður frá Hofi is a happy guy! Fríða went now to Kiljan frá Steinnesi. Kiljan was one of the high jumpers at the Landsmót. He is 4y old and after Klettur frá Hvammi and Kylja frá Steinnesi (f. Kolfinnur frá Kjarnholtum; and a first prize mare). Kiljan got 8,60 for riding (9 for tölt and pace), the highest of all 4y. old horses this year, his overal score is 8,39. He was in second place. In my eyes he deserved also 9 for temperament and willingness as he went two long sprints in pace at full speed, and that for a horse only 4y. old. 

Kiljan

Now there are only two mares left to give birth. That are Klóra and Þokkadís. Hope they show us their foal really soon, but we´ll see. It can also take a week or two. Then we have a new mare in training. Her name is Virðing frá Úlfsstöðum and she is after Kolfinnur frá Kjarnholtum. I like her a lot, she is easy going with a very good way of carrying herself and good action. We´ll see what she does. I am affraid the time will be to short to prepare her for the breedingshow in august, but you never know.

7. july 2008

We´ve  been busy as always. We managed to make some hay for next winter. Was not really a lot, but a good start. We have had a very dry period here in this area and you could say that all vegetation didn´t grow anymore. So best was to cut some grass before it started to burn. But since we did that it has rained a few times and everything looks a lot greener and better. The horses and sheep look happier too with new grass!

In the guesthouse things have started to be living and there are guests everyday. Before the Landsmót we had a fabulous week. With very good horses and very good riders we made some very great tours here in the area. Both here in the valley and upp the mountain. As we rode to a stable that is almost on the F35, maybe better well known as the ´Kjölur'. Around the Landsmót many people visit Iceland and we plan around the Landsmót in 2010 to close the guesthouse for regular guests and have some very good ridinghorses ready for everybody who wants to join us. I look forward to this as the days to ride around the Landsmót often are the best in summer!

We went to the Landsmót on thursday, wanted to see Kantata of course! She was in 5th position in the 4y. old group of mares. She looked very good and it is a joy to own such a mare. I think she has become stronger since I saw her last time and seems to lift even more. Now she is enjoying a well earned vacation and is in the field with the stallion Krummi frá Blesastöðum. Krummi is a beautiful stallion with a lot of power and very good looks. This foal will be very exciting to wait for! Krummi got 9,5 for tölt!

Kantata

27. june 2008

Summer has really arrived in Iceland. The sun is shining, ok, bit cold wind, but it is extremely dry and sunny. Weather to be outside! We have brought some sheep to the highlands. That is always a nice day, like going with the horses to Gilhaga. Just go out of the valley and see the wide nature, that´s lovely. When we have unloaded the sheep we will wait until every lamb has found it´s mother again and then release them. After all have been released we walk behind them and bring them to  a place where there  is a lot of grass and they will usually stop there for a while and it looks so peaceful, about 100 mothers with their lambs.

In the guesthouse there is more and more to do. People from all over the world and often we have very interesting conversations about life. There also have come some people to ride with us and we have done some very good riding along the river. The older horses are in fine condition and it is good fun to go for a fast tölt. In the next days we will get many guests to join us with the horses, and next week we will go to the Landsmót.

After the Landsmót I hope the next foals will start to arrive.

8. june 2008

Yesterday we brought to young horses to our fields who are close to the highlands, those fields are named Gilhaga. It is a beautiful ride, through the valley and afterwards a few kilometers upp the mountain. The horses have such a great life overthere, enough to eat and place to play. They become very strong in muscles through all this movement they get during the summer. Of course it is a bit far away, but also it is fun to go sometimes and visit them. So after we came to the field, which is about 100ha. We rode with the fence to check it one last time and took a look at the canyon and the waterfall. Chantal joined us, she has been visiting from Holland. So it was a great ride!

3. june 2008

We are very busy preparing the fields for the summer. So this morning I was driving the traktor and listening to the news on the radio. Something got my attention. The headlines were that there was an icebear walking on the road between Sauðárkrókur and Skagaströnd. Haha, first thing that crossed my mind was which day it was today. Maybe 1 of april? But no, serious, it was true! Several people had seen the icebear. Unfortunately are such animals extremely dangerous, so it ended that they had to shoot the poor thing. On the pictures it was a huge animal, fully grown and enourmous teeth. It is not often happening an animal like that comes to Iceland. I think last time was somewhere in the 80´s. And the biggest chance is that they will come on Ice that flows on the sea. It is quite a while ago we had such Ice this winter. The question is now, how long has this icebear been here?

2. june 2008

Vordis even improved her notes at the second day, she ended in 8,11! Really good result. Then Hersir frá Hofi is selected to participate for the ridingclub Fákur in the fivegaited competition.  Hersir is after Gustur frá Hóli and Hrist frá Hofi (Hrist is after Hera frá Hofi and Skinfaxi frá Þóreyarnúpi).

Last but not least, Vænting had her foal yesterday. And guess what, another mare! I think the mare is red dun, but maybe in the end she will turn out to be just chesnut, it is a bit hard to say. But for the time being she does look like a dun. Pictures will follow very soon. The father of the little mare is Kaspar frá Kommu (f. Gustur frá Hóli), judged with 8,28. 9,5 for trot, 9 for tölt, temperament and looks under rider.

30. may 2008

So we are coming back to earth, haha. But I must admit that it is very exciting to own a mare that is in good chance for a topranking at the Landsmót. Life though here at home goes on, we have to keep taking care of the sheep. There have been guests almost every evening in the guesthouse and we have shoed to older ridinghorses and we try to get them in some shape. Yesterday I went to Borgarnes to pick upp Varpa and Prinsessa. Who both have been covered by Glymur frá Innri-Skeljabrekku. I took Ljósbrá with me and she will be covered by the son of Kolfinnur named Águstinus frá Melalæti. Águstinus is a young stallion who got the amazing not of 8,93 for riding. We are pretty interested in Kolfinnur´s off spring and as Ljósbrá owns a very nice off spring after Kolfinnur it will be nice to try again!

In the mean time there are still breedingshows going on. In Sauðárkrókur Vordís frá Hofi, 5y. old, got an overal score of 8,07 Vordís is born at our farm, but bred by Steffi. Vordís is the first foal born at our farm that was bred by somebody abroad that get´s first prize. Congratulations Steffi, I think you bred a wunder ful horse! And I hope that there will follow many more. Ösp frá Hofi was also shown, she got a result of 7,82. Tomorrow is the second day and I hope she will improve a little bit more. I know that she can show much more!

27. may 2008

As everybody knows breedingshows in Iceland are on full speed. Everybody is very excited to see which horses make it to the Landsmót. So far, only few  horses have made it and the competition is incredibly tough. Yesterday we went to Borgarnes to see our 4y. old mare Kantata perform. And she had a magnificent performance. At the moment she is the highest judged 4y. old mare 2008 with the following notes:

IS2004256111 Kantata frá Hofi
Litur: 2500 Brúnn/milli- einlitt 
Ræktandi: Eline Manon Schrijver, Jón Gíslason
Eigandi: Eline Manon Schrijver, Jón Gíslason
F: IS1991158626 Kormákur frá Flugumýri II
Ff: IS1986157700 Kveikur frá Miðsitju
Fm: IS1986286300 Kolskör frá Gunnarsholti
M: IS1997256113 Varpa frá Hofi
Mf: IS1990184419 Víkingur frá Voðmúlastöðum
Mm: IS1982256003 Þota frá Hvammi II
Mál: 141 - 139 - 64 - 142 - 28,0 - 17,0
Hófamál: Vfr: 8,8 - Va: 7,8
Sköpulag: 8,0 - 9,0 - 8,5 - 9,0 - 7,5 - 7,0 - 9,0 - 7,0 = 8,44
Hæfileikar: 8,0 - 8,5 - 7,5 - 8,0 - 8,5 - 8,5 - 6,5 = 8,14
Aðaleinkunn: 8,26
Hægt tölt: 7,5      Hægt stökk: 8,5 

We are so proud of her! She is trained only since jan. and shows very good gaits and definetely there is a good chance of improving at the Landsmót. We believe that she can increase for both tölt and canter. But for the time being we enjoy this result and are incredibly happy!

Before I forget, we got our 4rd marefoal! Aska gave birth to a nice black filly. I haven´t had the chance to shoot pictures, but hopefully they will show up here soon. I also expect Vænting to give birth very soon.

24. may 2008

Time flies! It is a very nice time in Iceland, fine weather and everywhere you look young animals. There are only very few sheep left to give birth. So we start to have time for different things again. But we still spend a good part of the day with the sheep, keep an eye on the lambs outside and make sure they have enough to eat. Today we got our third foal, Ljósbrá gave birth to another marefoal! Beautiful darkchestnut with a star/blaze. Pictures will follow soon, one is on our breeding 2008 page. This marefoal is for sale, for further information you can contact us on our email (hof@simnet.is).

12. may 2008

Guess what, during the day Prinsessa gave birth to a gorgeous pintomarefoal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can say she really made our day!

12. may 2008

Prinsessa still has no foal.... Information about the foals this spring you will find here.

11. may 2008

Well hopefully we had the last signs of winter the last days. Friday the weather was pretty bad, around zero and rain and wet snow. In the evening we decided to bring in all the mothersheep and their lambs that we have put already outside. It went amazingly well to bring all those little things to the stable. I thought it was funny when I came to the horsestable. There were maybe 70-80 sheep outside there during the day, they all had gone in except 7! Very clever. Saturdaymorning it turned out totally right the extra work we did, the sheep looked very happy all and we could feed them well. Outside earth was covered with a thin layer of snow. Fortunately that dissappeared around lunchtime and we could let them all out again. That took a bit longer as putting them inside. As we never let any sheep outside unless it has all of the lambs by her side, and they find that sometimes difficult to remember.

There was also another surprise. During the snowy night our first foal arrived. Varpa got a beautiful marefoal. I had been worrying a bit weather she or Prinsessa maybe would foal and went very early to check. I saw this little black foal lying on the ground. Soon I started thinking that she hadn´t started to drink. It was cold and some of the young horses were very interested in the foal. I went home to get the trailer.  We had her there for a while with a blanket to dry and get warm. Soon she started to drink and before lunchtime she was totally happy! We kept her here at home until today. It was fun to have her so close by and being able to see her so well. It is a nice moving foal with a friendly character. I will try to make a foalpage like I always do with some more pictures. But here is one from the her in the trailer. The father of this foal is Geisli frá Sælukoti, the stallion who won the fivegaited class twice at the Landsmót. Something no horse ever has managed so far.

6. may 2008

Long time ago that I have written here. We are as usual pretty busy with different things. First of all we showed Vök with a quite fine result. She is sold now and will be covered. Then we have lambseason! That means that we are 24 hours a day in the sheepstable helping the new mothers with their young ones. It is hard work, but a lot of fun to have all those lambs. I haven´t counted exactly but I think there are already about 450 lambs! And there are quite a few left to come! Soon we will put pictures here at our homepage so you can get an impression of how that looks.

I hope soon we also have the first foal. I saw that Prinsessa was starting to have milk. I thought that Varpa would be the first, but since I have seen this I think she will wait a little longer. Prinsessa is covered with Þristur frá Feti. We are also thinking a lot about the stallions that we will use this summer, that is also exciting as there are so many interesting ones.

22. march 2008

Kjalar and Glitnir

Söngvadís

21. march 2008

  Gullfoss

Strokkur

Þingvellir

17. march 2008

We just came back from a nice time of being a tourist on Iceland. We went to the south and stopped at the tourist places like Þingvellir, Gullfoss and Geysir. The weather is fabulous at the moment, sunny and no wind. As almost the whole country is covered with this gorgeous white thin lay of snow, it was like Iceland at it´s best. I took a lot of pictures and I will share them here with you in the next days. It was very funny, on sundayevening we wanted to go out for dinner. I sometimes complain that there is very little going on here in the area. And imagine that in other places everything is more ´alive´. Well we drove to all small towns in the south, but couldn´t find a restaurant that was open....... At one place the owner was around, but no, sorry the place was closed. He suggested that we would drive to Selfoss. So that we wouldn´t get hungry on the way, he gave us  plate with cold chicken to eat while we were driving! Really funny, haha. So we ended up in Selfoss, ate at a cozy little restaurant, that I can recommend to everybody!

12. march 2008

The Icetölt was really a great day. The weather was fine and there were really a lot of very good horses, highly judged stalllions and mares. Very interesting to watch! Glitnir was fine and we ended somewhere in the middle, which is satisfying for me as I cimpeter not very often en Glitnir has only been once before on competition in the ridinghal. Here are some pictures of us:

1. march 2008

We made pictures of Glitnir. I plan to ride him on the Icecompetition next week, not that I have any chance, but it will be fun to participate. I was trying out the new boots I bought but after they fell of 3 times I gave upp. So he also doesn´t wear any extra weights on the pictures, I guess I have to find something better before next week.

24. februar 2008

Finally the days start to get longer again. This time of the year is usually a lovely time. Still cold, but calm and the days get brighter. Very nice to work outside. We have been working a lot with the horses and I can ride all the young horses now, they do really well and I am very satisfied with their performance. The horses who are a little bit older are also making progress. We made pictures of Vök

Vök is improving a lot. She is starting to carry herself better and there is some collection. Also I have found her fifth gear, she can go really fast! I train her for the breedingshow in spring, and hope she will make more progress and really go for it. So she is shoed with only 8mm around and no extra weights.

We took Klakkur and Dimma to the vet for x-rays and they both passed.

The other work on the farm continues too. Jón has started to shave the sheep again. The ducks go out almost every day and they have started to lay eggs again. But the chicken like it best to stay inside, strange animals!

Further is the organisation for the Icetölt on Svínavatn on full speed. We expect the best riders from the country to participate and it will be a day to look forward to.

10. februar 2008

I updated our homepage about the sheep. Added some more pictures and so on. If you are interested take a little look here http://www.hof-is.com/Icelandicsheep.htm  . Jón shaves the sheep himselves and we try to keep the wool as clean and natural as possible. If you are looking for some wool to work with send us a note, we have it available in most different colours.

There is starting to be a programm around the anual Icecompetition in our area. The ice is looking great and there will be many of the best horses attending this competition. If you would like to join us and see this competition yourself, send us a note and we give you full information. Maybe it is a good chance to look at many different horses, have a nice little holiday and a time never to forget!

9. februar 2008

We had this huge storm yesterday. I think this was the worst storm I have ever been in in my life. Strong northern wind, very aggresive. It really didn´t feel nice to go to sleep. But outside it was rain and very dark, so nothing you could see. And it was impossible to do something outside, so all we did was keep our fingers crossed and went to sleep. This morning the wind had gone quiet. A lot of snow had dissappeared. In the stables everything seemed ok, there was some water where the hay is for the horses, but that was only to be cleaned. We figured out that our greenhouse had fallen apart. Strangely it wasn´t damaged and we could put it together again. I guess it is just luck it didn´t break. On one of the next farms half of the roof of an old stable had lifted and fallen down next to the house!

Tonight we have our anual Þórrablót. We will eat ramsballs and burned sheephead, complimented with rotten shark! During dinner we will be made fun of by sketches and singing (so I hope I didn´t do anything stupid last year), and still, Þórrablót is the best party of the year and tonight Jón and me celebrate that it is 13y. ago that we went out for the first time. It will be a party!

30. januar 2008

I rode on the ice today! There are no words, only it feels like heaven!!!!!!!!!!!!

28. januar 2008

More storm last week. So I decided to use the time to do some shopping. Nice idea while I was in Reykjavik, but when I wanted to go home the road was closed due to storm. Not very good, that way you spend much more money as you intended. But in the end I came home without any problems. Today and yesterday the weather was fine and I could use the time with the horses. The young horses do very well. I can ride both Kantata and Söngvadís without any problems. They have easy gaits, but are very different in character. Nice to see how they react and what they are capable off, I have very high hopes for them in the future. But I have time, until next year or the year after. I have also started to ride Póstur, he is a 4,5y. old gelding after Prinsessa and Eiður frá Oddhóli. The last 2 years he has always looked like a bored teenager with his pants down to his knees, you know, the last one in the group and teasing. But to work with he has been very nice, friendly and fast learning without being lazy. Yesterday I stepped on his back first time, and he was very relaxed and responding fine.

Then we have two new horses in the stable. First a 4,5y. old mare, Dimma frá Kúskerpi. She is black with two stars. Her father is Askur frá Kanastöðum, who is a son of Svartur frá Unalæk and the magnificent mare Askja frá Miðsitju. The mother of Dimma is a fourgaited daughter of Kolfinnur frá Kjarnholtum. So far she looks friendly, she has never been tamed or haltered. So I will work with her on that part in the next days. Then we have a 4,5 y. old gelding, Straumur frá Kúskerpi. He is chestnut with light mane and tale. He is a son of Kolfinnur frá Kjarnholtum. I love the off spring of Kolfinnur and Straumur seems to have inherited a lot from his father. He is very friendly and I will start leading him around in the next days.

19. januar 2008

We just got a telephonecall, the local rescueteam  found a sheep from us with her two lambs! We knew that she was missing, but where to look. After searching our homeland over and over again it was quite clear she was not there. So today we found out she has been upp in the highlands all the time. Poor thing!

It is first now that we have some snow to use snowscooters, that is often a very good method to find sheep who have been missing, and a lot of fun too!

18. januar 2008

It is winter in Iceland, but we have had a fine week. A little bit of snow covers the landscape, enough to make it look gorgegous but not enough to cause trouble. Very nice. It´s been no problem to work with the horses and the animals outside have it fine. Enough water, hay and dry weather. Often I see the horses playing when I am riding. It was very funny one evening this week it started to blow and the temperature rised to around zero degrees so the snowsurface got kind of wet, the wind blew snowballs which rolled around the field. So everywhere you looked there are snowballs on the fields. It is like there had been a huge party where the kids had made snowballs the next days. If it would have been in the dark days before christmas I would have thought that the 13 SantaClauses of Iceland would have had some fun! Very strange!

Last fall we sold Fursti (F. Tývar frá Kjartansstöðum; M. Fríða frá Hofi)  to Denmark, he is ridden by Julie Christiansen (who participated for Denmark at the WordChampionships last summer). She competed with him at the gangartscuppen. Fursti did very well, she is nr. 1 in total after 2 disciplines. Congratulations!

11. januar 2008

It´s been a nice and busy week full of horses. The weather was nice, calm and quiet, a bit cold maybe but can´t complain about that. So we did a lot of work with the horses in the stable. We shoed Kantata and Söngvadís and today I rode them for the first time. They are lovely and I am very excited to see them develop. The other horses are getting a little bit of condition and start to be more souple. We rode once this week to Hvammur and had them all run on the road freely. Such tours help a lot to build up condition even though it is not far. And it is fun!

6. januar 2008

Happy new Year and that all your wishes may come true!!!

We have had a very stormy end of the year. The last days we have had some huge storms going over Iceland, the worst in 20 years. At some places roofs were blown of houses and stables. It is nice live in well build houses these days. The horses seem not to bother, as long as they have their hay and the sheep are inside. We did put the ducks inside though, they were not very grateful and complained a lot. But today the weather has been nice and calm. It is dark outside though, so we look forward to the days getting longer.

Tomorrow the school starts again and then I start full energy to train the horses every day. They have had a more easy time during the last few weeks. Good for them, so they don´t get any muscle ache. So probably in the next weeks I can tell a bit more about them here.

26. december 2007 

Before I continue I would like to wish everybody a very merry Christmas!!!

It has been a long time ago that I wrote here last. The fall is usually pretty ´calm´ and not much happens. The horses have holiday and are pretty far away on the mountain here at home. That means they feel well, if the weather is bad and they would be hungry they will come running home for hay. The sheep are all in the stable, shaved and well fed. The matingseason is already done, this year the lambs will start to come early, around the 20th of april.

Christmas here at the countryside is a familyfeast. Very little going on besides familylife. And really little here in the valley as the internet broke down before christmas and there was nobody to fix it...... It feels very abandoned from the world I must admit. Can´t even end a Christmaschat. So I hope this will be on the internet before new Year, haha.

On the day before christmas we had so beautiful weather, you wouldn´t believe it. It was like being in a fairytale about christmas. This nice little layer of snow covering the world and full moon. So after dinner in the evening we went outside to go on the sled from the mountain. The moon was so clear and big and the stars completed the scene. I think that is how christmas should look like..........

The horses have been in the stable again for a few weeks. This winter we do not have so many horses to train, but very nice ones. I´d like to introduce them to you:

Kjalar, grey gelding after Ljósbrá and Kjarval frá Sauðárkrókur, born in 2001. He is fun to ride, powerful and active. Kjalar was one of the exceptions that was difficult to find the tölt. Normally the horses born at Hofi tölt from themselves and you have to work more on the trot. But Kjalar turned the world around. But once he found tölt, he was very fast to make this new gait his favorit. He needs more work in collection and so on, but fun to ride!

Vök, chestnut mare after Víkingur frá Vöðmúlastöðum, born in 2002. Fourgaited mare, with easy tölt and wide speedrange. We started Vök last year, she was always pretty big and bony, so last summer we decided to try to give her time to get a little bit fat. She worked mostly on longer runs where she was able to run freely without a rider and that seems to have paid off. She is more ´round´ in her looking and feels good to ride her. She seems also more grown up now. I train with the breedingshow in mind.

Penni, black gelding after Prinsessa and Kafteinn frá Flugumýri, born 2002. Very nice bombproof gelding, he is meant to be for our children. Ásdís has started to ride him and we hope they can grow together.

Gambri, chestnut gelding after Gjóta and Eiður frá Oddhóli, born 2002. Gambri was little trained last year, but has a good basic. He shows all gaits easily and is very steady. It will be fun to see how he develops as he is able to take very big steps and is very easy to ride.

Klakkur, chocolatebrown stallion after Klóra and Óður frá Brún, born 2003. Klakkur was trained last year and shown. He is a reall joy to ride, so eager to please and his gaits are so natural. He needs to learn more collection this winter, but that doesn´t seem any problem, he is well prepared. I intent to join some competition with him here in the area.

Söngvadís, black mare after Þokkadís and Sveinn Hervar frá Þúfu, born 2004. Söngvadís is the happy little girl in the group. Always playing and ready to role. I am starting her at the moment. She has a lovely character and seems to have very good gaits. I have high hopes for this mare, she is the first off spring from Þokkadís that we start training and that promises very well for the future! The plan is that Söngvadís will be a breedingmare at our farm in the future.

Kantata, black mare after Varpa and Kormákur frá Flugumýri, born 2004. Kantata we are starting at the moment. She is very nice build with long legs. I haven´t ridden her yet, we will do that first thing next year, but she shows very nice gaits. Trots mostly and you can see the tölt everywhere in between. She is the second off spring of Varpa that we train and they are very easy to handle and seem to have excelent gaits. Kantata is a futurebreedingmareprospekt for our breeding.

For the people who are interested. The Is-Landsmót, the icetölt on Svínavatn in A-Hun. will be on saturday the 8th. of March. We expect the best riders of Iceland to join this competition. Last year there were Þórður Þorgeirsson, Sigurður Sigurðarsson and several more good riders. The horses they came with were the horses that competed on the last Landsmót and the quality of the horses was supreme! The weather was also very good to complete the picture. Of course is our guesthouse open during this period and we also have some horses in the stable if people are interested to go for a ride. Just email us for further information!

5. october 2007 

Last weekend we gathered the horses from the mountains. On fridaymorning we ride up and cross a peace of land as long as our valley. We take all the animals that we can find, from horses to sheep! The weather was ok, dry most of the time, sometimes windy but clear. Funniest thing is that most of the horses were at the beginpoint gathered. So we made them go in the right direction and didn´t see them much more the rest of the day. There were quite a few of sheep that were waiting for somebody to bring them home and enough to do! After we came down to the valley around 16.30u and taking a close look at the horses we had a very nice moment in the little house with some chatting and a beer.

Saturdaymorning the actual round up took place. Our round up is not so big and very local, a good place to meet your neighbours and have a good look at the horses. Some of the foreign owners of horses at our farm joined us and we had more than enough time to check everything out. The horses are in very good condition and it is great to have them home again!

Wednesday we brought all our lambs to the stable. They are all marked and have a number in their ears. That way we know who they are, and all about their pedigree. To get an idea about the individuals we weight them and there is a method developed to measure the muscles in the back and hindlegs. So every lamb gets a judgement. Afterward we compare them, use the judgement and the information we have about the pedigree (fertility, quality of off spring) to choose the lambs that we intent to keep and breed with. This year we intent to keep about 120 female lambs. We have left 400 lambs to choose from and it is interesting to see the developments. The last few years there have been made huge progress in handling sheep, it definetely shows of in better quality. Besides the females we decided to keep about 7 male sheep. The best lamb we had is a young male, 63kg and he recieved 87,5 points. We never have had a lamb with such high judgement. Now time will tell weather he will grow in the best breedingmale we have ever had!

19. september 2007 

Well the last three weeks have been filled with gathering sheep. We have been collecting them from the mountains surrounding our valley. Even though the weather has been windy, rainy and sometimes cold I think we have collected a great deal. The first group has already left our farm and the outcome was pretty good.

For the first time we had some guests joining us to gather the sheep. Personally I believe it is a lot of fun to fetch the sheep, even though you are maybe not used handling sheep you can be a part of the group and help us. It is easier to help gathering sheep as collecting horses. The work goes slower and the sheep are more spread out over the area and we can always use an extra hand. To give you an impression of the last weeks, there are a few pictures here:

  Jón at Stóra Sandur fetching the sheep.

Eline with one of our lambs

Kathrin

And Ásdís and Jón!

Yesterday I went to take a look at the horses in the highlands. They are in really good condition and look very happy. Next week on friday we will go and bring them home!

 For more info:

hof@simnet.is

hof@simnet.is                     www.hof-is.com