I received a phone call this morning from my neighbour to say a dark horse had been spotted wandering up my track.  This was not good news.  So I called down to my OH and Nick and asked them to find my horses.  OH said he had last seen them up in their field while he was feeding the hens this morning.  The boys did have access to the house area as we wanted it eaten down so they were coming and going from there.

OH and Nick set off in the car armed with one rope and one headcollar.  Like you do for four horses, including one stallion.  I then phoned back my neighbour and asked if he could help too.  He offered to bring more headcollars and feed in a bucket in case no one could be caught.

Apparently Iacs, Haakon and Klængur were standing quietly, admiring the view, in the first passing place on the single track public road while Taktur was walking up and down our little track not daring to leave home.  So OH caught Klængur and Nick led Haakon and they all followed back home with my neighbour in the car behind.

It was all rather simple and not very scary though at the time I had huge visions of Taktur running up and down the fence of our neighbour’s property trying to get to their mare but he never got that far.

The horses appeared embarrassed and I can imagine that it was Iacs who started this. He would’ve rubbed his silly frilly forelock on the gate, undoing the latch.  Then the wind would’ve pushed it open.  Iacs would’ve stood for at least 10 minutes trying to work out if his bulk would get through the narrow gateway and then the rest would’ve followed to see if they could too.

At least they were easy to catch and bring home.  I think their days of eating the grass around the house are now over for the time being.  My visitors go back today and it is too much like worry.

Anyway, as a reward for all his hard work with the horses, I have given Nick a disk of my views of Foula to take home with him.