The next colour to be discussed is Black.

We have two black Icelandic horses – father and son.  Taktur and Dreki.

Taktur is of course magnificent.

And Drek, whoi is rather chewed at the moment, is his son. The moth-eaten look is probably due to all the face fighting he does with his Dad.  They play endlessly and Dreki’s main aim is to be very annoying.  He succeeds and it keeps Taktur on his toes.

I have doing little bits with Dreki almost daily.  Today I put Haakon’s bridle on him (might take the bit down a hole, now I see it from this angle). This is the first time Dreki has worn a bitted bridle since he had his wolf teeth removed last autumn.  He was a very good boy.

We chatted about the bridle.

And we walked around a bit on each rein.

And then I popped the reins over his head and we walked together practising voice commands and gentle use of the reins.

Dreki was lovely.  The more I work with him, the more I like him as a chap.

And he has a good trot – let’s hope he tölts too.

We only have three colours of horses in our fields – orange, black and off-yellow.

Today is Orange.

So how do I tell the difference, I hear you ask?

First up is Kappi. He has no white markings and is pure orange (chestnut for the purists amongst you).

Then there is Efstur.  He is a slight darker orange to Kappi and he has a white crescent or irregular star on his forehead. It is so you know where his miniscule brain is!

And lastly, but by no means leastly, we have Klængur who is a very red-orange. He has a white star on his forehead and snip on his nose.

And they are all very different in character, so even if the wrong orange one was caught, you would soon know when you got on.

(and, yes, I had to go and look up horse facial markings because I actually had no idea what any of them were offishully called!)

If it is windy, we hang the haynets for the boys on the gate into their field.  Some hay has blown through so, now the girls have gone, I can open the gate and they can clear it up.  So I did and they didn’t.

They went off to eat the grass around my little house.

I told Taktur not to bother the old men.  They were Out of Bounds.  Haakon hates him.

The old men (ok, Klængur isn’t really old but he is happy to pretend) looked on curiously and possibly enviously.

After lunch, I found this little dragon was outside the front door.

We had a wee chat because we do these days. Dreki always looks like he has swallowed a button.

And I took some photos for Daisy. Kappi  managed to lift his head up for a quick snap.

And of course Efstur had to come over for his too.  He looks very “strange”, not like Efstur at all.  Maybe the aliens were in his head.

Meanwhile, good old Taktur had remembered his purpose and was eating up the leftover hay.

Another lovely day so I asked Floss to lead Klængur, while I led Dreki and we went for a walk.

I wanted to teach Dreki that life was just as fun without his best friend, Efstur, and there was a big, big world out there ready for us to explore.

Dreki was more than happy to leave his friend, who stood by the fence screaming like a stuck pig.  He pretended he didn’t know him.  We all agreed this was probably the best tack to take.  Efstur who?

I let Dreki look at everything.

Klængur was a good companion too.

Nothing worried Dreki. He took it all in his stride.

He looked, he thought, he moved on.

Dreki is a dear boy.  I have been lungeing him these past few days so it was nice to get out and about and change the scenery.

I also had a pocket full of barley rings, which everyone adored.

They were given as occasional rewards for everyone’s exemplary behaviour. We met a van (not a flicker) and a car stopped to ask for directions (again, Dreki stood like a good boy).

Oh yes, and Floss had carrots!

So all the scary things were duly noted.

Or sniffed.

And off we would go again.

Meanwhile the stuck pig was now hysterical having had to wait for his bestie to come home.

I think Efstur was resentful that Dreki was the one having the adventures today.

Yesterday was lovely so, while I was waiting for my flute duet partner to arrive for our regular Saturday afternoon practice/play/recital, I sat down on the ground to see who wanted to talk.  First up was of course ‘Ster who just wanted me to hug him forever, then Lambie mooched around while ‘Bert sat down next to me. Edna quietly snuck up last.  Maggie and Harrel were stuck in another field being stupid about the gate. Madge was watching from safe distance.  We were having “A Moment”.

When my flute friend arrived, she took this photo.

After the traditional lunch of soup, bread and cheese, we went to my shed to play.

And Lambie turned up to listen.

As did the rest of the audience.  Edna and Madge were round the corner. Harrel and Maggie had finally worked out the troublesome gate problem.

I wedged the door with a kilner jar as it kept bashing against Lambie and then he would stand up to complain.

But Lambie wouldn’t, under any circumstances, let Harrel inside.  Oh no.  Hell would freeze over first.  Lambie went to sleep while we flutled away and the odd thing is that neither of us thought is was weird playing Haydn/Mozart/Berbiguier et al (good old Baroque flute duets) to seven sheep who were actually listening!  This is what we do on a Saturday afternoon.  Move along please, nothing to see here.

After a couple of hours with the door open and freezing while we played, having exhausted our embouchure, we decided to go back to the house.  Lambie was also booted out too before he pee’ed.  A Muzzah knows the signs.

Anyway, this is my idea of a perfect afternoon.