Daisy has quietly been working hard with Lilja’s training.

Lilja is now happy to leave Sóley and go into the school.  Sóley raced up and down the fence once, got bored, and returned to the Old Men.

I haven’t seen much (ok, anything) of Lilja’s training but it is very obvious that she and Daisy are getting on very well.  To date, she has been bitted and lunged.

I like seeing them together. They “chat” a lot.

Today consisted of leading nicely in both directions and then Daisy stood on a bucket.

She patted her back.

Moved the bucket to the other side.

And did the same thing.  Lilja feigned interest.

Then Daisy decided to saddle Lilja up.

And off they went for a walk again.

This is my first time seeing Lilja wearing a saddle.  She looks completely non-plussed by it and she’s worn it a few times already.

More conversations.

I led Lilja too and then Daisy picked out her hooves.  All good.

Photos to update Lilja’s page on our website – thordale.co.uk

And then Lilja went back to her field.  I wanted to take more photos of her cantering down the hill to her friends but she refused to leave her best friend, Daisy.

So the others came up.

The Old Men even shifted enthusiastically!

So that’s Lilja’s progress. I am pleased with her.  She is doing very well.  I can see a huge change – Daisy has worked hard and done well.  Lilja is a nice horse and very like her dear old dad, Taktur.

In 2000, a 42 foot sperm whale was found dead and beached on a local Shetland island. Nine years later, after much hard work, it was re-constructed and placed in its final resting place.

Today we were shown the skeleton in all its glory.  I had seen it before but I wanted the girls to see it too.

We were told that this whale was a young male sperm whale. The sperm whale or cachalot (Physeter macrocephalus) is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator (thank you, Wikipedia. I did not know this).

(These are photos, that are on the wall, from the whole process)

Two salmon landers brought the carcass ashore where six men cut it up while two diggers buried the flesh in pits.  I will let you imagine the smell!  Apparently it was fairly ripe.

The bones were then boiled for 36 hours in biological washing powder in tanks. Bleach was then used to stop the effects of the washing powder process.

The bones were then cleverly reassembled into their original skeleton.

From this…..

To this….. (I can’t even imagine where I would begin).

The whole thing was an amazing achievement and Floss, Daisy and I wandered about utterly fascinated by the whole process and result.

The bone was now almost like carved wood.

It was a very interesting afternoon. Brilliant!

This is a mini-blog. I am on my way out of the door – we’re going to supper with friends tonight and I have totally misjudged the time.

Anywho, here are some photos of the sheeples from the other day (apologies if I have repeated any but my brain has been working far too hard recently).

As you can see everyone is fat and happy, the grass is growing and they seem like a proper flock now.

Bert

Ster

Edna and Madge

Edna

Maggie

Lambie

Depressed Lambie – it was the flies

A-wandering Minstrel, Lambie!

And not-so-little Harrel the Barrel, who is very cute, very annoying and has absolutely no boundaries.

I took these just now.  Harrel infuriated Ster and already given a Edna a bloody nose (poor girl).

The ducky-wuckes are all fine and growing fast.

So that’s it. Sorry for the short blog. Off out the door as I am typing this, hoping I look relatively clean and tidy!

This afternoon, I drove Daisy and Kappi over to have a riding lesson from Hamish Cameron, who has come up to for a long weekend.

Daisy deliberated for ages about who to take. In the end, she decided on Kappi. Efstur is not ready to see the outside world yet and Taktur is going very nicely.  However, Kappi has some little niggles that need ironing out so was the one who would benefit most from a lesson.

They warmed up in walk, trot, tölt and canter, had a chat with Hamish and then off they both went.

This is Kappi’s “you want me to do what?” face!  He was listening too.

He went very nicely and they both worked hard.  Both concentrating hard.

Walking on a long rein …..

And off they went again on the other.

From the side-lines, we could see an improvement in Kappi as the lesson progressed with Hamish giving Daisy exercises to help him to engage his inside hind leg and gain better control of his shoulders.

They were both knackered after 45 minutes so we loaded up and I drove them home.

It is always good to have a riding lesson from Hamish.

Floss and I did “crofting” things all morning. We dismantled Lambie’s private dining room (a square of hurdles) and rebuilt it as the hen run. The hens have taken to laying their eggs in unknown places and OH had to buy eggs yesterday (oh, the shame!). Then off to the Minions’ field with our old coal and feed bags to pull more ragwort.  The gift that keeps on giving.

I now ache.

We each filled two large bags and then lugged them back to the car.  It was hot work. The flies were vile sticking to my sweat. Ugh. I cooled down in the stream!

Back home for a quick lunch and out again to weigh and pack vegetables.  I am very tired now.

When we got home, Taktur was around looking gorgeous.

But he always does.

I less so. More hot and sweaty.