So I thought to myself, I did, what would happen if I gave the squeaky rubber chickens to Iacs and Klængur?  Wouldn’t they be thrilled and play with them, thinking that squeaky rubber chucks were probably the most exciting toy ever….?  After all, Klængur likes to play with his bucket and the cones in the arena.  He is always picking them up. Hours of endless fun.

So I put the squeaky toys in their trough (an old fish box) nicely out of the mud. They were given a perfunctory sniff.

I placed one on the rim for easier access to the excitement.

And it was politely ignored.

So that was that. Why bother?

Monster went a bit weird over them previously.  No suprise there then.

So I returned the squeaky rubber chickens to their rightful place – hung up in our porch inside Shetland pony collars with a promise to Daisy that I wouldn’t give them to Efstur and Dreki as she didn’t want Efstur to possibly spontaneously combust with the excitement!

(and yes, that’s Iacs’ crown for his more “Regal” moments.)

This is what happens when you have time on your hands and a very handsome horse!

Today, I have run out of steam so here are the last of the photos from the rubber-chicken-day in black and white.

Fivla

Tiddles

Sóley

Sóley

Newt

Vitamin

Vitamin

Waffle

Waffle

Lilja

Tomorrow I will try harder, I promise.  Like I said, I ran out of steam!  It happens occasionally.

The Shetland winter sunlight is perfect for me.

We get just under 6 hours of daylight (on 1st January we get exactly 6 hours, minus 1 minute!)

Sunrise – 09:11
Sunset – 15:05

I love the yellow-pinkiness of the colours.  It suits the Old Men, especially Klængur. Perhaps its an orange thing.

Today I wanted to take a photo of Iacs and Haakon together.  They are cousins and there is definitely a “family resemblance”.

Haakon is 26 years old.

While Iacs is 25 years old which means Haakon gets to boss him about, which he does!

(that is a goofy face, Iacs!)

Haakon has the best colouring. I adore his black tipped ears, his two-tone mane and white crescent on his forehead. Utter perfection.

The Old Men are doing well this winter and are maintaining their body weight.  They’ve had many years perfecting this skill.

A few more photos taken in the Shetland winter sunlight.

BeAnne trying to entice me into the house to feed her wafer thin ham (in which I put her lunchtime pills).  She is unaware of my trickery and thinks I just like feeding her ham!

You can read her mind.

She is saying “feed me, Mummy, feed me!”

And so is this one.  Lambie et al have been scrounging ginger biccies all morning!  “The ration is 2” is all I seem to have said today to everyone woolly!

A perfect day for photographs.

Yesterday was horrible for everyone equine so today we took two squeaky rubber chickens for the Minions to play with, like you do!

They were fascinated – Tiddles especially so.  He bided his time and then he struck, like a ninja!

The others were all, to some extent intrigued (except Fivla).  They particularly liked, but were nervous of at the same time, the very satisfactory squawk the chicken made when squished.

And, surprisingly, they were all very polite about taking turns.  There were two chucks to share.

Newt liked the rubber chicken very much.

As did Vitamin, which was interesting. I didn’t have her down as a squeaky rubber chicken kinda gal.

It was a foregone conclusion with Albie.

Lilja was undecided. She soooooo wanted to play with it but yet she knew it would be very uncool especially in front of Sóley.

Waffle gave it his best.

Sóley couldn’t decide whether touch it or run away.  This was about as brave as she could manage and she also didn’t want Lilja to disapprove.

The biggest surprise was Storm who wouldn’t go near it.  Of all of them, I would’ve thought he would be wearing it within seconds but no, he stood with eyes on stalks.  Maybe another time.  The chicken will return!

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful” – it truly is – Force 11 as I type.  Horrid.

But, animals have to be cared for; there is no shirking just because it is raining and blowing a bit.

On Christmas Eve, knowing this weather was forecast, I moved the Minions up to the best field because I am a very nice person, thank you very much.

And today, clutching my bag of carrots, I drove over to check everyone was ok.

This field is full of long grass and has lots of shelter.  The horses/ponies were making the most of their new quarters.  It will be interesting to see if they go back into the old field, because that is where the water is. Obviously I left the gate open.

Anyway,  I was greeted with these three and promptly laughed out loud.  It looks very funny.

The bag of carrots was fairly distibuted to the hopeful and the definitely starving (not).

I told them all that bad weather was “character building” and swiftly went home……

… to eat as many of these ….

And to shovel in the traditional Yule Log.

Beautifully made by Flossie and decorated by Daisy.

Truly a cake of great beauty – note the small flock of sheep.

Delicious – I may have had a tiny slice.

So that’s us all hunkering down and riding the storm out, eating chocolate cake to be polite!