The ladies are large and lovely

I tell them that they are “cooking” their foals and, to make Brá feel a bit better about being pregnant, I always turn up with a present – an apple or carrot.

Brá would like to be feral if she could but a) she hasn’t the strength now and b) she only does it if I bring a stranger into her field and then all bets are off.  I never realised that I take our friendship for granted until I took someone she didn’t know into the field and then she wouldn’t talk to any of us.  It is all about trust with her and she is much worse when she is pregnant.   I don’t indulge it. If I want to talk to her than I jolly well will and I lecture her endlessly about no one actually dying having their eyes cleaned and if she wants this carrot, then she will have to “suck it up, Princess” and be nice.

They are both getting very huge and they are carrying their foals in very different ways.

Hetja is just large.

But they love their field and most of all, being together.  They are good friends and great support for each other.

Can’t wait. I just can’t wait!

BeAnne had her check-up at the vet’s this morning.  Everything was fine and well.  She is making very good progress.

Afterwards, armed with pre-prepared apples, we dropped by Lyradale to see the ponies who live there.

I have been neglecting my little chaps because it has been busy at home.

OH has very kindly walking Loki there and checking on them but of course it is not the same as Muzzah!

I found the preggie ladies but I could not see the little ones anywhere.

Lyradale is a big croft – two fields, basically, of about 50 acres in total so off we set.

I shouted and shouted and eventually, after a good ten minutes, a little head popped up!

So I rattled my bag of apples and kept shouting.

After a while another appeared (I think they look like an album cover!)

And eventually they all came down the hill at a mad something to see me and my apples.

Except for Vitamin, so I threw her apple up to her.

After lots of hellos, hugging (mostly Storm because he is speshul) and bum-scratching (that would be Tiddles) and explaining why I had been absent, I left them grazing.

I think Fivla is finally looking almost good.  The hard neck crest has nearly vanished and there is now a glimpse of a normal sized pony in there.

The herd love Lyradale and seem to be travelling far more now rather than just hovering about in the same place.

There is miles to explore.

We are worried about Klængur. He is not his usual self  He was found waiting at the bottom of the hill when everyone else was eating their silage.

When Flossie rode him this morning, he seemed very sluggish and off his tölt.  Most odd.

So, Flossie brought Klængur up, to be around the house. I have wormed him (and the others in his herd) plus fed him a probiotic and some hard food.

Klængur is not off his food, so he can’t be that ill.  Tonight, he is spending the night indoors with Kappi and Taktur too.

It could be just be the change of silage or something else…..  Let’s hope it is spring appearing.  It can affect some horses.

Meanwhile, the little peoples are all fine.

Newt is delicious.

Albie is divine.

Delia is going very well.  Much better than previous winters.

Darling Tor is always the same.  A darling.

Standard and mini Shetland ponies – each have their uses.

Meanwhile, Klængur is working his way through every feed bowl he can find.  Lambie et al are less than impressed.

It was our hard-working Icelandic horse trainer’s, Egill Þórarinsson, last day – he is on tonight’s boat south for a connecting flight back home to Iceland – so today we took him down to the south end to see a different part of Shetland.

Yesterday was the spectacular cliffs of Eshaness, in the north of the mainland, but I was not the driver.

First stop, Fladdabister – an unusual Shetland settlement, with apparent Dutch influence created from very different Shetland stone and method.

I love this little hamlet in Shetland.  So very different from everywhere else.

(someone’s rhubarb is about to start – note-to-self, must check on mine – roll on the crumble!)

Then a diversion to the beautiful sandy St Ninian beach.

This tombolo leads to St Ninian’s Isle home of the famous St. Ninian’s chapel.  ~Twenty eight Pictish silver and silver-gilt objects, all decorated and made during the second half of the eighth century, were found in 1958 by a school boy. They were found in a wooden box buried under a cross-marked slab close to the altar along with a fragment of the jaw bone of a porpoise.  The silver is on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.  It should be in Shetland where it came from, in my opinion, not a copy.

And so on to Sumburgh Head.

Always a bit jaw-droppingly impressive, any time of the year.

The puffins are not back yet but the seabirds were around in their masses.  I think these are razorbills.

We walked around the outside of the lighthouse.  It was all closed until the tourist season officially begins after Easter.

I haven’t been down to the south end this time of year and it was nice to have it to ourselves.  Soon the migrant birds will flock in to nest, as will the twitching tourists.

Our guests (the horses from Houlls Horses & Hounds in Burra) are staying until tomorrow so we made the most of the fine weather and took them and their riders out to see our local countryside.

It is lovely to have other competent folk to ride with, especially on Icelandic horses.

There were six of us in total.

(I have missed my orange riding companion and I think his rider, Flossie, has missed her little orange horse).

We had some lovely tölts and trots.

I dropped back, much to Haakon’s fury, so that I could photograph everyone going up the canter track.

It was a bit of a there-and-back-again kind of ride as it is just still too wet to go up into the hill.  Maybe our visitors will come back when it has dried up a bit and then we can show them the view from the top of the hill.

On the way home I kept Haakon back again.

This of course made him then last, which he was furious about.  Haakon is never last.

And so Haakon sneakily made his way past everyone.

And yes, he did get home first never breaking into anything faster than his industrious walk.

We will be sad to say goodbye to our new friends.

And it was lovely having Esja home for a brief visit.