Well, here we are – November and the sun is shining. Today, I can say that Loki goes out with me when I go riding.

BeAnne is an old pro at this.  From her early years, she has always trotted alongside and enjoys going out with me when I am riding Haakon.  He is not fast and they are old friends.

Loki is keen and always wants to be at the front, but I can call him back or ask him to wait, if needs be.

We all go along the single-track road.  If there is traffic coming, you can hear it clearly – I would not do this if it was a noisy windy day, or bad visibility.  The only car we did meet was driven by a friend, so we stopped for a chat while Haakon rifled his car looking for biscuits.

The dogs love going out and are happily gallop alongside.

Loki wore a training collar in case of emergencies.  To be fair, it is not switched on but he doesn’t know that and he listens more to me.

The view at the top was stunning, as ever.  The clouds were looking threatening but surprisingly nothing actually materialised.

And so, home.  Yes, those are sheep in front and no, no one chases sheep in our house.  If nothing else, Lambie and Lambert have taught everyone that this is Not A Good Thing.

So, I am very pleased with Loki.  It has taken over 2 years but I can confidently say we can do this.  Even a life-long Shetland crofter, who we met on our travels, was impressed to see Loki coming home with a rabbit in his mouth.  He could recognise a useful dog when he saw one.

Well done Loki!  At last.

Do you remember the creepy waterbed-like spot in my field that Flossie jumped up and down on?

Apparently it is known as a “Turf Blister” and they are quite rare.

So the other evening, when the sun was setting, my OH and I went into the field to burst it as the ground had become even more wet, and I didn’t want a horse to put its hoof through, or the water to move downslope to create a landslide.

We also have underground streams and sinkholes in the scattald (hill) surrounding my croft.  This is can be an unstable peaty environment.

And Yes, I worry.  And yes, everyone else laughs at me!

I will confess that I was slightly disappointed of the lack of the geyser when my OH put the heavy iron rod in.

Interestingly, what came out was almost clear water – not liquid mud.  The rod went down as far as bedrock – OH reckons it was an underground rock bowl that filled up and pushed up the earth above it into a blister.

I have searched the internet for other explanations but can’t find much that is similar to what we had.

The “blister” slowly went down overnight and has now sunk back to being slightly concave.

And the sun set rather beautifully too.

It was one of those days when my OH shouted up the stairs, when I asked what the weather was like ,”I wouldn’t bother getting up, if I were you”.  So I got up.

There was 100% humidity and it was dreich.

The boys were all lurking round the back of the house, hoping carrots would fall from the sky instead.

Once everyone was fed and sorted, I went out and about with BeAnne.  These days she has to come with me everywhere as she was found wandering down the road looking for me not to long ago.  She is also very sulky about the car so we are working on this Speshul Skill.

Here she is with klingons – just be grateful you can’t smell her from here.  She is like Pigpen – filth just follows her.

(I still love her, though)

The light (or lack of it) and the fog made everything look very different.

The grey heron (Ardea cinerea) is known as a hegri in Shetland dialect.  Hegri is also used as a nickname for a tall, thin type of person.

This raven (Corvus corax) was sitting with another on fence posts as I drove past.  I immediately put the passenger window down, turned off the noisy heater, radio and then reversed nonchalently back to them.

Of course, they immediately flew off but I happily snapped away.  Birds in flight are beautiful.

I love ravens and hanker for a tame one.  They are called corbies in Shetland dialect.

This “hoodie” (Corvus cornix) with a lamb bone was very proud of his prize.  The crows drop the bones on the road so the cars will drive over them and break them up further.  Clever, eh?

Craa is their Shetland dialect name.

Everything looked different or rather solitary in this weird light.  No sun, just fog and wet.

Still, it was warm and that makes a huge difference.  Cold and wet is nasty. I expect that will arrive soon.

Yesterday evening, Waffle was on his own and lonely.  I could see he desperately wanted to be with his friends, so I opened the gate and he popped home for the night.

But that did not solve the problem of Hjalti having no one to play with.

This morning I brought Waffle back but also with Silver in tow too.

Hetja said she would put up with this if she had to and didn’t even bother to have an opinion.

Then I thought I would bite the bigger bullet and add Storm and Tiddles to the herd.

But this was two Shetland ponies too many in Hetja’s opinion.  She was back to chasing and biting with her ears flat back looking very unhappy.

Also Hjalti wasn’t very nice to the little ones either.

On the way to the field, I did tell Storm and Tiddles that if things were getting rough, to go and stand by the gate and I would immediately let them out.

So they did (I swear these ponies understand my every word).

I opened the gate and Storm and Tiddles didn’t need asking twice.  They shot out into the hill and quickly came home (no headcollars, no nothing).

I put them back into their original field, with the Icelandic boys and gave them a snack (bravery food).

Meanwhile, Hjalti was getting to know Silver, with Hetja’s grudging approval.

This is Hetja feeling resigned to her fate of two Shetland ponies.

Silver and Hjalti are now joined at the hip!

I had forgotten that Silver was the one who played the roughest games with Hammy (our Welsh Section A gelding).

I left them both “killing” each other!  I shall count the legs tomorrow.

It was an unbelievably beautiful autumn day in Shetland yesterday – the colours and the light were exceptional.

Guess who this is?

Yup, Roseblossom who was nearly dead in March of hyperlypæmia.

She looks well.

This spring, once she was back up to weight, she ran with the stallion again and is, hopefully, pregnant.  Her owner is keeping a keen eye on her so, to stop her getting obese, she was put in the hill park with three other pregnant mares.

It has done them all good and Roseblossom looks in good health.

This is the look that says “I know you, you b****.  You are the one who stuck pins in me and force fed me liquid sludge”.

Yup, that would’ve been me, Daisy and her owner.  We had to – it saved her life.

All the mares were moved from the hill park to another field nearer home.

There was a huge welcome committee waiting from the miniature inhabitants.

They came cantering over, happy to greet the newbies.

I always think Standard Shetland ponies are very different to the miniatures.  They think differently and have far less of a sense of humour, in my opinion, especially the mares.  The little ones are much cheekier.

There was the odd squeal, bite and opinion, but mostly everyone was polite.

When the standard mares were bored with the introductions, they decided en mass to go and investigate their new field.  They have never lived here so there was much to discover.

Of course all the little ones followed chanting “you are our leaders, you are our leaders”.  Poor girls.  I hope they cope with all this miniature pony adoration!