Entry 2: June 26, 2008
We are in the home stretch of our stay here in Iceland and we had yet to do what I was most excited about, go horseback riding. We went to a farm that was a lot bigger than I first expected to see. I thought that the farm would only have a maximum of 25 horses, but I came to learn later that there are 150!

I have ridden a horse before and took lessons for many years, but I realized that it had been a while since I rode with an English saddle. We all saddled up and started to walk down the trail to go around the mountain. I was very excited that I might be able to experience the … gate but then thinking to myself that this ride would be like most trail rides we have in the United States where all you can do is walk the horse. I was extremely happy when I realized that this was going to be an extended ride, I learned this by hearing that we were going around the mountain. During the beginning of the ride one of the other girls was having some difficulty with her horse. It ended up with the girl not being able ride that horse and switching with the lead guide. However the lead guide was also having some problems with the horse. After talking with a few individuals, I think that the horse might have been in heat and so she was just very worried.

While we were going along I realized that my saddle was not as tight as it should be, for the fact that I would have to stop my horse every once in a while to straighten it out. I did not think that it would really matter because we would just be walking, but my horse decided that he wanted to trot and even canter a little bit and for those it is very important that the saddle be on correctly. I had one of the ladies tighten my saddle for me, just because I had not done it in years and I wasn’t sure how to tighten the saddle while still on the horse. After the tightening took place I was able to enjoy the scenery a lot more.

As we were walking through some of fields there were some horses that lived in that pasture. It was very interesting because all of those horses were interested in the horses that we were riding. We were able to see at least four of the foals that this little herd had. It seemed that this herd wanted to join us for our walk.
In the distance everyone could see that the clouds were starting to look luminous off in the difference while we were on the trial. However, I am able to happily report that we got through the ride and said goodbye to the farmers and the horses before the rain started to fall. I thought that this was very nice because we could tell that the rain was coming quickly while on the trail because the temperature dropped pretty quickly and it started to get a lot windier within a few moments.

I was very surprised at how surefooted these animals were! They would walk over very rough terrain and might slip on a rock or have some rocks shift under them, but they would recover very quickly and keep on going. The horses were able to trot on some ground that I thought would have been to rough for them. I did make sure to give the horse its head when we were going over some very rocky areas so that he would be able to look and see where the rocks were so we would not have an unhappy incident.

Entry 1: June 23, 2008

I have never been around baby sheep before, but that would soon change when we went to visit the sheep our professor, Dr. Novak, bought last summer and their lambs. The trip was part of our experience to the western fjords and was on our way back towards Skalholt. When we got to the sheep farm Dr. Novak's sheep were in a large pasture area with another sheep and her ram lamb.

What was needed for the students and Dr. Novak was to round up the sheep and get them into the barn area. I had never dreamed how difficult it would be to round up some sheep! It literally took us about 20 to 30 minutes to get these sheep into the barn. In the beginning the lady who the sheep were bought from, Hleidis, was helping us and also had some sheepdogs to help herd the sheep. However, the dogs were not helping as much as I would have originally thought.

We ended up having to chase them all into a corner and then walk them along the edge of the pen until they finally got into the entrance to the barn. Once inside the barn Hleidis and her husband had all the sheep close together and grabbed the ram lamb of the sheep that did not belong to Dr. Novak. By taking the baby the mother would follow easily and without too much of a fuss.

Now that the sheep were separated into the animals that belonged to Dr. Novak and those that did not, Dr. Novak decided that he needed to bond with his sheep. I was not very surprised that the sheep would not take some of the pellets from our professor, for the simple fact that we had just been chasing them and making them run all over the pasture that they had been in for the winter time. What I did not expect was that not only would Dr. Novak get into the pen, but would sit and eventually lie down with the sheep.

While Dr. Novak was starting to commune with his own sheep some of the other girls and I decided that we wanted to go and see the other baby lamb. This baby was startled at first and did not like not being with his mother and would cry for her. It is interesting that here in Iceland the sheep do not go “baa” but instead say “maa”. The baby had been passed between the students who wanted to hold him and then I decided that I had not gotten enough of this cute little animal the first time around and asked to hold him again.

As I was holding him this second time, most of the other students had gone back to see what Dr. Novak was doing with his sheep and this helped to calm the lamb down. I was able to get this baby lamb to the point were he was so relaxed that I think he would have fallen asleep soon. One of the other students was with me and we were both rubbing him calmingly and it showed. I felt very fortunate that I was able to hold the baby lamb because it did not belong to Dr. Novak. This will not be an event that I will soon forget!