I often hear from other Icelandic horse owners, who as a matter of course tell me how it’s going with their equines. I take it for granted that these individuals are doing some amazing things with their four legged friends.

I particularly enjoy hearing from Amy who lives down in the Kenai. She owns Lysy, who used to be owned by Virginia Crawford. I often rode Lysy before Amy purchased her, but was glad that Amy purchased her. Amy was also instrumental in securing a better life for Nebbi, who previously was up in this area, hanging out in a corral.

Today, Amy wrote:

Amy on Lysy at a pony show

“I just did my last long ride of the season. I think. We did twenty miles of Tuesday with 30 pound packs and a loaded pack horse. We packed in for some campers in the Devil’s Pass cabin. The weather was terrible. It did everything but snow. There must have been 50 mph winds up there and it was raining.

My friend Jane lead the way out with her pack horse. The horses refused to go after we got into the wind and driving rain on top. I asked Nebbi to lead and he tolted right up the trail and the pack train followed. It took us five hours to go in and two hours to get out with Nebbi in the lead.  We came out much lighter than when we went in.”

I was very impressed with the matter of fact/matter of course tone of this message. It’s reflective of many Icelandic horse owners, who do some incredible things without giving it a second thought.

We here are not (now) doing anything that seems all that incredible, just things that will make them more reliable when we do (again) take to long distance trail riding.

This morning we took Hrimmi for a walk with Siggi – quite clearly, she didn’t want to stray far from Signy. So I retrieved Signy and we took all three horses for a walk.

What I learned is that right now Hrimmi is not physically but rather still psychologically dependent on her dam. This then, is nature’s way of protecting her four-footed offspring.

This has me wondering about weaning in general. Could it be that many remove mare and dam too soon?  Around here, no one has yet seemed overly stressed out about this.

Next: 292. 09/28/12: An Email from Rae McFarland