These days every morning, without fail, the Icelandic horses are the wrong side of the burn (stream).
And every morning, without fail, I shout for them to come over because I am not struggling down there with three big buckets of food when they have perfectly good legs and could walk.
And, yes, I do shout all of this while I watch them dither trying to chose who will make the first move. It’s not going to be me.
Today, it was Iacs. His single pea-like brain cell kicked in and he crossed the burn, quickly followed by Kolka and Haakon who know full well I would actually feed all their breakfasts to any horse that turned up.
Breakfast in my colour-coded buckets.
(L-R)
Pink – Iacs with his cancer drugs
Blue – Kolka – same as Iacs’ minus the drugs
Yellow – Haakon who doesn’t like normal boswellia that is added and has to have the world’s most expensive arthritis supplement but, to be fair, has been his game-changer in quality of life.
Iacs was first up.
And this is the face of an old lady on a mission.
So the horses got their respective buckets and after this photo, I clambered over the fence to keep Kolka away from Iacs.
I had, of course, my little assistant helper who suddenly rushed off after a rabbit she saw.
I had a quick prod to see if there were any ribs. Luckily, none. Phew!
I am always fascinated by their ability to stay warm. You can see how their outer winter coat goes into points so the rain will drip off, while remaining dry underneath.
And the belly is lovely and floofy too.
I am glad this herd are managing without rugs so far. That is a slippery slope I don’t want to go down unless I really, really have to.