Saturday, February 12, 2011

Scandinavian Horses?

Years before Cousin Alice found me in America through the internet, I was emailing an IT professor in Denmark who has the same unusual last name as mine. His name is Kasper Ø and his wife is Malene K. They now have a økologisk (organic) farm near Esrum Sø and a website describing all their livestock.
http://www.mulu.dk/
This is Vignir.
It is funny how I met Kasper. When our public library got it's first computers in the 1990's, I put in a search for my last name with the Danish spelling (my bestefar americanized it). I did not expect to get any hits at all because I knew there were only a few names in the Copenhagen phone book. Well..... I got pages and pages of hits!  I then saw they were all the same person. And of course it made sense when I found out the person was a computer science professor. We started emailing and I finally met him and Malene when I went to Denmark to see my Cousins. I hope to visit their new farm next summer and meet their Icelandic horses.

Last week I was introduced to an Icelandic gentleman over the internet .  Jon and his family have a Norwegian Fjord horse farm in Minnesota on the shores of Lake Superior. His last name also starts with an Ø in Icelandic. Until now I never really thought about horses having nationalities although I did notice that the horses in the pasture next to Cousin Alice were especially friendly and calm. She even said one day "go over the fence and let me take your picture with them". The next day I was on the patio and some neighbors came trotting up the lane on different horses. I asked if I could take their picture. I wish I had asked what kind of horses they were riding. They had "bangs" and I love their size.


This one was happy to have his           
picture taken with me.                           

Most of my experience with horses is from the pack stations on the Sonora Pass in the Sierra Mountains of California. They are trail horses that take you into the Emigrant Wilderness. I am only 5 feet and they all feel huge to me. On one trip we crossed the Stanislaus River and that was really exciting.  The river bed is all rocks and I could not believe how the horses managed it. I took this picture in the middle of the river.




2 comments:

Jon said...

When my brother and I were in Denmark a few years ago, my cousin Solveig took us to Esrum, a thousand year old monastery. They had Frederiksborg horses grazing there. They were a breed I was totally unfamiliar with. We had lunch in the pillared cellar and walked through the beautiful gardens. A very lovely day.

Kelli Nørgaard said...

Sounds like the internet has broadened your circle of friends just like it has mine.... makes our lives so much richer!!