Fé

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Bjarki Markússon

(The title word fé means sheep, and also money)

This photo is just so gorgeous and so appropos of today's wild weather on the Lava Rock somehow!
Bjarki, a trained photographer and creator of groovydirty electro, among other things, writes:

The story behind the photo. This picture was taken in September at Skeiðaréttum in Skeiða-og Gnúpverjahreppi. This is when all the sheeps are rounded up after the summer. Each sheep is marked with a tag and is then found by its owner. I took my kids there and I try to go every year. This picture is taken while I'm on my knees with my arms around my 3 year old daughter so the sheep don't run her down. The view is from her perspective. 

I personally adore the composition and the colors in this shot, and knowing the stories about our guest photographer's photos always makes them even more alive.

Remember our Facebook Fan Page as well as our Twitter feed, both of which you can now easily follow by gently tapping the little blue circles up there in the right-hand corner : ) I try to find and post non-mainstream stuff there as well as images that don't make it onto the blog, so be sure not to miss out on your daily dose of Iceland Eyes.

Country

This iconic image was taken two years ago at that wonderful small family farm in Mosfellsdalur that Óðinn has gone to with his (former) leikskóli for the past three years. While trying to find info for the farm (which you are more than welcome to visit - an especial treat for children!) I found this website, Nature.is, (or Náttúran.is) which promotes itself as "an eco-conscious network" and a Green Pages for all things environmentally-friendly here in Iceland.

As lots of you know, this is one of the main reasons I love blogging: I find something new and fascinating every time : )

(Speaking of fascinating, if you haven't already, do go read Bayard Taylor's 19th century travelogue Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874. The link takes you to a scanned copy of the original work via Archive.org that you can read online in e-book format. Skip to page 197 for Bayard's adventures in Iceland.)

Sheep

As two major planets of great mass and affect move into the sign of the Ram for the first time in decades, it seems appropriate to display a very content ewe and her lamb, who posed for us at a farm just north of Reykjavik. This proud mother and her offspring are the latest in a long line of Icelandic ovis aries, whose history as a breed apart has mirrored that of people on this island and has, in all actuality, been the main reason for any human success this past millennia.

For more on the beast, read this Wikipedia article, and for anyone interested (visiting families with children, for example) a trip to this farm, named Hraðastaðir, in Mosfellsdalur can be arranged with a simple phone call to Nína at 820-1829.