Staying Strong... Sort Of

You should be so proud of us, Lily! Bethany, Julie, and I have not expanded our herd at all this holiday weekend, despite the temptation of several very nice horses.

Yesterday, Bethany got mail from a buddy asking if we'd be interested in a Florida Cracker mare that had come into her possession.  

This mare is close to being her dream Florida Cracker mare, Coquina. She's light enough that the name would totally fit. She's gorgeous and only 1 stat point away from that magic +80. Bethany must've been so tempted, but she resisted! She's still holding out for a perlino or white grey, as she likes their avatars best. What self-control, Bethany!

Julie and Ravine fluted quite the handsome Trakehner yesterday afternoon on Oak Isle. The Trakehner, might I add, is one of our favorite warmblood breeds in real life. 

Julie thought this might be a lucky spot to flute from.

He is 5/6, his white markings and dapples make him extra good-looking, and his personality is pretty good too. Those stats only add up to +41 though, so Julie was also good and sold him in the auction house.

Two horses caught my attention on Thanksgiving Eve. The first was at the top of the list of the adoptable horses in the livery last night.

Quite a nice horse, right? I was able to resist him without too much effort, though, since his stat total is only +57.

I was way more tempted by another horse I noticed in the auctions, a Przewalski.

He's 6/6, +99, and he has the endearing "old friend" personality. Impressive, little guy! Time ticked by, and boy was I torn. If he'd been going to the foreign bidder, I'd have bid for sure. Unfortunately, I didn't have the must-keep-him-on-the-game excuse. Nor did I have the we-don't-have-a-horse-of-his-breed excuse. 

my apricot dun mare Lofty <3

I don't think Lofty would've cared much for him either, since her personality is "stuck up." I sure would've, though.

This screen came and went. I didn't let myself bid, as much as I wanted to. Nobody else bid either, and he wasn't re-listed while I was still online. Sorry, Przewalski! You are awesome! I hope you end up with someone who appreciates you!

Things may have been different had we not finally all come to an agreement on Cheeto and the Camargue last weekend. To recap, both are 5/6 +76 stallions we've caught. Our unofficial rule for keeping a horse that isn't 6/6 is for it to be at least +80, hence we technically should've let them both move on a long time ago. Obviously, we didn't. Luckily for them, we haven't been playing the game much over the past few months, and as a result we haven't found any other tempting horses (aside from Sassafras). So, we have decided to keep them both. Not a big shocker, I know. XD

Cheeto, with his birdcatcher spots and goofy crooked stripe, seems like he was meant to be mine, and now it's official! I'm so happy it worked out for him to stay. <3

The Camargue joins Bethany's gray Camargue stallion duo, Mistral and Murphy. Since he was fluted on Gas Isle, and since we couldn't come up with any gases starting with M (other than methane, and that would just be mean), Bethany decided to name him Krypton.

Bethany is keeping Sassafras too. Her wild tack combo is what happens when you want to use the cat saddle blanket and fall-leaf-colored halter and boots at the same time. Bethany's not sure yet if Sassy can pull it off or not. XD

New Companions and New Art

As Felicity promised, here are screenshots of the companions we chose as prizes for our birthday flute contest. PepsiSummer rode out to the mountains to pick them up this morning.

I chose to complete Ophelia's companion set with a prancing premium white foal. (Eventually I may replace the duck with a premium duck. Sorry, Duckweed.)

Also note the fancy new letter art that our wonderful buddy Xylyl created for our horses' profiles.  Before now, we've used border lines to indicate the horse's owner (*'s for me, ='s for Felicity, ~'s for Julie, and ^'s for Lily), but this is probably too subtle for anyone but us to notice, much less remember. Now it will be easy to tell who a horse belongs to. Thank you, Xylyl!

Felicity chose to give Galileo a premium zebra foal, and I think she looks great with Murky the Turkey. The foal came with the randomly-generated name "Blue." It's kind of an odd name for a zebra, but she kept it since Galileo has the blue theme going on.

You may have noticed the new rump art on Galileo. Xylyl has also created that for us, and isn't it cool? We've had the Pepsi-logo-surrounded-by-sun-rays idea for a long time, and thanks to our buddy, it's finally become a reality! She patiently put it on all of our horses with red- and/or blue-themed tack. Eventually, she will recolor it to coordinate with other tack colors as well. It's quite an undertaking to put rump art on so many of somebody else's horses, most of whom already had rump art that first had to be removed. We're so grateful Xylyl has the skill and patience to help us out with this big project! <3

Check out Skyrocket, who rocks the new art especially well:

Getting back to the companion prizes, Lily chose a premium musk ox calf for Zephyr. She's calling her Gusty. =) The musk ox calf is one of my favorite companions too. HI2 made them so irresistibly cute!

Like Ophelia, Zephyr is still displaying our old rainbow star rump art, which we bought from a different buddy. We've enjoyed it, but we think the stallions are all happy to be getting something less girly. (Sorry boys, but you do all have female owners...)

Julie chose to pick out a set of companions for the mighty Napoleon. This is fitting, since Napoleon is himself a birthday pony - he was caught on Mom's birthday. Julie went with a silver and white theme. Nicker the foal and Chatter the bunny look about how I anticipated. However, I was expecting Brassy the chinchilla to about half his size, so I had a good laugh when I first saw him in all his big, chubby glory. 

Felicity and Arion fluted what I think is PepsiSummer's first Estonian Native Horse this morning while they were still in the mountains.

Just look at that endurance stat! Maybe that's why he was stuck up. It's a shame that four of his other stats were so unimpressive.

That's all the HI2 news I have for you today, but before I go, I'll share some fun fall photos with you. The first few are from Mom's visit to Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park back in October.

So much yellow!

Dandling orbs o' flowers

Is it just me, or do two of the gourds look like birds?

A perpetually ineffective scarecrow

Imagine trying to carve one of these monsters!

The highlight of the "Michigan Farm" area

Finally, Mom took this photo from the backyard yesterday afternoon:

They let Mom tromp across fallen leaves towards them and - as you can see - they watched but did not run away, not even when she started talking to them. They continued hanging out there even after Mom tromped back into the house. The deer in our neighborhood are incredibly tame. XD 

Birthday Horse Contest Winners

The four of us sisters hosted a friendly competition to see who could flute the best birthday wild on HI2 this year. Finally, the results are in! We agreed to award prizes in 6 categories, and here are the winners!

Highest Sum of Stats for Breed
This is the number you get when you add up all the gene stat numbers in parentheses. It's a measure of how a horse's stats compare to the stats of other horses of its breed. A negative total means a horse is below average for its breed, 0 is exactly average, and a positive total means a horses is overall above average for its breed. The winner is Bethany's +38 Chincoteague Pony mare! (And she thought she didn't have a shot!)

Lily's Franches Montagne came in second with a +24 stat total. Both Julie's and my horses were below average for their breeds. ;^)

Highest Sum of Total Stats

This is the number you get when you add up the larger gene stat numbers above the numbers in parentheses. It's a measure of how a horse's overall stats compare to those of all other horses on the game, and the higher the better. The winner is my Norman Cob mare with 2274 total stats!

Lily's Frenchie was second again: a very close second with a 2268 stat total. Julie's horse took a distant third, and Bethany's came in a distant dead last. XD Poor Chincoteague Ponies must've been on the short end of the stick when HI2 assigned their average stats. 

Prettiest Profile Artwork

Julie's Salernitano mare is the clear winner here. No contest. We liked her so much that we retired her to our Millennium Fields.

Coolest Avatar

And Julie's Sal wins again. We love the contrast of her dark coat, white sabino markings, and rusty dapples. <3

My Norm takes second place - isn't she pretty for being a basic brown?

Bethany's bay Chino and Lily's chestnut Frenchie are tied for third.

Best Personality

Lily's Franches Montagne mare wins with zigzagging symmetric ease.

Bethany's Chinco was extremely stubborn, Julie's Sal was extremely skittish, and my Norm was extremely both. XD

And finally for the last category:

Most Similar Flute to the Horse on Mom's Page-A-Day Calendar

This category was the least clear cut. None of our birthday flutes were dead ringers for their corresponding calendar horse. 

I didn't have a chance with mine. Both were heavier-built breeds, but that's about all they had in common.

Lily's weren't much of a match either. I'd say hers have mine beat though, because as she pointed out, both do have significant white facial markings.

We decided to give Bethany's Chinco second place. Even though she was a bay pony mare and the other was a chestnut Arabian stallion, at least they both had brown bodies and some white feet. 

So yes, again Julie's Salernitano wins. Sals resemble Quarter Horses more than Chinoteague Ponies resemble Arabians, at least in our minds. And then the color match, while not perfect, is better than with any of the other sets. The Sal lucked out that the Quarter Horse's legs don't show so that we couldn't factor leg markings into the equation.

Congratulations, everyone! A trip to the bank and then to the pet shop in the mountains is in order. Bethany, Lily, and I all get to pick one premium companion for some lucky horse, and Julie gets to pick out a whole set. =) We'll be sure to share screenshots of the ones we choose!

Julie's Top 5

Last but not least, here are my favorite ArtPrize 9 entries. Enjoy! 

The Return

Even though you'd expect a painting of a young woman surrounded by cute bunnies to be carefree and happy, I think the dramatic mixture of light and shadow and the woman's body language give this this oil painting a more bittersweet feeling. I really want to know what the story is behind it, but the website gives nothing. At any rate, isn't the frame the artist put it in perfect for it?

Horses Being Horses: Western Wild Herd

This artist creates abstract sculptures of horses "being horses" - that is, interacting with each other and their environment. With this particular band of 5, the artist explores the connection between horses and "cowboy culture." Hence, the horses include both natural materials (like wood and twine) and also materials that represent human influence (like cowhide and metal). I especially appreciate their somewhat Bashkir Curly-like twine manes and tails. The adults are maybe about 4 feet tall, and Mom says it was very difficult to refrain from petting them. 

Wings of Love

Good job posing, little Chickadee! Talk about a perfect photo op! 

Journey Through Michigan

This entry was a grand conglomeration of many 6"x6" watercolor paintings, and as you can probably tell from the title, they all depict scenes from the artist's travels through Michigan. They were displayed on a half dozen or so towers with art on all 4 sides, which the viewers could turn to view at their leisure. The artist included a bit of everything: all 4 seasons, rural and urban scenes, plants and wildlife, lakes and rivers, people and buildings, and close ups and landscapes. I selected 4 to show you that spoke to me: an almost-too-colorful-to-be-real lighthouse scene, somebody walking a Nala-esque dog, a slushy winter road, and Michigan's road decorations for the other 3 seasons: construction barrels.

Speaking of construction barrels, here is a photo Mom took of an especially happy one that greeted drivers entering and leaving the neighborhood for several weeks.

: )

Whimsical Reef

Most of this 3D mixed media reef scene is made from various fabrics, yarns, and threads, but there are also some real shells thrown in. 3 layers of sheer, nearly invisible fabric suspended from the top give the piece depth and serve as places to attached the shimmery fabric fish. The piece is lit from above with color changing lights to mimic sunlight shining through water. The lights change the colors of the fish too, which Mom found quite entertaining. Truly a masterpiece!