Feeling Lucky

May is drawing to a warm close here in the Mitten. My sisters and I are happily soaking it in. 

Mom's birthday the Wednesday before last was unfortunate weather-wise: 50's and very rainy, but no scary storms, at least. 

The extended family had a mass celebration last Sunday, when the weather was much more pleasant. (There are 5 May birthdays.)

The balloon Mom got to take home is still floating a week later. =)

The celebration on the day itself was small and brief, as tends to be the case with mid-week birthdays. She still received quite a generous pile of gifts, though!

Looks like the waterfowl are joining Mom's bird collection after all. And so much for no birds of prey, ha ha.

There was also a gift too big to fit in the picture, a mattress-in-a-box.

Here's the before: an old water bed Mom inherited from her parents. She's had it since she was in elementary school. It noticeably sinks in the middle, not that Mom minded.

And here's the after: a new (super tall!) mattress, complete with the new (non-holey) comforter Mom got for Christmas. The stuffed animals would have farther to fall now, but at least they don't have to worry about water tubes springing a leak. (This never happened, fortunately.) XD

We did make some time for HI3 at the end of the day. (And stayed up way too late for a weeknight, but it was worth it.) Gem was also online and even remembered it was PepsiSummer's big day, which was really sweet. 

The first wild equine we encountered that evening was literally swimming in our lavender pool. Not sure if we inadvertently chased him in or if he was already in there, but either way this was a first for us!

He was cute but too small to ride and otherwise unimpressive, so we did not consider keeping him.

We also found this wild with micro mini hooves:

This daring pony:

As well as several pots of gold and a meteorite:

Lily's lovely Groningen, Mariette, was the lucky mount for our wanderings.

Our favorite wild of the night, no contest:

It would've been even better if she'd been on a beach with palm trees, but this name is great. XD

I know, I know. Her stats and personality are far from top-notch. But she's so cute - just look at those markings and pretty dished face! <3

The following Saturday, we lassoed many more wilds. Among them was this cool one:

And this very pretty, high-stat wonderland wild:

If it hadn't been for that last personality trait, we'd have kept her, no question. 

*Sighs* At least this didn't happen on Mom's birthday. That would've been such a downer!

Fortunately, we weren't sad for long. We quick traveled to TigerTon, I think to trader some wilds (possibly even Bedazzled - I don't remember for sure), when horsie sense started sparkling. It led us to what we expected to be a normal jungle wild. Surprise! Lucky find!

Those are some holey socks and stockings, buddy! <3

Whew, personality crises avoided!

Cool, he paces! HI3 doesn't have any blurb about the breed yet in-game, but as the name suggests, it was developed in India's Kathiawar peninsula.

The Kathiawari is similar to the Marwari - both have those cool inward-curved ears - but the two breeds come from different regions in western India. How appropriate that of the two, we would find the Kathiawari, since we live in a peninsula too! =)

We have named him Sal, after the Indian sal tree, and he's not going anywhere. <3

They're popping up like dandelions

As usual, spring is flying by! We're already halfway through May, lawn mowers are humming, flowers (especially dandelions) are blooming, and even the oak trees are sprouting rapidly-growing leaves.

My sisters were insistent on keeping both the star-faced stallions lassoed on April 24. They have names and infinitum amulets now, so I suppose it's official. We didn't get overly imaginative here and gave them names of especially bright real-life stars.

Rigel is a blue-white supergiant in the Orion constellation. It corresponds to Orion's left leg/foot, and as this guy has that tall white stocking on his left hind leg, it seemed to fit. (He's definitely going to get bright blue saddle pad and polos.)

Arcturus is a red giant star in the constellation Boötes. I wasn't even aware of this constellation's existence, to be honest, but it's apparently a herdsman located near Ursa Major (the big bear). He's reddish, and his roundness makes him seem kind of cuddly like a teddy bear, so Arcturus is was. We'll probably end up calling him Archie for short.

Here are a few of the abundant interesting wilds we've lassoed so far in May:

Such a handsome plains wild!

Probably the oddest badger face we've come across so far.

Ooh, duns with long manes are just gorgeous!

Another zebra with neck dewlap. Real-life mountain zebras do have this feature according to the limited Googling we've done. HI3 certainly has done its research!

We'd have been really temped to keep him, as he's a great example of a mountain zebra...

...had his personality not been so volatile, even by zebra standards!

I think it's so cute when wilds hang out close together like this.

Both were lovely, lazy mares with feminine names.

How fun that we found a pony named Lilly Of The Valley in May! (If she hadn't been ornery, my sisters might have tried to get me to keep her, ha ha.)

I caught this guy with his eyes closed, but tobiano on silvery grullo silver... love it!

Our first herd contender for May graced us with her presence yesterday, a massive 18.3 hand savanna-dweller. (It would've made a lot more sense if the previous horse had this name, but of course not. XD)

While we prefer longer manes, we think she pulls off her upright mane well.

Just for fun, here's what she'd look like with a long mane:

I feel like this instantly transforms her from bulky savanna horse to Shire cross! 

If we did alter her mane, I think we'd want to bulk out her tail too:

Hmm, it's nice, but I think I like her the sparsely-haired way she is. It would be a shame for her to lose the savanna vibes. It may be a moot point anyway - we still have half of May to go and could easily find another horse we prefer. Guess we'll just have to wait and see!