Cherrypeak

Welcome to February, everyone! We've emerged on the other side of what turned out to be an exceptionally frigid, snowy January. It was fantastic to finally see some sun this weekend! I even got Felicity and Julie outside - well, if the front porch counts - for a photo.

What will this month hold? Hopefully less cold and snow - both for the sake of all the drivers and all the schools that have already exceeded their snow day allotments. It sure has been beautiful to look at from the comfort of our cozy house, though!

The final week of snow on Star Stable also featured - you guessed it - another horse bazaar. The breeds on sale this time were the Criollo, the Jorvik Wild Horse, the Icelandic Horse, and the Dartmoor Pony.

Wow, we haven't seen a bazaar stable this full in a while!

The Jorvik Wild Horse is one of our favorites. <3 I'm especially fond of this one. Maybe someday, but for now we're content with Ravenspell, our magical Halloween horse based on this model.

We love the Icelandics too. We took home our favorite, Opalowl, back in December 2024, but all of them are so pretty!

As cute as these guys are and as many bazaars as they've appeared in, we still don't have one in our stable. Their lip-curling idle animation is just too much of a turn off for us.

This was the first time the Criollo had ever gone on sale, so my sisters and I found them the most exciting. Star Stable's version of the Criollo has been criticized as being sausage-like. And yeah, they are quite long in body. That's the only thing about them that isn't picture perfect: they have great gaits, gorgeous coat colors, and luxurious manes and tails, plus they don't do anything annoying while idling. It hadn't been long at all since Sandman finished his training, but I knew it was going to be tall order to talk my sisters out of buying one.

We had a whole week to think about it. In the meantime, our earliest equines got some serious riding time. Our little Zony Tigertin enjoys all the championships. Nothing seems to satisfy her more than beating much larger equines to the finish line, as happened below. 

Waiting for the others...

...and after most of them had galloped in.

Tigertin also was Clara's mount when they did the teaser quest for the new area that is coming soon, Marchengast Castle. 

Ooh, magical forcefield! I'm guessing the fact that Clara can see it now means it's weakening?

We've spent some time out in Valedale, making slow progress on the various paths. We quite like this magical horse who lives there, Birkhir. 

Various horses have taken Clara on long, frosty treks out in the Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur lately too. We've been giving it - and Mario with his observatory - lots of attention lately in hopes of unlocking archeology, which was my goal for this past year.

Many people have required rides out to Nic Stoneground's camp, including creepy "chef" Igor.

Like so many others, this scientist seemed totally unprepared for this climate

One of the recent things to unlock was a fun race around the frozen valley itself. Two thumbs up, though we feel sorry for the smart dog that oversees it, Swedenborg: he's always parked out on the cold ice by himself.

We're making slow progress towards repairing Nic's hot air balloon. It will be so much more convenient once we can quick-travel there rather than having to journey to Valedale, up a mountain, through a pass, down a the rickety elevator, and then along a twisty trail.

one of the more entertaining repair activities: filling tanks with geyser gas

We've also been working to restore zombie-like Franke, Elsa Einstein's brother, to his pre-multi-lightning-strike state... by harnessing the power of lighting strikes into a battery pack of sorts. I'm confused as to how lightning strikes would even happen in so cold a region, but I guess it's a magical place.

Whew, after several unsuccessful explosive attempts, we finally connected everything in the correct sequence. Now just to wait for a magical thunderstorm...

All too quickly, time was up for making our decision on the Criollo. As I had anticipated, I was unsuccessful in reining in my Criollo-loving sisters: the question quickly changed from "do we get one now or wait?" to "which one are we getting?"

The two front runners:

dark bay overo

bay manchado

It wasn't easy, but we eventually all agreed on the bay manchado. The names we were considering fit her better, plus she looks really cool from the back.

Meet our beautiful 25th equine, Cherrypeak!

I'm a little sad Felicity opted to have the snow turned off for these first screenshots, as it was the virtual snow's final day. It was late in the day and pretty dark with the snow, though, which is why she got away with toggling it off. XD

We opted to buy her out in the Medieval Camp rather than at the bazaar itself, since we were out there anyway for the daily jousting/archery/championship reward.

This tack had been picked out for Riverrock, who we'd been riding earlier in the day. 

She looks great in yellow too, though.

the first sparkle!

We may have started her off gently (Moorland training races, then chill time in the stable), but she got thrown into the deep end this weekend! 

Her first championship happened to be the daunting Valedale one. I think we've had more issues with it than any other. Fortunately, she was only up against two other horse-rider pairs: a striking grullo Criollo and a Runerunner. 

Cherry made it through the course like a champ and won a silver ribbon. <3

Then she got to gallop around the mountainous parts of Valedale, first for Mario's observatory race and then in pursuit of some will-o-whips.

taking a breather to admire the view

after a will-o-wisp

If all that wasn't enough excitement, she then got to ride the rickety elevator, witness the lightning strikes in Dino Valley, and transport the super-charged, super dangerous battery pack back to camp.

Fortunately, it never exploded, not even when they had to jump a large crack in the ice.

Frank getting zapped by the "reverse lightning"

It worked! 

And, as it turns out, Frank Einstein is an archaeology buff. He gave Clara "Old Betsy" the pickaxe, finally unlocking archeology for us! There will probably be more to come on that later, once we've had more time to find fossils and get a better feel for how it all works.

Wow, what an action-packed intro to Jorvik our Cherry has had! Until next time!

So Much Snow

As is to be expected now that we're in the heart of winter in a peninsula shaped like a mitten, we've plunged into what the meteorologists say will be a long stretch of cold, snowy weather. Lily and I are enjoying its pristine beauty, while Felicity and Julie are well over it and already dreaming of spring.

Star Stable's sleigh to the winter village disappeared with the last update, along with all the holiday decorations. I'm thinking SSO's creators must be more in line with Felicity's and Julie's way of thinking than mine and Lily's, because we're only getting two more weeks with the toggle-able virtual snow before it leaves for the season too.

Here is a fond look back at our snowy January adventures so far: both in the Winter Village and wandering around Jorvik.

playing with some frisky wild foxes

enjoying the Northern Lights with Raven and our new Gnemo the gnome pet

Usually the sheep follow us single file, but on this turn, each made its own snow trail.

So cute!

Clara and Ash leading the gingerbread gnomes back to base. To our relief, they kept up with a galloping horse without issue this year. It was so annoying how they'd blip back to their original positions whenever we started going "too fast" last year!

Sandman doing his level up sparkle with an especially dramatic backdrop. He progressed through his training quickly thanks to all the Winter Village activities, but he hadn't quite made it to level 15 yet by the end.

Sandman taking a little rest among a trio of wild Eariks.

The final gift we received under the yule tree. You'd never guess what is was from that huge box.

Rather anticlimactically, it was... a pair of earrings. They're cute enough, but until earrings can be worn at the same time as glasses, Clara's not likely to wear them. (We've gotten so used to her with glasses that she doesn't look right to us without them now.)

...that one time Sandman's lower legs got stuck underground after sliding down the big slide.

We did eventually free him without having to re-log.

We had the snow toggled off here for the championship, but I wanted to include this one to show how nice the Brownie Bear tack set looks on Sandman. The brown saddle pads may see more daylight than we originally thought.

Doing some sky and stargazing with our penguin Pebble

For efficiency, we'd sometimes still have the gingerbread followers following us during other village tasks. They really got into fishing.

We'd also sometimes take the touring gnomes on longer tours than they'd bargained for. Here they are experiencing my favorite festival-exclusive race, the one on the frozen river with the sliding penguins.

The best part for me was the little celebration song at the end of the race. <3

The gnomes coming along while we searched for other gnomes in Moorland. It could be tricky to find these guys in deep snow!

The holiday decoration I was most sad to see go: the gnome statue in River/Sandman's water bucket.

Our final magical race through the Winter Village for the season

Saying a fond farewell to the musical penguins...

...and the Winter Village deer

Until next year! <3

Sandman still had his last two experience levels to go after we lost access to the Winter Village. He got to see a lot more of Jorvik, including his look alike at Steve's Farm

Sandman's final sparkle this weekend. 

We're back to a stable (and pasture) full of fully-trained equines again!

The big news with the latest update was the addition of an updated Connemara Pony! We caught our first glimpse of them at the Moorland championship - see the fleabitten gray in the screenshot below.

Naturally, after the championship, we had to go take an up-close look for ourselves.

Like the old generation 3 Connemaras, they're on the larger side for ponies, which we love! The old Connemara has been renamed the "Jorvik Connemara" and is still available for purchase, similar to what happened with the Friesian and Andalusian.

We think they are a great improvement over the previous iteration of the Connemara - so much more lifelike in motion! Here's a quick look at the different colors and animations

dapple gray

buckskin... or is it a rose gray? Not sure yet.

palomino

bay roan

sooty buckskin

chestnut

fleabitten gray

This buck is noteworthy in that the rider loses her seat and stirrups and ends up on the base of the pony's neck, then scootches back to the correct position. It's somewhat cute, since the rider doesn't bite it and seems amused, not scared, but I personally wish SSO had done this with a breed other than the Connemara. While I'm sure there are some bucky Connemaras out there, I like to think of that more being a cheeky little pony thing, with Shetlands, little Welshies, etc. From what I've read, the Connemara is generally more gentle and good natured.

Oh well, bucking aside, they're quite nice. We'll gladly add one to the herd someday, once they make it into a bazaar.

I will leave you with a screenshot of our much more chill Sandman doing his special animation while waiting for a championship to start today. He and Clara were the only entrants, giving him an easy gold ribbon. Yay! Stay warm and safe, everybody!