Cape Boerperd

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Oh, wait, it hasn't even been Thanksgiving yet. o_o 

Really, snow? Couldn't you hold off until December, at the least? I guess we should just be grateful we didn't have a white Halloween, since that has been known to happen...

Ugh, enough talk about snow. I have been distracting myself from the frigid weather outside with Horse Isle 2. Yesterday, I happened to find a wild Cape Boerperd, which is the game's newest breed. The only ones I've seen have been in the auctions, most of them really nice ones selling for big bucks.

I was getting grapes and raspberries on Curvy (for crafting) when I discovered her. At first I was just pleased it was a pinto, because pintos are awesome, but I was even more happy to learn that it was a Cape Boerperd. (Sidenote: we still have never seen a Nez Perce in the wild, which is another fairly new breed on HI2 that I really like. *Sighs and pauses to pet Toasty the Noriker, our only appaloosa-patterned horse.*)

Hello, pinto. Meet 7Up.

I'd never even heard of the Cape Boerperd before it was introduced on the game. F.y.i., it is a gaited breed from South Africa that somewhat resembles the Morgan. Apparently doing saddle seat with them is huge, but they are by no means limited to that. I'm glad their tails don't look artificially high-set like the HI2 American Saddlebreds. 

Spots, multi-colored mane, and blue eyes. =)

So... she spooks at everything, yet she's a sloth too? Am I the only one who is having trouble picturing this? 

It's unfortunate that her personality isn't as great as her appearance and stats, but I guess 2 out of 3 isn't bad. I have a feeling one of my sisters will want her, since we're all fans of pintos. Maybe I can convince Bethany to take her instead of keeping that goofy Orlov permanently. It's worth a try.

21st Horse

How can we have 21 horse slots filled already on our HI2 game? Wow! Why didn't we try to stay at nice, round 20 for a while? Well, we blame Artemis...

You see, now that we have our bareback award, we were able to visit Artemis, one of the Esrohs on the game. We quickly completed her first 3 tasks: craft a pastel green halter, own a flaxen liver chestnut foal, and own a Thoroughbred with over 1000 experience points. Our generous buddy CandyNutmeg entrusted us with Must Be Magic, her experienced Thoroughbred mare, for a few minutes so that we could complete #3. Candy is awesome.

Task #4 is the hardest yet: visit Artemis while riding a mahogany bay Orlov Trotter with at least 500 experience points. We were slightly disappointed with our randomly selected breed at first because the Orlov isn't an especially attractive breed on HI2.  However, we now realize that it was not all bad to be assigned an Orlov. First of all, since Orlovs only come in a handful of coat colors on HI2, mahogany bay wasn't extremely rare. Second of all, because the breed isn't very popular, we had a good chance of finding them for sale cheaply. And finally, because we weren't assigned a tiny pony breed, we can justify keeping the horse permanently and therefore can get as attached to it as we want.

We were able to find a mare in a ranch store that fit the bill on our first day of looking, and she was only $15,000. She came with 0 experience, so we won't be returning to Artemis for a while. Oh well, there's no big rush.

So, here is horse #21, Inga. It fell on me to keep her because I was the only one of the 4 of us who hadn't already chosen a 5th horse. I don't mind. She's pretty nice, as far as Orlovs go.

Yeah, Bethany, once you get passed the lopsided star, wonky hooves, drastically uneven hind leg markings, and blocky shading, she's not so bad, lol.

Aw, don't listen to her, Inga. I like you just how you are. *Gets up on a stool to stroke the mare's silky mane, since she's 17.2 hands.* You're tall, brave, and social, and you have great conformation. 

And she's lazy to the extreme. =) 

Yeah, but I'm used to it, since Mistral's a big lazybones too. They will probably be soul mates. 

No snowy isles for her anytime soon. This seems a bit odd to me, since her breed is from chilly Russia... Maybe she's already seen more than enough snow to last her a lifetime. ;-)

Yep, that must be it. XD She will grow on all of us, you guys. You just wait. 

11/12/13

I overheard Grandma mention today that this date was an especially popular date for weddings. It would definitely make it easy to remember - who could forget getting married on 11/12/13? =)

In honor of such a fun date, here are some more amusing screenshots from Horse Isle 2. You're welcome.

levitating dutchie

they're making me hungry

double Kigers

Good try, mouse dun Azteca

Who wants to be lassoed first?

hide-n-seek with a wild

an elusive Peruvian Horse

Whoa, Arion!

a lucky ledge

Wait... flowers don't have heads!

2 of 6 wilds that were on Harbor during one lucky visit

That looks painful

a wild, Flora, and I pause for a quiet moment of reflection

double Xs

big floral hats

Don't ask me how I climbed down this mine...

3 mares on Harbor! Pal is quite the charmer. 

You remind me of someone...

I think he was guarding the treasure.

Well played, Haflinger

I hope these made you smile! =)

HI2: Two More 6/6+ Wilds

We have found two more 6/6+ stallions on HI2 these last two weeks. Felicity caught hers back on the 28th of October, but as we are not keeping him, she didn't bother to make her own post. Still, as a very cute 6/6 pony, I think he deserves to be mentioned.

Here is a screenshot from when Felicity and Arion found him on Stem Isle:

His avatar looks more like a pale buckskin than a roan... Oh well.

That's 11.3 hands there at the bottom.

Aw!

He's cute, he has a winning personality, and he is +80 for his breed. Wow! What a fabulous pony! If only he wasn't such a little guy, and if only he was a mare! Well, hopefully he will be just what some other player is looking for. We will keep him around until somebody shows some interest. 

And now for the 6/6 stallion I found while riding Pal today (yes, I did end up deciding to keep Palladium for myself). As soon as I poofed out of the reef onto Harbor Isle, there he was:

Hello, handsome

<- One white hoof

He and Pal can have fun spooking at things together ;)

We have wanted a Morab since the first time we looked at the list of breeds in the BBB, so we are all especially excited about him. I'm not sure who will end up getting to keep him. (Probably not me. Since I have Pal now, I really want my next horse to be a mare.) Maybe I'll have my sisters draw straws or something.

Bareback!

Well, we've finally done it. We made it to 5,000 player experience points this afternoon, earning us the long-anticipated Bareback Award! This means that we can now ride bareback on any horse with over 1,000 experience points. 

I, Lily, was the one playing our avatar when this happened. I was in the show jumping arena on Marshy, competing on Ophelia and Galileo. (Show jumping was the bonus arena, and those two equines are the only ones with much training so far.)

It was the 6 experience points Ophelia and I gained in a round of Group III jumping that brought us from 4,996 experience to 5,002. (We got 6th place out of 8 horses... someday we'll invest in fancy tack...)

So, anyway, I called over Bethany, Ophelia's owner, and let her have the honor of riding our first pony bareback for the first time. Here she is:

Ophelia

Aww! 

We didn't stop there, obviously. We had to try out all of our 1,000+ horses bareback.

Galileo

Ravine

Yetta

Lysithea

Arion

Solitaire

Nightshade

Fortunado

Flora

Kestrel

Yay! I'm sure we will all thoroughly enjoy having saddles and bridles be optional now. The horses look so free this way. :)