Twin Rivers Record

Lily here again. The special event on HI2 today: foreign bidders were willing to pay more for horses at auction. Well then, I thought, I think it's time to visit Twin Rivers Isle again. Maybe I'll find a surplus of wild horses like I did on Valentine's Day. Before heading out, though, I auctioned off yesterday's fluted horse and surrendered a nice wild 5/6 Knabstrup mare to the H.S. While I was in the livery, I clicked through the adoptable horses. Look who I found!

Not bad, huh? I wasn't the only one who thought so. Less than a minute after I spotted her, I went back to look at her again. She had disappeared! Somebody got a great little horse! <3

8 horse slots now free, Poinsettia and I journeyed out to Twin Rivers Isle. No other players were there, nor did it look like any had been there in a while. Should I ride to the eastern side first, where I found 5! wilds on Valentine's Day? Or should I check the western side first, where we've found two of our 6/6 horses in the past (Pal and Zesty)? 

I decided on covering the western side first. Before long, we found our first wild.

Wild #1: black Furioso stallion

Encouraged, Poinsettia and I made our way to the next grassy expanse. We found the next wild by a furbur. =)

Wild #2: silver dapple bay leopard Noriker stallion

Wild #3 was a flaxen golden chestnut Haflinger stallion. Bummer about his stats! I love this breed.

I'm not sure why I always check the little patch of grass in the southern fork of the rivers, but I do. For once, there was actually a wild there!

Wild #4: red dun Mangalarga Marchador stallion. I was really hoping for good stats. Alas, it wasn't to be!

I rode around the southern tip of the river to get to the eastern side of the isle, and it was then that I noticed another player on the isle. He/she was after wild horses too. I watched the red dot choose the western side of the isle. I considered telling him/her I'd already been over there, but there was a lot of ground I didn't cover (the laggy forests), so I kept quiet. XD

Poinsettia and I found 3 more wild horses on the eastern side of the isle. A third player arrived on the isle and also chose the western side, so I was never disturbed. Talk about lucky! 

Wild #5: black Sicilian stallion

Wild #6: golden chestnut Hackney mare

Wild #7: blood bay Cleveland Bay mare

We still had one horse slot left to be filled, but no wild horses were lurking in the northernmost expanse of grass. Believe me, we looked. XD So, back we went to Prairie Isle. We wandered around picking pears and found one last wild on our journey back to the dock house. 

Wild #8: dark bay Dales Pony mare

Wow, what a haul! I never thought when we set out that we'd fill all 8 of our slots! Back we went to Plains Isle to auction them off two by two. It's a bummer that none of them were 6/6 stallions, though... Sorry, Bethany, but I think it's safe to say you aren't going to win our competition.

A Strange Saturday

Between the four of us, we were on HI2 for several hours today. (We had a letter to write to a buddy, which took us forever because we were also involved in conversations with multiple people - amazing how many friends were on this Saturday!) 

Every time we visit our ranch, which is generally at least once a day, our horses are all fully fed, watered, and rested automatically. Thanks to diligent clicking by Bethany and Julie, we also keep our horses fully groomed. As a result, it is rare for our horses to have health problems. We've come to expect one to crop up every few weeks or so. 

Not so today. For no apparent reason whatsoever, 3 of our horses all came down with health problems. First, Skyrocket the Appendix Quarter Horse developed a gassy form of colic. Later on, Xenon the POA sprained a leg. Within the same half hour, Hazel the Warlander embedded wooden splinters in herself by trying to jump a pasture fence... and crashing through the top slat in the process. Never fear - all three were promptly taken to the vet and should be fully recovered within a few days.

Ugh, misery does indeed like company. I really hope today was a fluke and the horses stop injuring themselves at such a rapid rate!

On one trip between the mailbox in the PlainTon city hall and the veterinarian's office, Julie and Anya saw this:

Twins!

Wow, well done! I sooo want to do this with one of our buddies sometime. 

No exciting wild horse captures occurred today. Last Saturday (Valentine's Day) was a different story, though. It was a 50%-more-wilds-than-usual day, so Zoom and I ventured out to the massive, remote Twin Rivers Isle to try our luck. We started out searching the grassy expanses on the western side of the isle - deserted. Without high hopes, I directed Zoom down and around the bottom-most river to make our way up the east side. It was soon a wild horse bonanza. By the time we were done, we had found and successfully lassoed 5 wild horses! 

One of the 5 wild horses we found was a flaxen sorrel Jutland mare. It being Valentine's Day and all, I got off of Zoom and got onto Solitaire, my own flaxen sorrel Jutland stallion, so that the two Jutlands could meet. Solitaire was definitely interested, but it wasn't meant to be. Unfortunately, the mare only had eyes for the other horse you see in the screenshot, a wild Suffolk Punch stallion. 

Unrequited love

So, both wild drafties were sold to the foreign bidder. Solitaire is still as solitary as ever. Sorry, big guy! <3

Xanthos

Look who I found in the livery on Friday night!

Aw, where'd you lose your 4th stocking, buddy?

6/6, +75

I just love the Peruvian Paso breed on HI2 - so noble and friendly-looking. Even though this guy is golden bay and not dun, he reminds me a bit of Spirit from the movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Since we already have a Peruvian Paso in the herd (Xanadu, Julie's golden roan mare), I didn't adopt him immediately. I went about my business for a few minutes, giving other players a chance to find and adopt him. When I came back later and he was still there waiting, I decided it was fate and adopted him. Hello, February horse!

As you can see from his history, he was originally a wild 6/6 stallion. However, since we didn't catch him ourselves, he doesn't count towards our sisterly contest. (Too bad, or I'd already be the winner...)

A few more interesting things to note about his history:

• He was caught two days before my birthday. Yay August!
• Both his capturer and his adopter surrendered him to the h.s. when they decided not to keep him. Maybe they were non-subs? Or maybe they were just being nice and hoping to make somebody's day? =)
• His adopter kept him for about 2 1/2 years and changed his name 5 times before deciding on "Sunchain."

Of his many names, his last two were the ones that inspired his 7th. "Sleipnir" got me thinking about mythical horses, while "Sunchain" got me thinking about golden sunlight. The perfect combination in my mind: Xanthos! In Greek mythology, Xanthos and Balios were two immortal horses that Poseidon gave to King Peleus. The king later gave the two horses to his son, Achilles, to draw his chariot during the Trojan War. "Xanthos" means "golden" in Greek. And if that isn't enough reason, it starts with an X, which is pretty cool in and of itself. 

Here is the mighty Xanthos in avatar form. He looks like Spirit here too. =)

Xanadu (Julie's Peruvian mare) and Xanthos are hitting it off well. It's good she has a friend to keep her busy, as many of the other horses were getting annoyed by her dictatorial tendencies. XD

Morning of the Mangas

To recap, we are in the midst of a 6/6 wild stallion drought on HI2. We haven't caught one since June of 2014. 6/6 wilds of both genders have eluded us completely since October. It's a bummer.

January passed uneventfully - we didn't even catch any 5/6 stallions. To Julie's delight, this means she gets to keep her New Year's Eve draftie, Jolly, as our token January horse.

Onward to February. We 4 sisters have agreed to make things more interesting by guessing when we will find our next 6/6 wild stallion. Whoever guesses the month correctly is the winner and will receive 3 companion animals of her choice (one bought by each sister). 

Bethany's chosen February, Julie's chosen March, Felicity's chosen April, and Lily has chosen "May and beyond." Lily's guess doesn't seem entirely fair, since it's longer than a month, but whatever. We can't possibly go a whole year or longer without finding one... I hope.

Now on to the original purpose of this post: to show you some interesting horses Lily and I came across today. (We each played for a while.)

Lily and Zesty explored all of the Angled Forest Isles this morning and found a few wild horses. This wouldn't be all that interesting if two of them hadn't been Mangalarga Marchadors, a gorgeous breed of horse on HI2. As is usually the case for us lately, both were mares.

Manga #1:

At first glance, Lily thought this horse was a gold champagne American Cream Draft like our Melancholy

Manga #2:

Aw, I love this avatar!

So pretty! 

But we weren't done. When I logged on to play and went to auction off a few other random wilds, guess what I found? Yep, another Manga mare. This one was 5/6 and a pinto, though.

Manga #3

She was going to the foreign bidder for something like $4,895. It got down to <1 minute left in the auction and still no other players had bid. I couldn't let such a nice mare leave HI2, so I bid $5k exactly.

Miss Manga is ours now. Temporarily. Don't worry, Lily. It's for horses like her that I wish we had a horse store at our ranch... Maybe we'll run into a new player who needs a horse? She'd be perfect with that personality.

This last horse isn't a Manga or a mare, but I saw him in the livery today and decided he deserved to be mentioned as well. Check out his persona! It's a work of art. 

What with his good stats, adorable snip, and awesome persona, I bet he won't be in the livery long! If his stats were a bit higher, I'd have snatched him up myself.