A Sparkly Saturday

Lily here again. This morning when I logged onto HI2, I thought to myself, hmm, we haven't been to the mountains in a long time. I checked the mini map, and there weren't any red dots on the eastern mountain isles. So, Cider and I set out. 

Since it was Saturday, I wasn't expecting to make much of a mining haul. I was pleasantly surprised. We didn't run into a single player our entire time out there. From Cavern to Pinnacle, to Crater Mountain, through Long Low Cave, we made out like bandits. All of the gems were sparkly, all of the chests were shut, and all of the nests had golden eggs. It was incredible! I guess a lot of players slept in today... or else didn't feel much like staring at gray and black. 

It wasn't until we ventured from Alpine Isle onto Rocky Cove Isle that we discovered opened chests and mined gems. At that point, Bethany took over playing and switched to her Fell pony December. She figured, like I had, that somebody was out looting Rocky Cove and Rocky, so she left him or her to it and took the rowboat back to Alpine Isle. Alpine, to their delight, appeared not to have been touched. Bethany and December happily meandered their way through the ledges and the labyrinth mining and grabbing eggs. Once they were done, Pepsi's energy was nearly depleted, and it was time to head home.

Bethany had to log out in a hurry once she set foot on Blue Mountain Isle (Felicity was chomping at the bit for us to go out and ride our real horses), so we'll never know if the gems were sparkly there too. 

Let me backtrack before I go, though. I haven't yet talked about the most exciting finds, the Dutchies and wilds, and I have screenshots! 

Dutchies #1 and #2. I'd already grabbed the golden egg from the tree on the left. ;)

Dutchie #3

Dutchie #4, a light brown Budyonny, and a sooty palomino Grade Draft

Dutchie #5

Dutchie #6

Dutchie #7

Dutchie #8. Tread lightly, Cider!

Dutchie #9 and a dark grey Highland Pony

Dutchie #10. Pardon us, Mr. Duck.

Yep, that's right: 10 Lost Dutchman mines and 3 wild horses in addition to all those eggs and gems! Talk about a productive mining expedition! =D Is this the mountains' way of telling us they've missed us?

Where's Your Star?

Look who Flora and I lured with the flute early Tuesday morning! 

She did not want to appear inside the sheep pen. XD

This is the 5th 6/6 horse I have found while riding Flora. (The first 4 were Zephyr, Mistral, Vinca, and Della: 2 stallions and 2 mares.) What a lucky girl Flora is! <3

As you may recall from an earlier post, I am rather fond of HI2's Furiosos. For having the older-style artwork, I think they're really cute - even if their hind legs are a bit wonky. Also, back when we first got our flute and Bethany posted about our first 10 fluted horses, you may recall that 3 of them were mahogany bay mares. Maybe she's right about that flute being made of mahogany wood. At any rate, we couldn't help but laugh that it gave us a 6/6 mahogany bay mare.

This mare is sadly lacking a facial marking. I was really hoping for a star, since the Furioso is also known as the Furioso-North Star. She also has a rather difficult personality and is, of course, yet another mare to further unbalance our mare:stallion ratio. But wow, +97?! With that much natural talent, there's no question that she's staying! Even though she doesn't have a star on her forehead, I couldn't resist naming her after a star anyway: Vega. Vega is the 5th brightest star in the night sky, and this mare is the 5th 6/6 horse the Flora has found - it only seemed right.

On Thursday when Julie and Fort used the flute - again on Bend Isle - it gave her another Furioso! This one was a stallion, but of course he wasn't anywhere near as fabulous as Vega. He didn't have a star either.

Am I the only one who's noticed that the avatars of seal brown horses on HI2 tend to look darker than the avatars of black ones?

This morning, Julie and Fort used the flute yet again on Bend Isle. (We've been parked there for most of the week - haven't had time to do anything more than flute.) We just had to share her with you: another gorgeous Spotted Draft Horse mare.

Julie thought this would be a lucky place to use the flute.  =)
Also note Fort's perfectly camouflaged hooves.

I just love champagnes. Throw spots and blue eyes into the mix, and wow! I hope somebody decides to adopt her. She came with a rhino beetle companion, as you can see - our third one. 

An Impostor!

Happy Easter, everybody! It seems like it's quite early this year, doesn't it? The plants are all still in hibernation in our backyard. Hence, there will be no picturesque photos of us in our Easter best outside among the flowers. Oh well. 

Here it is only April 5, and already April has been an entertaining month on Horse Isle 2.

We didn't get a chance to play HI2 on April Fool's Day, but I guess HI2 wanted to pull something on us anyway. Mistral, my grey Camargue stallion, and travelled to Sunny Glade Isle yesterday morning to use the magic flute. What did we flute? A grey Camargue! This is the first time any of us has ever fluted the exact breed and color of horse we were riding. Not only that, but this Camargue was 13.3 hands and a stallion just like my Mistral! 

Hanging out with the Mistral impostor. This is one of several screenshots I took, lol.

The wild:

Mistral:

If you click on these photos to see them full size, you will see that there are some subtle differences between these look-alikes. The wild has a freckly face, a darker muzzle, and darker hooves. Well done, all the same, HI2! My sisters and I were all quite amused. We decided to retire the wild to our ranch so that we can visit him anytime we want. We named him Marin, which is another French wind.

After catching Marin, Mistral took Pepsi around the isle to look for any other wilds lurking about. We don't usually have much luck on this isle, but for once we actually found one. 

I immediately thought "Abaco Barb" when I saw this one. Nope. Spotted Draft. XD

She is so lovely that I just had to share her here! It's not every day one finds a black silver dapple tovero with blue eyes! Her stats aren't quite up to our standards, so we won't be keeping her. I think somebody's going to be very pleased to find her in the livery, though! <3