Carnations, New Horses, and a Strawberry Surprise

Sheesh, count on Julie to get me all misty-eyed over an old laptop! 

Let's move on to happy, HI2-related topics.

First order of business: check out this wild ASH that Julie and Tinsel fluted on Friday the 13th!

A booty bouquet. Oops! XD

Second order of business: let me officially introduce you to Usko, Yonder, and Yellowstone. 

Usko

Bethany has claimed him. "Usko" was the most fun name she could come up with that made it through the filter and started with the letter U. A goofy name for a goofy horse. =) That lead rope still looks odd to me, but whatever. At least it's a nice color.

Yonder

Kaimanawas are feral horses from New Zealand. New Zealand makes us think of picturesque mountainous terrain "way out yonder." The name seemed perfect for this rock-colored horse.

Yellowstone

She's a Westphalian, and even though the breed is from western Germany, we were more in a western United States frame of mind when we chose her name. I suppose she's technically more gold than yellow, but we decided it was close enough. Julie and I are still working out which of us will get Yonder and which of us will get Yellowstone. It's a tough decision!

I was not wild about adding two horses in March (Usko and Lumos) and another two in April (Yonder and Yellowstone), but my sisters were insistent. At least we haven't found any tempting horses yet in May, and we're almost half way through it already. 

My third and final order of business is this strawberry roan New Forest Pony:

Our buddy Gem and I were both online for a while on Wednesday night. Gem spotted a Camargue mare that looked like a female version of Mistral (and Murphy), so I rode Stromboli over to an auction house for a look. While I was there, Gem also pointed out a 6/6 NFP mare with 70 some minutes left in the auction. Gem made the first bid on her of a mere $1000 and said that she thought she would die laughing if she won. 

Well, I found out yesterday... 



Unlike Carl, luckily, Gem is still very much alive. But wow, come on now, really? A beautiful 6/6 +87 mare. $1000. I'm still shaking my head and snickering over this one. 

I happened to notice that there is another 6/6 strawberry roan NFP mare in the ranch stores right now. She's set for sale at $100,000, and she's only +60. Not to mention she's missing the cute facial markings and the interesting persona of Gem's mare.

Hats off to you, Gem!