Plateau Persians

Hi all. This is the first post ever typed from Milton! We snuck up to Mom's room, taking our lives in our own hands (Nala was on the prowl), to try out Mom's new laptop. It's great - quick and quiet, and the screen is so crisp and detailed! As predicted, the desktop background has already changed to something more Mom. 

Sorry if they're distracting, but we didn't have the heart to crop out the stuffed animals. <3

All has been fairly quiet on the HI2 front. No more irresistible horses have surfaced to tempt us, thank goodness. We have still not chosen names for the three new mares, but they all have tack now. I guess that pretty much means they are staying. *Sighs* I'm hoping we will have better self-control in the coming months.

HI2 has recently introduced a new breed of horse called the Plateau Persian. None of us had ever even heard of it before. Plateau Persians are from the central plateau region of Iran, and they look quite Arabian-like. My sisters and I all love the HI2 artwork for the breed. They come in rabicano and sabino in addition to solid colors, which makes them even cooler in our collective opinion.

We've been to the desert a few times in hopes of lassoing a wild one, but no luck so far. As more and more of them come into existence on the game, our chances of finding a nice one somewhere are bound to go up, right?

For your viewing pleasure, here are some screenshots we took from the BBB of some of our favorite Plateau Persian coat colors.

Bethany's favorites:

sooty buckskin rabicano

rose gray sabino

Felicity's favorites:

dapple black sabino

seal brown rabicano

Julie's favorites:

blood bay rabicano

smoky cream sabino

My (Lily's) favorites:

dapple palomino sabino

dapple rose gray rabicano

Maybe someday we'll be lucky enough to find a Plateau similar to one of these beauties. <3

Hello, Milton

Galena and I headed out to the Marshy Isles this morning to look for unusual bugs in pitcher plants. (A friend needed Esroh material, and sadly the bugs are an ingredient.) ;^) As long as I was there anyway, I decided to use the flute to summon a wild horse. Most often we seem to attract Camargues on the Marshy Isles. Not that I'm complaining, of course - it's a fantastic breed. However, Bethany has wanted a nice Florida Cracker mare for a long time. Specifically, a light gray or a perlino. I think it's part of the reason she livery stalks so much.

This morning, the flute brought us a Florida Cracker for a change. Any guesses as to its color and gender?

Yep, yet another mahogany bay mare. Our flute is made of mahogany, I tell you!

She is 5/6 and +77. Not quite as impressive as the two 6/6 mahogany mares the flute has brought us, +97 Vega and +84 Odette, but not at all shabby either! And just look at that cute pink snip! There's apparently a star underneath that long, beautiful forelock too!

I am guessing Bethany is going to keep holding out for her light-colored Florida Cracker mare, unless she decides not to keep Very Nice Newfie after all. I can't really see that happening. Since Lily has the first two mahogany mares in her collection, maybe she'll want this one too?

As you may recall from my post back on May 12, Mom's good old laptop, Carl, bit the dust. She's still had the family computer to use since then, but I'm happy to announce that she won't have to anymore! Let me introduce you to *drum roll please*

Milton, Mom's new laptop! =) This is what he looked like when first turned on. Don't get too fond of those picturesque cliffs, Milton. I see lots of horsey wallpapers in your future. <3

Anybody Have Caution Tape?

Bethany here. Well, as you can probably tell from the title and the screenshots below, I didn't heed Felicity's warning. I went into the livery on Friday night. It was one of those days where adoption fees have been increased from $20k to $30k. Hmm, I thought to myself, maybe fewer players than usual have been checking out the adoptable horses. The pull was just too strong. I snuck in and started clicking.

Before long, I found this guy, "TheScottishYodeler." 

6/6 and +81! He has December, my black Fell stallion, beat by 6 stat points. And he's the capricious yin to December's drill sergeant yang. Soooo tempting! Since we have a few more stallions than mares at the moment, though, I made myself resist. He was still available when I checked before logging out, but he was gone by Saturday morning. Hopefully somebody found him and is giving him the appreciation he deserves. And hopefully he kept his name. It's hard to imagine something more perfect than "TheScottishYodler." ;^)

Down farther, I came upon, well, a Very Nice Newfie. Not the most imaginative name, but it got the point across.

She is indeed very nice! Like TheScottishYodler, she is also 6/6 and +81. Her personality isn't as fun as the Fell's, but I think she is every bit as cute! I checked on her a couple of times while I was online, and she never went anywhere. In the end, I just couldn't just leave her there. Felicity has her Vinca, a minimal blue roan Newfie mare. Lily has her Ultraviolet, a dark dun Newfie mare. Now I have a lovely Newfie mare too! We just need to find one for Julie and we'll have a complete set. =)

One other horse who deserves to be mentioned is this cool Percheron.

Aw, this +74 mare is only 2 stat points away from being 6/6. And so pretty! It's not every day you come across a flaxen chestnut Percheron. So... many... grays... XD I hope somebody took her home!

Taking home Very Nice Newfie filled up our last horse slot. So, I replaced one of our golden windmills with another platinum horse barn. Sorry, windmill, but horses are more important, and we just weren't ready to say goodbye to the carrots or sheep yet. 

The new barn gives us about a dozen more horse slots. Lily's trying to get us on board with a 12-month challenge, to see if we can go from this coming July to the next without filling more than 12 slots with permanent residents. Somehow, I don't think that's ever going to happen, but we'll see!

One more thing before I go: check out this totally concealed wild that Lily and Vega found yesterday!

She may be from Dumbbell Isle, but she's no dummy! She has beauty to go with the brains too, both in avatar form and in her profile.

I think she may be Millennium Fields bound. =^)

Caution: Enter Livery at Own Risk

First things first: the Welsh Cob stallion, the second 6/6 wild horse we've caught this year, has a name! Since it was Julie and Flare who found him, Julie is keeping him and got to pick out the name. Meet Iolite.

His namesake is this blue violet stone:

Legend has it that Vikings looked through a thin slices of iolite to help them locate the sun on cloudy days. I hope this horse has a good sense of direction so that he lives up to his name!

Wait a second, how has Julie ended up with both 6/6 wild horses we've caught this year? I smell a conspiracy! Oh well, I'll just try to wait patiently for my next horse, which needs to be a mare. 

It's hard being patient, though. Really hard. Last night, I took a leaf out of Bethany's book and... yeah, I went livery stalking. Wouldn't you know it, I found some highly tempting mares!

Mare #1:

What a horse! Gorgeous breed and color, 6/6 stats, great personality.... What's not to like? 6 more stat points and I'd have adopted her in a heartbeat! But seeing as we already have a Gypsy Vanner in the herd, 

Bethany's Airbrush

I figured I really should leave her for somebody else. Within 10 minutes, she was gone. No big surprise there!

Mare #2:

This striking +71 mare is a mere 2 stat points shy of being 6/6. Like the Gypsy, she also has the investigator persona. But again like the Gyspy, we already have the Racking Horse represented in our herd. Twice, actually:

Bethany's Yoshi

Julie's Xia

We also have a bay tobiano gaited horse already:

Bethany's Infrared the Tennessee Walker

So far, I have been good and resisted, but as of this posting, she is still available for adoption. I'm quite tempted to go back for her even now. After all, I personally don't have a Racking Horse or a bay tobiano. It would be such a shame for her not to get a home!

Mare #3:

A big, beautiful liver chestnut Suffolk with an adorable star! She's 5/6 with the highest stat total of all three mares, +76. My goodness, why did I walk into the livery?

If she wasn't so skittish and lazy, and if she'd had 4 more stat points, again it would've been an instant adopt. We don't have any Suffolks yet, and she reminds me of one of the first wild horses we ever caught, a Suffolk stallion named Murray. 

Well, I waited around half an hour. Then I just couldn't stand it anymore and adopted her. Our buddy Gem loves Suffolks, so it's possible she might be interested. If not, I'll see if I can talk my sisters into keeping her. XD