Good Luck, Grays!

Hi all! Bethany here. July is half over now, and it's been pretty quiet on HI2. Xanthos and I went wild hunting in the mountains with a buddy last weekend. We only found one pony the entire time, but at least the sparkling gems were plentiful.

It was a brown Highland Pony living on the edge. Our buddy caught it.

These are always exciting finds too. ;^) 
(Watch your footing, Xanthos!)

We've crossed paths with two noteworthy light gray horses this past week too, hence the title of this post.

The first is this wild Furioso that Felicity and Windy fluted on Harbor Isle.




No star, but a lovely horse anyway. Felicity name her Satin and surrendered her to the humane society.


The second gray is this Tersky stallion. I saw him going to the foreign bidder and just couldn't allow it.



See what I mean? So nice! His hooves and his pink nose make me smile. I took him for a short ride and then named and surrendered him too.



We're keeping our fingers crossed that some fellow livery stalkers found and adopted them both.

I still periodically check the horses for sale at ranch stores as well as in the livery. We've gotten lucky with Forte and Foccacia, so I'm keeping the hope alive that someday I'll find Coquina, the Florida Cracker mare of my dreams, there.

(these are two potential Coquina colors)

No Coquinas to be found, but I did notice this awesome Racking Horse stallion:



He is for sale for a shockingly low price - so low I wondered if the owner had made a mistake. I was awfully tempted to go buy him, but I was good and let him be. We already have two great Rackers. <3

my Yoshi

Julie's Xia

When the red dun Racker was still for sale hours after I first discovered him (yes, I went back to check) I decided to visit the seller's ranch to see what the deal was. I suspected the ranch was closed to the public, because why else would he still be there? His stats are exceptional, and just look at his avatar!

Ooh! <3

It turns out you can get to the ranch fine, but I did immediately find the explanation I was after. The seller had written in the ranch profile that horses named "Newbie" (like the Racker) are ones she has put up for sale specifically for new players, hence the ridiculously low price. There's nothing to keep experienced players from ignoring the seller's wishes and snatching him up, but, astonishingly enough, even a week later he is still there, still for sale for the same price. This means that either hardly anybody looks at the for-sale Racking Horses, or people are actually respecting the seller's wishes. Interesting, isn't it? Double thumbs up to this player! If we had a horse store on our ranch, I doubt we'd ever be this generous to total strangers. (After all, we were pretty thrilled just to be gifted with a +36 pony from the auction house on our first day... *Goes to pet Ophelia*)

And now for an update on the newest additions to the herd. 

Lily has chosen the blue embroidered saddle pad for Ganache. Oddly enough, the pink rose and rosebud decors do not match the shade of the pink flower on the blanket very well. The pink orchid does better.

Julie picked the red embroidered pad for the Gyspy Vanner. (She's still unnamed. *Sighs*) As you can see, the yellow rosebud decor coordinates well with the flower on the pad. =)

We're still not sure who is going to be the owner of the Cleveland Bay or what his name will be either, but we have decided he looks especially nice in blue.

Timbuktoo 2

We were stranded on Timbuktoo this week for our second time ever. I was playing at the time and had Pepsi riding Lofty. 

As you can see, we were trying to get to Petal Isle (to pick up another pattern, I think), but something went awry. I certainly didn't complain! We happily hung out there until we were rescued.

Unlike on Pepsi's first visit back in January, the isle had clearly been looted by another visitor mere moments before. Nearly everything harvestable was already gone, even the bugs from the pitcher plants!

We did have the good fortune to find another nearly-hidden buried pirate treasure again, though (Not pictured. Oops.) and this tricky Dutchie! I'm guessing all the different terrain-specific treasures can appear on Timbuktoo, which is pretty cool!

As you may have noticed from the mini map on that last screenshot, about 5 minutes into our visit, another player appeared on the isle too! So, for the record, Timbuktoo doesn't have to be deserted for a player to be stranded there. I wonder if there have ever been 3 players on it at the same time?

To pass the time, I chatted a bit with the other player (It was her first time being stranded. She hadn't even known Timbuktoo existed on HI2) and harvested as many coconuts as possible. (Whoever had been there before me didn't touch them. Ha!) We didn't succeed in harvesting them all before we poofed away, but we got close!

I kept on playing, and an ad came through. Somebody was in search of a seal brown Welshie! 

I did not reply to the ad, obviously. Napoleon's not going anywhere. Still, it's always fun when you know somebody's after a horse or pony like one you have. I haven't seen the ad again since, so I hope the player found one elsewhere. ;^) Also, in case you were wondering, the capital of Kazakstan in Astana. You're welcome.

Thanks to our combined efforts (mostly Julie's), we finally have picked up all of the embroidered blanket patterns. It took some doing, but we have crafted them all now too. Here is Ganache modeling them:

Lily hasn't decided which one to give her yet, but she's leaning towards the blue or the purple. Once Lily's picked one, Julie's going to pick a different one for the new, still-unnamed Gypsy Vanner. (The still-unnamed Cleveland Bay isn't going to get any of these, as they're rather girly to put on a stallion.) I'm keeping my fingers crossed that neither of them choose the green one, because I'd really like to be the first to use it on my next mare...

Julie's On a Roll

Last Sunday, the day after I caught that 6/6 Gypsy Vanner, Xanadu and I set out to track down some of those new patterns for Lily on the Angled Isles. We happened upon 3 wild horses on our travels, and one of them was

*drumroll*

yes, another 6/6er!

Can you guess which of these beauties it was?

A. this mahogany bay Cleveland Bay

B. this red roan Tennessee Walking Horse

or

C. this brown French Trotter

The




answer




is



...






A!

That's right, another mahogany bay! And we can't even blame our flute for this one.

Sorry, Lily! I never thought this would happen again so soon, especially not to me! I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw his stats. He's 6/6 and +81, which puts him firmly into the "keep him!" category. 

There isn't a whole lot of variety among Cleveland Bays - both on HI2 and in real life. They are always bay (imagine that!), and the only white markings they're allowed to have are small white stars. The uniformity was apparently ideal for their intended use as carriage horses: minimal effort was required in selecting a matching set. They also have been used under saddle and often make good jumpers. This particular horse definitely prefers having a human on his back to pulling a carriage, but he is far from enthusiastic about jumping. He's not all that agile and as lazy as they come!

The Cleveland's artwork on HI2 isn't exactly awe-inspiring (I think there's something awkward about their feet... maybe how perfectly flat they are...), but I have always admired their shiny coats, which remind me of polished wood.

 Here's a better look at his avatar:

He's very similar to Kudos, but his hooves are brown rather than black.

Kudos

Odette and Vega, our two mahogany bay mares, are obviously lighter.

Odette

Vega

The buckskin Gypsy Vanner's avatar is a more unique addition to the herd. 

Her closest color match is Whinny the buckskin Morgan, but they are easy to tell apart. 

Whinny

My streak of good fortune continued yesterday on my birthday. Check out my beautiful birthday flute!




Fortunately for our dwindling horse slots, her stats are nowhere near as exceptional as her looks. My sisters agreed that she was worthy of retiring to our ranch, though, so that's where she is now!

Since this particular rump art, the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, was available yesterday and looked nice on her, I rolled with the Harry Potter theme. She's named Iolanthe after Iolanthe Peverell, one of the former owners of the Cloak of Invisibility. 

Her head is not that radically different than the main horse's head on Mom's June 30 calendar page. Hmm, maybe I have a shot at winning the "most similar flute to calendar page horse" category in addition to "prettiest birthday flute."

Jolly and I spent the rest of our HI2 time wandering the Dead Isles.
 

I know this was an odd thing to do on my early summer birthday (to ride around a ghost-colored horse on HI2's Halloween-esque isles), but 1. the next pattern on our list to pick up for Lily was on Decay Isle and 2. nobody else was visiting them at the time. As long as we were there anyway, I figured we might as well collect the Kasper dust specks, search the stumps for emeralds, check the beaches for pirate treasures, and of course keep an eye out for wild horses. 

Nothing like celebrating your birthday with big, dangling spiders! XD

Yay! The pattern at last!

The only wild pony we spotted was this cutie. (Like on the Tiger Isles, we hardly ever seem to find wilds on Dead Isle terrain.)




All in all, it was a great end to a great month this past week! Here's hoping I can pass my luck on to my sisters now... preferably in forms other than tempting horses for a while. ;^)