Time to Build Another Barn

Summer marches on. It'll be my birthday already a week from today! I'm excited to see the wilds that August brings us. Maybe we'll even find lucky find #5? Who knows?

Arrowhead was not the last of our 900+ genetic stat total July wilds. We found 5 more by the end of it!

On the 19th, we found this curly-coated taiga wild:

True to form, she is indeed not the speediest horse around.

Oh no, so ornery! Pepsi rode her just long enough to get these screenshots:

On the 23rd, we found this taiga roan near double meteorites (and a taiga essence):

I love how she has that gorgeous multicolored long mane... and then a stubby little afterthought tail on the back.

Her metrics aren't anything amazing, but her personality is pretty good, and she's really cute. We'd decided not to keep her because she's so slow, but we didn't have a chance to sell her before we had to log out and go to bed.

Overnight, Mom's beloved childhood home (where she lived from ages 10 to 17) burned down in a suspicious fire. No one was living there, and the horse stable across the field is fine, thank goodness, but it was incredibly sad. I've never been there, as Mom and family moved out before I came on the scene, but it was my sisters' first home, and they all remember it fondly. I don't think we're going to be able to part with "Marley," despite her slowness, since she was the last wild we found while the house was still standing.

Maybe HI3 was trying to cheer us up a little, because for the next 3 days, we found a high-stat horse each day. On the 24th, we found this dark rainforest wild:

His performance metrics may be mostly superior to Marley's, but those last two personality traits killed any chance of his staying with us.

On the 25th, we found this golden fall forest stallion who was rocking a mohawk:

He's the 7th wild we've found with a genetic stat total over 1000! 

His performance metrics are pretty great, and he has a brave, even keel personality. This guy is a keeper for sure!

The next day, we found this wonderland pinto pony stallion:

He's wild #8 with a genetic stat total of 1000+!

Even though Double Trouble's stat total is slightly higher than Mr. Mohawk's, Mr. Mohawk is mostly superior in terms of performance metrics and personality. Still, Double Trouble is a cool pony in his own right. He' skittish, which is a pain at times, but not quite ornery enough to buck, so he has a good chance of sticking around, especially since he has those spots!

From his stance, we were hoping he would be gaited. Nope. Pepsi doesn't look awkward on him, though, so he's safe on that front.

If we truly do decide to keep Marley, Mr. Mohawk, and Double Trouble, I'm sure hoping that doesn't boot out Shampoo or Arrowhead, who were also both lassoed in July.

I think, since July kicked our butts, between the house thing, the continuing COVID threat and its life disruptions, and Mom's dental issues (2 root canal appointments later and she's still far from ok), we can spoil ourselves a bit with extra horses! 

We have been collecting quite a few fun screenshots, but I think I'll let whoever posts next have at those, as this post is already on the long side.

I will share with you two fun things I've done recently on the game, though. 

I came across a turtle mountain for the first time. You can almost hear Bumpy thinking, Now that's a big bump!

 We climbed to the top, naturally.

I also accepted an invite to an essence anomaly party for the first time. This one was offshore, and it was nighttime when Pepsi got there.

Pepsi appeared standing on the kayak of the player who kindly invited her. I had her get off and kayak/swim her way up as close as one can get to said anomaly. Not sure how it works, but I figured after coming this far, it would suck not to get the eventual essence just because of never getting quite close enough to the thing. In the process, Pepsi accidentally rammed into another player in her kayak. Sorry, my paddling skills still leave much to be desired. 

In the 20ish minutes of downtime waiting for the essence anomaly to disappear and give us essence, quite a few players gathered. Some kayaked, some swam, some dove, and I also saw a sailboat and a few hang gliders. We've avoided large gatherings like this thinking Milton (laptop) probably couldn't handle them. He didn't seem to be nearly as overwhelmed as we feared - no crashing, anyway, though the fan got running fairly hard like it does when we're in populated villages.

Lots of cool kayaks out there, but no other bananas: the 2-tone look seems to be more popular. Most players just sat around in their kayaks or treaded water, but there was this one player in a kayak with 2 ride-along players who kept roaming around deliberately running into and over other players. XD Nobody said a word to us, and we didn't say anything to anybody either. After it was over and we got our essence, most players teleported away.

I opted to paddle to the nearest land a kilometer or two away, fall forest, where I found several wilds, including Mr. Mohawk! So, yeah, it was a very positive first essence anomaly party. =)