A Pony, a Mule, and a Panda Imposter

Winter has been making up for lost time here in the Mitten. It's been too cold and snowy to spend much time outside, so thank goodness for HI3 and an escape into the virtual outdoors.

Right after Bethany published our last post, we found this pony:

He's not that remarkable in appearance, other than having abnormally long legs, and his genetic stat total is only in the 600's. Why am I showing him to you, then?

Because for such a little guy, he has a huge jump! He's tied with another volcanic wild pony (an ornery bay mare named Robin Hood) for highest jump power of any wild we've lassoed. 

Even though he's 14.1 hands, he has a very light build and weighs about a pound less than 12.1 hand Pizza! Pepsi looks awkward on him, no denying it. But, with such a great personality and cute markings, my sisters were of course more than ready to overlook it. *Sighs.* He's lucky they like him so much, because he managed to injure himself after approximately 5 seconds of being ridden on the bumpy terrain of a fjord cliff village. *Rolls eyes.* 

"Dixie Delight" (ugh, we really need to think of new name) isn't the only new small fry hanging out with the herd. We welcomed our first ever mule foal to the HI3 world!

We have so many horses now that they have gone onto a second page. Whoa!

It's a filly!

Her genetic stats are unfortunately lower than either of her parents.

Speed and agility are definitely not going to be her strong suits, but we were pleasantly surprised by her personality! 4 cheers for 100% bravery! Here are some screenshots of Pepsi posing with the little newborn:

It really is fantastic how much she truly looks like a cross between her two parents. Well done, HI3 genetics system!

As you can see from the above and below, mother and daughter finally have names chosen by us. "Wolf" is now Moonrise, due to her large oval star. We are calling the foal Nightingale. It started out as a bit of a joke, actually, since the noise mules make on HI3 couldn't be farther from a sweet bird call, but it stuck. XD

She is now a year old and has already grown quite a bit! Based on her birth height of 8 hands, she's predicted to mature to about 13.1 - 13.2 hands. So, big enough to ride, but firmly in pony territory. Hopefully by being half draftie, she's bulk up enough that we won't feel bad about riding her. =)

Not long after Nightingale's birth, we found this bamboo wild that was trying somewhat to camouflage as a big panda. We weren't fooled, but we were intrigued by her coloring. The sooty is so patchy and extreme - we've never seen another quite like her!

Her performance metrics aren't bad despite her low genetic stat total. Talk about the polar opposite of Nightingale in the bravery department, though!

Unfortunately, we don't have a post-lasso screenshot of her in her lasso site, because lassoing her put us over our max number of horses at the time. For the record, though, it was near Valhalla Village (and an actual panda.)

We've shortened her name to "Waffle," since she does resemble a charred waffle with whipped cream.

She doesn't rock the no-mane look nearly as well as Maral does, so Bethany took her to the hair stylist. Wouldn't you know it, if you pick the 3-tone standing mane and make the first section black, it matched up decently with her spotting pattern.

So, to sum up, Nightingale is in our clutches for good, whatever size she ends up. I fear "Dixie Delight" and Waffle are too, since we've already dumped virtual money into vet bills, fake hair, and infinitum amulets, but who knows? We're lassoing more wilds than ever before now, thanks to horsie sense, so we'll see if they get any more competition before the end of February.