Watch your step

Felicity here, triumphantly reporting that we did end up getting those dumb netted gloves after all! Rainbow Chaser set complete! We just happened to get lucky in our final trades on the final day... or else Chaun took mercy on us.

We're in the heart of summer now, and before we could even catch our breath from the Rainbow Festival, Star Stable immediately rolled out Camp Western: 4 weeks of Western-themed activities centered around Starshine Ranch. Even though, as we've said, we prefer English-style riding, we've been getting into the spirit of things and decking out our character and equines in Western gear.

Sidenote: bugs continue with stable care tasks. As you can see, Clara wouldn't let go of the hay cluster, shovel, or hoof pick after using them. One night, we didn't bother to log off and log back on post-stable care, so Clara was holding all 3 the whole time we were playing, ha ha. The hay bug is fixed now, but the others currently remain.

Like with previous events, tokens can be earned to be spent on various clothing and tack items. This time, the offerings are Western and beachy items. 

Gold nuggets can also be collected as another form of currency.

You can mine boulders for multiple nuggets at once, and also collect lone nuggets floating randomly around the "wild" areas similar to HI3's essence.

Unlike with previous events, however, there are some major obstacles to completing many camp tasks. The areas surrounding Starshine Ranch and Firgrove are crawling with staggering numbers of brazen, relentlessly-prowling wolves. 

Usually they're alone, but sometimes they hang out in small clusters.

There is also an area with multiple brown bears lumbering around. 

Wolves and bears come in for the attack if you get too close and will give chase for what seems like ages (It's the longest 10? 15? seconds ever! A horse at full gallop can cover a lot of ground in that time...) 

If any wolf or bear gets close enough to touch your horse, your horse whisks you back to the relative safety of Starshine Ranch. (The screen goes black with a message about your horse fleeing back to the ranch, and then there you both are by the vet, unharmed.) I say "relative safety" because you're not even home free in certain areas of the ranch itself, thanks to a perpetually loose bull with very long horns.

These roaming beasts make this event more challenging, time-consuming, and stressful than previous ones (not that the previous ones have been cake walks, but this one just feels harder). We've had several meltdown moments over the past week, I'll admit. So much beast repellent sprayed, so many exceedingly inconvenient teleports back to Starshine Ranch... And yet we still keep doggedly heading back into beast country the next day and doing our best to learn from past missteps. 

Part of the problem is that we just don't have enough free time on weekdays to get everything that could be accomplished accomplished, which made the setbacks by the wolves (and bears and bull) that much more frustrating. Another major factor is the "find the missing [fill in the blank]" nature of many of the camp tasks. The searchable area is vast, with lots of things for wolves to be lurking just behind... Thank goodness we at least know how to rotate the camera to look around now. YouTube has also been a huge help, but it only goes so far with us: we're quite unfamiliar with the rocky topography and are somewhat directionally challenged besides. (We are slowly improving, though!)

5 "renegade chests" can be found and opened daily, but only if you've found or bought a key. 

(It's craptastic to find one, especially somewhere hard to get to, like the wolves' or bears' den, only to realize you don't have a key... We keep a better eye on that now.)

The renegades will not give us the time of day until we find and open 60 chests. At the rate we're going, it's going to be really close. Here's hoping we make it. 

4 ranch horses (always the same 4) and other various ranch animals can be found and guided back to the ranch daily. The ranch horses will only come with you if you feed them special grass bundles, however, which we also have learned the hard way.

the Arabian

the Quarter Horse 

(and Atlas, a ranch dog who also frequently runs off to hang with the bears or wolves)

the Paint Horse (and wandering donkey)

the Chincoteague Pony

a rare sight: all 4 escapees back in their pen

(Shortly after this screenshot, we discovered that the bull can still reach you in here, despite the fence. Maybe that's why the horses run off?)

Same goes for the occasional escaped chicken: they won't follow you unless you have organic chicken feed. 2 chicken pets can also be purchased with ridiculous amounts of gold nuggets. I think we're going to pass on that - nothing against chickens, but we prefer our terrier buddies.

On top of that, you can perform 3 chores, 2 sets of Western events in the arena (1 set solo, 1 set with an opponent), 3 cross country trainings through wolf-infested territory, 1 lunging session, and various other off the grid "find the [fill in the blank]" mini quests. You see now why it's easy to feel rather stressed an overwhelmed? XD

The lunging doesn't take long and is kind of fun, though:

There have been other highlights too. Like completing a cross country course while being pursued by multiple wolves (fortunately, this was tweaked a week in: wolves no longer chase you while you're running the courses), successfully sneaking in and out of the wolf and bear dens undetected,

and watching the terriers run with the wolves.

They pop out of the saddle bag as frequently as ever despite all the dangers.

Our favorite of the daily stable chores is when we get to herd several ranch horses to the lake to cool off. =)

Here's hoping Star Stable takes a break from these labor-intensive events after the 4 weeks are up, and that the wolves and bears are not permanent additions to Firgrove! We always breathe a little sigh of relief, and we think the horses do too, after we ride back across the bridge to beast-free territory.