Archie, Slinky, and Pricey Chickens

Mom's birthday last Saturday was taste of mid summer in mid May: 80's and sunny. It was so warm that she did not do anything outside other than a morning walk, during which she was already grateful for every bit of shade.

She had an awesome day of relaxing (Saturday birthdays are the best!) and then celebrating with the fam. For the record, here are her gifts pre opening:

And post opening:

This Memorial Day weekend has been much more spring-like weather-wise, which is ok by me. No need to rush headlong into premature summer the way Star Stable has this year, ha ha.

Speaking of rushing headlong, Magicmirror made up for lost time and now has earned not one but two championship ribbons! Both were due to us just hanging in there and making it through the courses (yay for tiny pools of entrants!), but they are ribbons nevertheless. =)

First ribbon ever from the Baroness's Championship! 

It even happened to match the color scheme we were going for that day.

We might have gotten better than third in this Firgrove Championship had we not somehow missed the final checkpoint and having to circle back for it. Oops. At least we didn't accidentally go through it the wrong way and get disqualified yards before the finish line. That really would've stunk.

Snowsecret was Clara's mount on Mom's birthday. Before heading out to Starshine Ranch, they pulled off a win in a small Moorland Championship. Great job, Snowy! <3

Why the trek out to Starshine Ranch? Because Camp Western came early this year, kicking off on May 15 instead of in July like last year. The timing is puzzling to us, since we thought Camp Western was a summer camp, and we're earning summer tokens. Um, Star Stable, this entire event is taking place in spring, and kids are still in school. You do realize that, right?

Along with Camp Western came the rollout of a new horse breed, the American Saddlebred! Loads of them have been prancing around the Starshine Ranch area with their proud new owners, bedecked in western tack. 

My favorites, naturally, are the pintos, but they're all quite nice.

It's not my favorite breed in real life - they've always given me showoff vibes - but I'd say Star Stable did a pretty good job with them. 

Camp Western itself seems very similar to last year, but happily, the pets you can earn are different. There is also one new set of western gear that can be purchased with those summer tokens. (Aw, man. This seems to be the year of the salmon.)

The beasties are back again, of course. 

The wolf population seems to have decreased somewhat from last year, but there are still more than enough prowling around to keep us on our toes.

Thanks to YouTubers who are faithfully posting daily video guides of wandering horse and renegade chest locations, we're finding those without much trouble. 

Returning to the corral with all the wandering horses in tow

Some of the more interesting chest locations:

by that gravestone again

behind some random blue storage boxes in a little valley (still wonder how the boxes got here)

in a wolf cave

Like last year, the most desirable chest with a key inside is somewhere in the wolf den area every single day. *Sighs*

The number of daily tasks you can complete for summer tokens has been dramatically reduced this year. You can still return wandering farm animals, participate in training races, and lunge your horse, but they only give shillings and horsey experience, not tokens. There are still 3 varying daily ranch chores that reward with tokens, though, and they are the same ones as last year.

leading a hesitant foal in circles in a paddock

shearing sheep while avoiding the bull

(we had to do this one every day for about a week straight)

herding ranch horses to the beach to cool off

(the bull came at us right after this screenshot was taken...)

filling a water trough with this small, sometimes slightly levitating bucket

Magic?

making various trips to pick up or drop off items

We've herded many a farm animal for shillings anyway and haven't had any issues with them getting stuck.

The most time-consuming task we're facing is collecting gold nuggets. It will take a whopping 6666 gold nuggets to take home both of the new chickens, Penny (black) and Henrietta (gold).

We whack at most rocks we come across and veer out of our way to snag many floating lone nuggets, but  they're not adding up as quickly as we'd hoped. Will we manage to collect enough before the event ends on June 5? We'll sure try!

Again, thanks to the YouTube guides, we jumped through the necessary hoops to take home the other two free pets, Archie the terrier and Slinky the cat, without any major issues. 

Yay! I think they're every bit as cute as Atlas and Kerfuffle from last year. =)

And finally, the most exciting part of this post for me, is that a 1-week horse bazaar is currently going on! From left to right, we have the Lusitano, the Welsh Pony, the Shire, and the Irish Cob all on sale!  None of these are particularly western, but whatever.

The player on the Thoroughbred was still standing there when we eventually signed out, probably either trying to decide on a horse or a name. We feel you, fellow player.

The first 2 don't tempt us much, nor does the Shire since we already have one (Magicmirror.) However, we've had our eye on the Irish Cob ever since our first visit to Valedale. One of these three pintos in particular:

the palomino sabino

the black tobiano

the seal brown tobiano

We're all on board with taking home one as our 9th horse, even Lily. (How could you not love these guys?!) Which one will we choose, though, and what will we name her? Bethany will let you know in our next post!