Pandapie

On Memorial Day, Clara rode over to the horse bazaar to bring home a big, fluffy Irish Cob mare! As you probably figured out from the title, it was the black tobiano we could not resist. It's the classic color for the breed, and you can't ever go wrong with a classic. We also love that she has heterochromia, or eyes of different colors: her left is brown, and her right it blue.

The inspiration for her name came from scrolling through various lists of Star Stable horse name suggestions online. The particular player who mentioned "Pandapie" said it was a randomly-generated name that was too out there for them, so we don't feel any guilt taking it for our own.

We think of it more as a combination of panda and piebald (an equestrian term for a black and white pinto), not of panda and pie the dessert, but I suppose it could also be a new name for an oreo-themed pie.

Aw! <3

We thought ahead and had a set of tack waiting in Clara's "backpack," so the first ride was not bareback and bridle-less like usual.

Here are Clara and Pandapie sporting the new salmon-themed Western set... minus the pants (don't love them) and saddle blanket (doesn't fit Panda). It's a bit darker and pinker than the salmon Equestrian Festival set, which makes it more flattering on pale Clara. Yay!

It took us until this weekend to collect sufficient gold nuggets, but we are finally the proud owners of the two new chickens!

Henrietta

Penny

(Is it just me, or would it have made way more sense for their names to be reversed?)

We also earned an unexpected fifth free pet during Camp Western! Meet Hoppalong Cassidy the jackalope!

All we had to do was complete a short quest line and successfully catch him in the new jackalope race. The catching part was easier said than done, largely thanks to the fancy graphics being too much for Milton (our laptop) to handle well. It got so slow and jerky we thought the game might crash, but fortunately, we made it through. How fun to have a jackalope! He's going to come out way more often than the butt-scratching mini yeti. =) 

Pandapie has been Clara's exclusive mount over the last week so that she can benefit from all the extra horsey experience points. The other equines are fine with this, since each already spent at least one day experiencing Camp Western and its scary beasties this year. She should be close to fully trained by the end of the event!

important delivery coming through!

Levitating gold boulder! We could not mine this one, obviously. XD

Pandapie's turn to play pied piper.

Come along, everybody!

black and white cool off party!

how messy this would be afterwards for a feathered horse in real life!

Check it out, other Irish Cob! Panda's made it to level 13!

It's kind of sad that all this one ever gets to do is stand there wearing a harness.

Levitating poo!

Levitating pony!

Don't worry: the pony didn't get stuck

We've seen a few other presumably new Irish Cobs out and about, though the Shire seems to have been the more popular choice. The Shire is larger, but Star Stable's Irish Cobs are pretty huge in their own right.

Thanks for all the pets and fun memories, Camp Western!