A Mysterious Lucky Find

This Saturday, we're in a low spot on our roller coaster ride of the winter to spring transition: it's currently 18 degrees with a thin layer of snow on the ground. It also ranks super low on our scale of Saturday awesomeness because we lose an hour overnight. The transition from EST to daylight saving time sucks.

Last Saturday, March 5, was drastically different. It ranked way higher on the scale of Saturday awesomeness. Not only because it made it into the 60's here for the first time in months (kind of freaky, but we rolled with it), but also because we lassoed our first lucky find of 2022!

Can you guess which of these wild horses was the lucky find?

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

Have you made your guess?

Are you sure?

Alright!

The answer is G.! (All of the others were cool grades we caught in February and early March.)

Since we already have a Capricorn in the herd, we immediately changed his name to Pisces to minimize any confusion. ;^)

He has a rather low genetic stat total for a lucky find, and he's not an especially agile guy for a warmblood either.

He's also skittish, so despite his appearance, I don't think he will be bummed out that we rarely compete. We were so relieved that he isn't ornery enough to buck! 

Here is Pepsi riding him for the first time:

We really like the stage of grey he is in, with those faint dapples on his hind end, so he also received an infinitum amulet on his lasso date. We're guessing he has 2 copies of the grey gene, because he is only 6.6 years old and already very pale. 

Because it's super cute, here's what he looked like as a "sooty ebony black" newborn:

And here he is as a 4-year-old. (Not a particularly attractive stage in the greying process.)

The expert labeled him "Westphalian Horse," but he doesn't really look like one of those. 

We've seen other players talk about re-identifying horses that come up as "Westphalian" in the past, so we suspected this guy was actually something else. 

We looked through all the breeds mentioned in the "Allowed Purebreeding" list on the Westphalian Horse page next, but none of these were a great fit either.

Stumped, we re-identified him under "Best main breed match (Skip sub breeds)" and... *drumroll* Orlov Trotter came up. That's definitely not what we were expecting, but it explains why he is not a fantastic jumper...

Mystery solved, but I wish we had just left it alone. Talk about incredibly unfortunate timing... 

It is fun how much he looks like Tchaikovsky and Tesseract, our HI2 Orlovs, though:

This post has plenty of white, in honor of this being our last post of official winter. We're now going to add in some green and orange in honor of St. Patrick's Day coming up next week. Enjoy these fun shots of Mom's chia pet's progress. 

Here's the photo on the box:

And here's what we actually got:

You're only supposed to spread seeds on the inside of the pod, but the recommended quantity on the instructions ended up being way more than would fit, so Mom ended up covering the whole pod... and still had too many.

Sadly, the seeds she put on Grogu's head did not sprout. (Too dry up there, apparently, despite twice daily misting.) Not that you could really tell after awhile, as he ended up totally hidden by the foliage anyway. It's not looking so great now - starting to grow some mold - so guess it's time to start over and try just seeding the proper areas. XD)

Winter Wilds

Greeting from Mom's warm, cozy bedroom. It is still definitely winter out there, but at least we're almost through with February, which for me is tied with January as my least favorite month of the year. Felicity thinks January's worse because it's darker and 3 (sometimes 2) days longer. She has a fair point, but I feel like winter is still sort of new and exciting in January - early January, anyway. By February you're just weary of it all and ready for spring, but spring is still a ways off. This particular February has been better than most, though, since we had the winter Olympics to watch. 

We've not gone near much snow on HI3 lately. (It's a nice change of pace to see scenery that is not white, even if it is virtual.) Our latest noteworthy wilds are therefore not huge, snowy mountain dwellers, though we do definitely want one of those in the herd someday!

Noteworthy wild #1 is from a biome we have not frequented very often, sandstone.

Aw, I love his shading and that tiny star!

Wow, buddy, what long legs you have!

At least they translate into some decent speed! His personality is quite nice too.

I think he sort of looks like a Thoroughbred crossed with a light carriage horse? Very unique, at any rate.

Noteworthy wild #2 is from the rainforest near our ranch, like so many are. =^)

Not the best post-lasso screenshot - our apologies.

I am not sure how he qualifies as a Grade Warm-blooded Horse, but ok, HI3. We got pretty excited for this one, because his genetic stat total was over 1000, which does not happen often (to us, anyway.) Also because he has cool sabino markings and cute splayed ears.

Everything was looking great until... nooooo! Orneriness strikes again. 

Of course, on our little joyride here he was on his best behavior and didn't buck once. We didn't keep him, though - we knew better. Daddy Long Legs could breathe a sigh of relief.

Our third and final noteworthy wild is from a volcanic biome. It was 2/22/22. We were so busy all day long that we ended up having to sacrifice a little sleep in order to log onto HI3, but we figured it would be a waste not to catch a single wild on such a cool date.

Fortunately, we didn't have to ride too far from where we were (Fairy Tail Village) to come across a wild. (Thanks, horsie sense.) Lo and behold, it was actually a pretty nice one!

Her genetic stat total is rather sad, but despite that she jumps and turns well, and she's no slowpoke either.

Too bad she's skittish!

We love duns, we don't have any solid red duns in the herd yet, and her lasso date is as fun as it gets, so it's going to be pretty hard to part with her. What do you say, Lily? It only seems right to keep 2 horses in 2/22...

Bog Beauties

 ...And it's February! It looks and feels like it outside, though we were spared from the worst of the latest winter storm.

We've officially welcomed "Scooby Dooby Doo" - now shortened to just Scooby - into our herd. <3

He has been our mount today as we've delivered mail and lassoed any clunky taiga wilds we come across. =)

Last night we rode "Mystic Dream," the fancy wonderland wild from December who has been renamed Slushy. 

One of those taiga wilds had an above-average genetic stat total:

I don't know that I'd go so far as "gorgeous," ha ha, but her coloring is lovely. That's certainly some unique conformation, though! XD

Cute, definitely, but she's no Teatime. She moved on to the trader with the other taiga wilds.

Some of those other taiga wilds have been pretty cool too! Here are my 3 favorites:

Isn't her mane beautiful?

Not exactly a "LilPony" (15.2 hands, over 1600 lbs) but really cute!

Wow, now this coloring deserves a "gorgeous!"

Bummer that none of these guys had high stats or a great personality to get us to overlook their slowness!

That's it for recent HI3 news. Alas, real life has been too busy for much time on the game. One bright spot, however, was this package that recently arrived for Mom:

It would not exactly take a rocket scientist to figure out what's inside...

To Mom's dismay, some of the little Audubon plush songbirds that have been on her wishlist for a while are no longer available on Amazon, so Mom has been doing some online searching for the remaining ones. No luck with the downy woodpecker yet, but success with the eastern bluebird! As you can see, this seller was pretty awesome: it takes a special person to bother to decorate the box with bluebird stickers. =) 

We waited until today to open it, and we're probably not going to be able to get rid of the box. Maybe we can think of some other use for it, since it is a good doll-sized box.

The moment of truth! (And aww, there were even stickers inside! <3)

I soo want to see a real eastern bluebird sometime! They live in Michigan - all of the songbirds in our collection so far are ones that include our state in their range - but most of what we see around here are robins, sparrows, and mourning doves, with the occasional cardinal, chickadee, or blue jay. We (well, I anyway) get really excited when we see something different, like a pileated woodpecker or northern flicker. 

Here we are with Mom's 3 newest birds... and the cardinal who is not new but seemed appropriate to be in a February photo. Lily's with the northern mockingbird Mom got for Christmas, and the bird on my lap is the house finch, one Mom bought herself in January because the price was low.

I think it's time to cut off those goofy loops, guys. We don't plan to hang them from their heads. Right now they are all nestled in a box together. One or two get to come out every Monday to hang out in Mom's home office for the week and add a little joy to the proceedings. (End of the workday on Friday = bird call of celebration. Mom's weird like that. XD)