Settling into Summer

Summer has arrived! It really has felt like it today too, thanks to a glorious early sunrise and abundant warmth and sunshine. It was a cool and wet spring here, so it's refreshing to have some more summer-like weather settling in. 

Now that we're well into June and haven't caught any horses with stats even close to +80, I finally conceded that Sandstorm and Mr. Devoted Disciple can stay permanently. M.D.D. has even been named. Meet Widget!

He was so named because one of the definitions of a widget is "a small mechanical device, as a knob or switch, especially one whose name is not known or cannot be recalled." (Thank you, Dictionary.com.) It seemed fitting for a sleek, solid black horse who was nameless for such a long time.

Here is Sandstorm modeling his tack: 

It's fun to have a curly-eared horse! We've gotten so used to calling him Sandstorm, the name we quickly picked out to replace the weird one he came with, that he may as well remain Sandstorm.

We named our new RHD mare "Kite" because she carries her tail high and because we really wanted to use one of the current rump arts for sale. Here she is!

I'm not sure this is the best color combo for her, though... Hmm, I'm sure she won't mind trying on other tack colors until we make up our minds.

And now, just for fun, here are some interesting things we've encountered during the last few weeks of spring on HI2.

PepsiSummer got stranded on Timbuktoo Isle again. This time it was Bethany and Promise who lucked out.

They found adventure gear!

Apparently geriatric travelers occasionally end up in Timbuktoo too.

Felicity and Cheeto fluted an overo APH on Brown Isle! This is the one APH spotting pattern that is still sadly lacking in our herd. Would this finally be the stunner who would complete our APH collection? 

Alas, he was not. Drat that negative intelligence stat! This would've been a much bigger blow to Felicity if she didn't have her beloved Focaccia to console her. 

She's a blue roan tovero. <3

The disappointing overo APH was not the only cool pinto we've recently caught on Brown Isle. Bethany and Krypton fluted one too, this time a tobiano Waler.

His personality is so fun that we may retire him to our Millennium Fields. We also think it's cool that his eel stripe is visible. =)

My last horse of note is this pale stallion that I, of all people, noticed was up for adoption.

How sad that somebody surrendered their first +6/6 horse, especially one as handsome as this guy!

I didn't tell my sisters - or Vega - about him for obvious reasons. He wasn't there when Bethany was livery stalking later, so I hope that means he found a home.

Vega, my +6/6 fluted Furioso <3

Spring Hodgepodge

Spring sure is flying by! June is already upon us, and Mother Nature has been ringing it in with multiple rounds of thunderstorms. 

I rung in the new month with some livery stalking! No, we have not been able to part with Sandstorm or Mr. Devoted Disciple. (M.D.D. really needs a real name, poor guy.) In anticipation of keeping one or both, I've been looking only at the mares in the livery. Aren't I so helpful? Check out this beauty I found this afternoon!

Whoa, +93! I sure didn't have to twist Lily's arm for approval to adopt her. =)

Flaxen chestnuts are so pretty! <3

She's the same height as Julie's Racking Horse mare, Xia.

Yoshi, my Racking Horse stallion, is an inch shorter than them both. XD

Now we have a tobiano RH, a sabino RH, and a solid-colored RH. What great variety!

That's the end of our HI2 news for the moment, but before we totally move on from May, let's backtrack again to Mom's birthday and take a look at her gifts.

As you can see, they included:

- a hairbrush. Talk about thrilling! XD

- audiobooks. They make long drives much more enjoyable.

- fun socks: 3 pairs with birds on them that came in an awesome sock box and a pair with horses on them

- horse and dog towels (because why have boring bath towels when you can have fun beach towels instead?)

- barnyard-themed puzzle

- Christopher Robin DVD (We all really like this one for obvious reasons.)

- 3 classic-sized Breyer horses and 2 riders. Mom loves all of these horse molds.

We dolls got new pants!

They fit us alright and are very comfortable. They vary a bit in length, though, and all of them are awkwardly short. Oh well, capris are great for this time of year. XD

Here we are each trying out a pair:

I will leave you with snapshots of what we were watching while we were sitting on that couch.

The show is Longmire, usually a pretty serious fictitious series about a Wyoming sheriff who investigates murder cases. (Felicity's choice, not mine, but there are often nice horses in it.) Closed captions were on so we don't miss any indistinct dialogue, and we just happened to pause it at these particular places.

Mmm, canned sandwich.

Ha ha, I feel this way about all coffee.

That's it for now! Happy June, everybody!

April Showers Bring...

Happy birthday, Mom! Saturday birthdays are the best!

Here are some photos we snuck off her phone that illustrate why May in Michigan is such an awesome month. 

First, some shots from the yard:

the weeping cherry tree in full floral glory

creeping myrtle

wild violets

New growth on the evergreens. Baby needles are so soft!

velvety baby sassafras leaves emerge already in their 3 distinct shapes

their tiny flowers aren't nearly as impressive as the weeping cherry's, but they still have them!

And now for a few forest photos from last weekend. Here is the group - minus Mom, obviously.

They were looking for morel mushrooms, which I'm told are pretty good when fried in butter. No luck with the morels, though they did find a cluster of what her uncle referred to as "beef steak" mushrooms (also apparently tasty), so it wasn't a totally fruitless venture.

They also encountered some interesting plant life:

unknown plant that looks like a cross between a calla lily and a pitcher plant

moss growing tons of sporophytes (the brown stalky things)

pleasantly round mossy mound

moss growing in a glass bottle

little white flowers

Not an egg, don't worry.
They found this mushroom cap (not a morel) that had been picked and turned upside down.
I didn't know they looked like this inside!

A colony of mayapple plants. They remind me of little umbrellas. =)

Easter Birthday Recap

My birthday, which fell on Easter Sunday for the first time ever for me, turned out to be a great one. The weather was spectacular, so my sisters and I spent most of the day outside in the backyard. As long as I stayed out of full shade, I was quite comfortable in our new coconut t-shirt and jeans. =)

We all were foolishly hopeful two snow dumps ago that we were done for the season, but no. Last Saturday night, April 27, it snowed again. Big, clumpy, wet flakes that melted by morning, but snowflakes nevertheless. This past week was chilly, cloudy, and often rainy, but at least (dare I say it?) the meteorologists aren't predicting any more snow this spring.

Needless to say, we've been staying away from the snowy isles on HI2. 20-Karat and I travelled to Windy Pines at the end of my birthday to flute my birthday wild horse.

Before we got to that, we found this:

And then this:

I was thinking, man, too bad that he wasn't my birthday flute. I'd really have had a shot at winning the best looking and coolest avatar categories with him!

I shouldn't have worried. I headed over to the kittens and catmint to flute my wild, and the wild cooperatively appeared right where I'd hoped. =^)

Wow! I think this horse may sweep the competition in all categories this year! Super handsome, solid stats, and a pretty great persona. I like my chances. =)

Here's a less obstructed view of that great avatar:

As you've probably figured out from above, my sisters and I still want to have our birthday wild competition this year even though Mom doesn't have a 2019 page-a-day horse calendar. She does have a small 12-month horse calendar by her desk, though, so we figured we'll use that for the calendar-horse-to-try-to-match category.

Here is the April horse:

Well, the facial markings are similar. Both horses are gold, pale gold, and white too! (They just have those colors in different places.)

Also, just for fun, here is my birthday dog on Mom's page-a-day calendar. What a cutie! 

Maybe we should add a category for dog that would coordinate best with our fluted horse? Mine would both be very athletic and have white patches...

In other news, we actually happened to notice last night when sign ups were open briefly for HI3! (For anyone who somehow doesn't already know, a new 3D Horse Isle game called "HI3: Infinite Wilds" is currently being developed and will eventually be launched. Some players have been allowed to sign up to test it out at various times.) We did not try to sign up, since we have Macs, which are not currently supported, but we did claim "PepsiSummer" as our future HI3 player name. We're nervous that our Macs won't ever be able to handle HI3 even when HI3 becomes compatible with Mac. (We gave up trying to figure out how to get Star Stable to work, and it is also a 3D thing that has to be downloaded...)

Oh well, only time will tell. For now, we're still quite happy on HI2.