In a post last week, I wrote about riding Hap bareback. Here is a photo my trainer took of us today while we trotted around her in a circle:
I would like to be a little more erect and have my leg dropped down straighter out of the hip, but I love how relaxed and round Hap looks in this photo.
For those who have been curious about the TypePad beta, the TypePad weblog will be describing some of the features this week:
Starting today, we’ll begin presenting some in-depth information about TypePad, including detailed descriptions of major features, additional screenshots and a number of ideas that inspired our development of the service. We’ll conclude this week with a full feature list, pricing chart and information about TypePad’s upcoming launch.
HTTrack Website Copier is an open source website mirroring utility. I am using it to mirror my typepad site locally on my PC. With the weblog software I developed myself, I keep a local copy of my writings on my PC, and use my website host as the mirror. I dislike not having a local copy of anything that I write, and HTTrack allows me to create a local, browsable copy of my weblog.
One feature that I like about HTTrack is that it allows me to write a batch script to control the download, but also has a GUI front end available.
I was woken by the coyotes’ singing last night. We don’t hear them very often here in our valley: those we see seem to be passing through.
Continue reading Coyote
Time has a review of the movie about the legendary Sea Biscuit. I want to read the book before I see the movie so I better get busy.
I had to run an errand this morning in downtown Colorado Springs, and just happened to pass by the Farmers Market held in Monument Park on Thursday mornings. Once my errand was complete, I stopped by and picked up tomatoes, green beans, and corn. Since I bought too much for me and Jack to eat in a few days, I gave some of each to my trainer. I have to restrain myself at Farmers’ Markets, because I can end up with more produce than we can eat, even with my trainer’s assistance. It all looks so good.
I won’t eat tomatoes most of the year, but in season I like them when they are home grown or from a farmers market. I had one tonight with a quick quesadilla, and it was a B plus. (Non seasonal ones from the supermarket are usually a D minus.) I am looking forward to the green beans. I don’t like frozen green beans very much, but I have discovered that fresh ones cooked in the steamer are quite acceptable.
It was too hot to ride this afternoon: I already felt drained by running errands in the heat. Even with the air conditioning in the car I was tired. Instead, I brought Lily and Hap into the barn, groomed them, did a little ground based clicker training with them, and applied fresh fly spray. It was 88F in the barn, which means it was much hotter outside in the sun.
Although I like to take dramatic photos of the sky, I hope I never take one quite as dramatic as this one from Astronomy Picture of the Day: 2003 July 22.
One of the frustrations of beta testing is that I can’t talk about the latest cool new thing in TypePad, which I am using right now. I found out about it in the Changelog notes.
I took this photo of Smoke and dogs fence fighting last November.
I rode Lily yesterday morning, but it seemed too hot to ride by the afternoon, so I decided to ride Hap with his bareback pad. As always, he was wonderful.
When I bought the bareback pad several years ago, before I bought Lily, I didn’t plan on using it for Hap. I thought it would be a nice thing to have here at home, so when nieces and nephews came out I could put the pad on Smoke and let them ride him in the round pen.
Continue reading Bareback riding
A storm moved through about 4:30 and the temperatures dropped about twenty degrees Fahrenheit as it did so. It feels heavenly. There was a little hail mixed with the rain, but not large enough to cause damage. I hope I can get the house cooled down before bedtime. Last night, when Jack got home past mid-night, it was still 78F inside, despite the floor fan and open windows. We are starting to discuss getting a whole house fan before next summer, though the low pitch of the roof might make it tricky. Fortunately, Jack’s sister is a mechanical engineer who specializes in environmental systems for buildings, so we ought to be able to pump her for information.
Jack is spending most of his time this weekend at XIV-Khan, a local Science Fiction / Gaming Convention. He is promoting and trying to sell memberships to Cosine, a new science fiction convention to be held January 16, 2004 in Colorado Springs. This con is being sponsored by the science club to which we belong, and we feel honored that Barbara Hambly has consented to be our guest of honor.
Enlivened by the moderate temperatures, the dogs are fence-fighting with Smoke. Smoke is a 26 year old Quarter Horse gelding. You would think he would have more sense than to tease large predators. However, he seems to delight in driving the dogs into a screaming frenzy. He trots up and down the fence line, egging them on, and will sometimes gallop, buck and rear as well. For the sake of our peace, and that of the neighbors, we had to block off one end of the dog run, so there is a buffer zone most of the time between Smoke and the dogs. However, the new field shares one long stretch of fence with the dog run, and I have been letting the horses out most of the day the past few days. The grass is no longer so rich that I worry about Rags foundering. (Smoke no longer eats enough grass for me to worry.)
Continue reading Smoke