Hap
Today, Hap did something that I have only once or twice observed before in our eleven years together. While he was rolling in the sand of the arena, he rolled completely over and did the other side. He has the sharp, high withers typical of many Thoroughbreds, and I have always supposed that they get in the way of turning completely over. However, the arena was damp and very soft after the precipitation a few days ago, and Hap had picked a deep area for his roll.
Usually, I turn him loose to roll, so I don’t have to follow him around for five minutes while he picks his place, but there were people handling other horses in the arena. Hap is very particular about where he rolls. He is even slow when he is at liberty to pick a place, but seems to spend far longer when he is on a lead rope. Perhaps he enjoys leading me for a change.
At least, in his comparatively sober old age, he no longer springs up from his roll ready to buck and bolt. In his early years, he was so explosive after he rolled that I wouldn’t let him do it if there was anyone else in the arena.
Smoky
Smoky likes it when I visit my mother, because she can lay on my jacket. Jack and I were there for a while yesterday, while Jack installed a storm door, and I did some more maintenance on my mother’s computer.
Firefox
Friday, I installed Firefox on my mother’s PC, after spending some time installing and running a virus checker and spyware checkers. Her subscription to Norton just expired, so I downloaded AVG Anti-Virus for her. There were no reported viruses, but Spybot and Ad-Aware sure found a lot to complain about.
After that, I installed Firefox 1.0, and walked her through some of its features. She has a rather slow machine on a slow dial-up, and Firefox seems faster to both of us. Just the pop-up blocking ought to save her some download time.
I like the line in the review of Firefox that I found in the Washington Post: Internet Explorer, you’re fired. For even more reasons: Why Switch?
Snow Fog
A mix of light snow showers and ice fog has left everything rimmed with white and crystal, with no significant accumulation.
Monument Creek
On the way out of the valley today, a long train stopped me on the bridge over Monument Creek. Since there was no other vehicle around, I got out of my car and took some photos. One can tell that this shot faces south because of the snow on the north facing sides of the bluffs in the background.
Sacred Ordinary
My friend celebrates her weblog’s first birthday at Sacred Ordinary
Never too old…
An Australia Shepherd provides evidence one is never too old in my sister’s weblog Slice of Life.
Google and Firefox
A CNET article called Google star of Firefox’s new browser discusses the use of a Google home page in the newly released Firefox 1.0. (This post is a test of the JustBlogIt extension.)
WordPress 1.3
Last night I upgraded to the beta version of WordPress 1.3. I broke plugin handling in the process, but decided to press on with 1.3 rather than back it out. Yes, the look has changed a bit: I am trying to make Five Acres work better in terminal with low resolutions by paring away some of the frills.