For some time now, I have been meaning to take a look at the website for our local stamp store, Simple Pleasures. Oddly enough, it was hard to find it using Google, so I hope this link will help.
Flower
I saw this on one of my walks during my California trip.
Google Features
Google Web Search Features is a quick reference to some of the more unusual Google web search features.
SwitchProxy
When browsing with Firefox, I use Privoxy as a proxy to avoid annoying popups and other intrusive advertising. However, there are some sites where privoxy interferes with the correct operation of the site, and it was a pain to have to drill down through Firefox’s menus to turn off the proxy.
SwitchProxy is an extension for Mozilla and Firefox that puts an additional toolbar on the browser so that one can switch between proxies or have no proxies at all. It also allows one to use a proxy that works as an anonymizer while browsing.
Garden room
My sister recently turned her patio into this garden room.
Malibu Beach
While I was in California, I drove across the Santa Monica mountains to Malibu Beach.
Hap goes home
From what I imagine is Hap’s point of view, I took him home to my trainer’s barn yesterday, after he spent five months with Rags and Smoke. The young woman who had a half lease on him last fall is leasing him again for the summer. In the ten years that I’ve owned him, he has spent less than a year at our place.
After we allowed him to work off some energy in the arena, we turned him out with his buddies in the gelding field. I’ve seen some horses quail under the curious attentions of a herd, but Hap seemed to enjoy the horses pressing up around him. There was remarkably little squealing and striking. It probably helped that Hap was the second most dominant horse when he left, and good friends with the dominant gelding, Havoc.
I always flinch a little when I turn a horse out with others for the first time after a break. I keep telling myself that it is good for their little psyches, but the rough and tumble can be very hard on their bodies.
Madeline
Madeline recognised me instantly from past visits: “She who takes small Australian Shepherds for walks.”
Hollyhock
I saw this eight foot high hollyhock in Encino during my trip.
Smokie
My mother and her cat, Smokie, are staying with us while we wait for their furniture to be delivered from Southern California. Smokie came through the trip on the airplane like a trooper: the first cat that I ever knew who headed for the food bowl as soon as she got out of the crate after a trip. Most seem to want to hide under the bed.
All the airline staff were cooing over her, and then grunting when they had to pick up the crate.