Free Republic

Amid the charred landscape of Little Tujunga Canyon Road in Sylmar on Wednesday stood the remains of Rancho Padilla and the carcasses of nearly 30 horses who died in the fast-moving Creek fire. The Padilla family was there Wednesday morning, surveying the smoldering ranch that their father built more than 20 years ago. They somberly counted up the dead horses, whose charred bodies lined dozens of stalls. The family, who lives up the hill from the ranch, had awakened Tuesday to flames. One firetruck came and told them to leave. “All I could think about was the horses, the horses,...

I went out to my garden by the barn and heard splashing in the horse tank. I saw movement and ran to see what the heck was going on when an exhausted squirrel rose up and tried desperately to claw her way out of the metal tank. She couldn't and was swimming in circles. I grabbed a hoe and after a few failed attempts, got her out. I was afraid to touch her with my hands because of fleas and potential disease. She finally used her teeth to bite the edge of the hoe and I was able to lift...

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. -George Orwell Steven Spielberg, the man who had to redesign his stable because it was going to block his neighbors' views of the ocean, he is enough of an elitist to not let his neighbors ruin his grandiose plans; he just dozed the top of his little Sullivan Canyon hill and built the stable where the top of the hill once was. Elitists can work around the will of the people; it's logical in their minds, since they are the will of the people. Now, where...

Firstborn is getting married! So yesterday I visit the venues, she wants to be married on a farm with a barn. What do I see at the venue I prefer? In the office, a Sarah Palin bobblehead hung in effigy. Can anyone suggest a farm/venue between Winston and Durham? I would like to patronize a conservative.

OUESTION: Home Design Software Aug 29, 2011 Is there a computer software program that lets you: 1. First take item's size or dimensions and label them and save them, (stove, couch, sink, etc.) as a movable item. 2. Place them on a design sheet, and move them around by mouse movement. 3. Define space between items, and be able to change it later. 4. After you get satisfied with your layout of items, then design walls around those items, and design you home, yard, or whatever you are planning to build, in that order, and be able to make changes...

Four women, accused of flashing bar patrons at "The Barn," in Sanford, were arrested after attending a "Girls Gone Wild" party on Thursday. Of the over one-thousand attendees, Joyce Lourcey, of Middleburg, Kathryn Giannobile, of Sanford, Christine Goncalves and Migdalia Rodriguez, both of Deltona, were hauled-off in handcuffs for indecent exposure. “Sanford had a strict nudity law and anyone that violated it with any type of flashing would be arrested,” said Cleo Cohen from the Sanford Police Department. Nudity is strictly prohibited in Sanford. "The Barn" owner, Eric Tims, posted signs about the town ordinance, but despite that, the women...

SNIPPET: "The fundamental truth is that Hamas' road to Iran runs through the international Muslim Brotherhood, and has for two decades. What is often missing in the discussion of the Muslim Brotherhood is that Hamas, according to its own founding charter, is an integral and armed part of the Ikwhan, not separate from it."

Tons of pictures at the link: http://www.geenstijl.nl/paginas/mirror/20070215-pritt-mazda/index.html

MILFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- Residents in Oakland County, Mich., near the site of the search for Jimmy Hoffa are having a little bit of fun with it. Milford Township businesses are selling T-shirts, special salads, and even baked goods. FBI agents looking for Hoffa should check the Milford Baking Co. The bakery has a hot seller with its Jimmy Hoffa cupcakes.

The farmer in the dell takes a wife, but the cheese stands alone. Some rural folks identify more with the cheese than the farmer. For those people, Jerry Miller has an answer: FarmersOnly.com, a dating Web site meant specifically for “sincere, down-to-earth people who respect and cherish the rural lifestyle.” The Beachwood, Ohio, man runs an advertising agency that works for agribusinesses. A divorced female farmer sparked his idea for FarmersOnly.com. A stab at online dating frustrated the farmer because she met urbanites who couldn’t relate to her long hours and laborious work. “She was afraid she was never going...

Davenport’s battered barn to stay just that Sierra Club court victory ends plan for wine and cheese shopBy GENEVIEVE BOOKWALTERSENTINEL STAFF WRITERDAVENPORT — David Luers had a dream: Buy the dilapidated barn off Highway 1, demolish it and build a wine and cheese shop he’d run with his wife. Santa Cruz County officials approved the plan, as did the state Coastal Commission.But nine years after buying the abandoned structure at Highway 1, Old Coast Road and Davenport Avenue, Luers is living in Idaho, where he’s running a gift shop and wondering how he can unload the property.Earlier this month, a...

Howell schools tries to sell barn on eBay, get $15 offer 12/7/2004, 7:21 a.m. ET The Associated Press HOWELL, Mich. (AP) — The Howell Public Schools have a large red barn on the site of a planned high school and want to sell it. So officials listed it on eBay and got a top bid of $15.50. The 75-year-old dairy barn is in Livingston County's Marion Township. The district first contacted barn restorers and preservationists but failed to find someone willing to take the barn. Bidding started at $1 and ended Monday. School officials said they also have received several...

A story of insanity and suicide lies at the heart of the mountain retreat of the would-be President THE next time that John Kerry visits his $4.9 million winter retreat in the Rocky Mountains, he would do well to dust off an old certificate boasting about the building’s illustrious history. A framed scroll of parchment written in stilted medieval English reveals that the exclusive hideaway he shares with his wife in Ketchum, Idaho, is a dream American vacation home with a difference: it spent most of its 500 years on a farm in East Anglia. Locals in the village of...

Ancient artwork or modern hoax? Geologist tries to crack mystery of stone faces WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) They've been overlooked as useless oddities for decades flat-backed stones with sunken eye sockets and gaping mouths carved into them stowed in bowling ball bags, left in barns or fashioned into candle holders by those who found them in the woods of central Massachusetts. Now in the hands of retired state geologist Joseph Sinnott, the five stone faces found in Sturbridge and Southbridge are getting the attention of archaeologists and antiquity researchers throughout New England who are wondering whether they were sculpted by American...