Daily Photo - More Spike

I just love the black background on his tank. His new one is going to be brown, so I'm going to miss this dramatic effect.

Daily Photo - Woo Hoo

Can you see what I'm so excited about? It's in the bottom right. I went out to take pics of some wild asters we have around the house and I wandered into my extremely overgrown garden. I picked some tomatoes that were almost ripe and noticed we had raspberries. Then I spotted a big piece of grass moving. At least 1 of my mantis survived, and it's huge. It also appears to be female and I'm just hoping there is a male hiding out there somewhere.

Daily Photo - Cage

I have 6 or so different grout related projects around my house. This one will be a replacement for my sand leopard gecko cage. The cave on the left fits a plastic container for a humid hide, and the one on the right is flat to the glass for a heat pad to be added. Right now it has two coats of grout on it. I'm going to add at least one more before I seal it. Another option is to add paint to make it look more realistic, but I'm not concerned with that yet, I like the grout color just fine.

Daily Photo - Crested Smile

It's a bit creepy with the giant eyes.

Daily Photo - Cross Spider Again

It's just such an impressive spider.

Stony Brook

I went outside, finally. I wandered around Stony Brook twice back in July, but it seems I didn't post anything about it. I went back yesterday hoping for dragonflies, no such luck. Curious chipmunk. More leaf veins. I'm a little nuts about the patterns in the fall. Cormorant. I had to switch lenses, and this is still a heavily cropped view. Surprise turtle, I spotted this guy trundling along under the duckweed. He was not happy spotting me, so I only got one photo. I have a few comparison pics now. Swans from the end of July. The babies were maybe 80% adult size. One of the babies now. They're the same size as the adults now. I noticed some bugs on the lily pads. They've been multiplying, and seem to like patterns. A fast google search didn't turn up much.

Daily Photo - Cross Spider I Think

I spotted this guy while pulling into my driveway. The web is about 18 in circumference, and about 5 feet off the ground. The spider is at eye level and it's huge. Fall is the easy time to spot spiders as they're hitting their maximum sizes.

Daily Photo - Crab Spider

Crab Spider on phlox. I became extremely lazy on gardening the last two months and decided that as September is already more than half over, I can ignore the huge amount of weeding that needs to be done, and handle it next spring, after all the annual weeds die.

Daily Photo - Spike

I had one chance to get this shot, and it mostly worked. I wish I'd gotten a little closer, but I didn't want him to think I might feed him. I promise to go outside tomorrow...

Daily Photo - Nails

Daily Photo - New Toy

Crappy picture, but this is my new easel. I was going to look for a used one, but there was a 50% off sale and this one was only $20 more than used. Now I just have to finish some reptile cages and re-configuring my second bedroom into a reptile room / workspace.

Daily Photo - Fall

Leaf Veins.

Daily Photo - Max

Max enjoying her new feeding platform.

Daily Photo - DVD Rack

My new DVD rack made from two new uprights and the gutted remains of my old DVD rack. I didn't even need to buy screws. The open space is for the rest of my DVDs which are presently in Minot. I moved some when I thought I was moving there. I hope to eventually redo my tv stand as well, so it uses space a bit more efficiently. When the uprights stop seeping sap I'm going to paint it two tone to match my living room.

Daily Photo - Spider

Spotted on my back porch.

Daily Photo - Ball Python

Daily Photo - Bee

Daily Photo - Kitty

Turns out the likely culprit of my continued computer problems is a dying motherboard... at least that is the idea that fits the best, as my monitor works fine hooked up to the laptop, and I keep getting errors when it would be accessing the motherboard rather than the hard drive. Then there is the whole not wanting to turn on thing, so I haven't been turning it off. My backup hard drive replacement is on its way so I'll be copying everything yet again then figuring out what to do about it. If I didn't know it will be picking the least opportune time to die I'd just wait until it does so and put in a new one.

Daily Photo - Moth

Visitor from a few nights ago.

Daily Photo - Cave

It looks better after just 1 layer of grout. Only like 3 more layers and then sealing to go...

Broadmoor

I took a jaunt around Broadmoor this afternoon. I remembered immediately why I don't hike on weekends. Too many people... and shrieking children. I did see dozens of these guys. Only one wanted to sit still. The trail around the wildlife pond is flooded and full of frogs. There was just one damselfly. I also saw one far off dragonfly, but nothing else but bees. There was some nice fungus too.

Daily Photo - Chubby

Turns out it's a girl. I think the name still fits.

Daily Photo - Also Making a Hide

It rained most of the day so I wasn't able to start playing with grout yet.

Daily Photo - Fake Tree

Not much improvement. I added two sides to keep critters from crawling behind it. I got a second can of great stuff to use as glue since I ran out of liquid nails yesterday. Hopefully I'll get to the grout tomorrow.

Ranty

So is there some reason stores think customers want to be individually greeted and asked if they need help at every turn. Are there really people who want that? I had the misfortune of going to a big box home improvement store today. I used to like shopping there. If you needed help you could find it, but you didn't feel stalked. I feel stalked now. I was asked no less than 7 times if I needed help finding anything. Did I look lost? By the seventh person I was getting a bit tired of saying no thank you. To make it worse they were having some kind of training event so management types were prowling and shouting out to every customer if they wanted help. No I don't. I want to browse, find my polystyrene, get some liquid nails and go home to build my weird reptile cage tree. I'm not stealing anything, so leave me alone. Maybe I should get a t-shirt made or something. "It's called browsing." perhaps? Maybe just "Go Away!" would be clearer. I blame the new G.U.E.S.T. approach to sales. It's a little creepy. Link to PDF explanation. I personally have never relied on a salesperson to tell me what to buy. It's their job to SELL things. I don't care if they're bubbly and confident, their goal is to separate me from my money. Thank you but no I don't have any interest in their recommendations and can do my own research.

Daily Photo - Experimenting

It looks a little like a volcano, but my goal is a rainforesty looking tree with those tall roots. Right now it is just polystyrene and expanding foam. It should be dry in a few hours and tomorrow I can try shaping some of the yellow down to tree bark rather than yellow lava. The cage is one I made over a year ago then got distracted about. I've read some more stuff about sealing vivariums so I'm ready to try again. I expect my older crested gecko will be the guinea pig for this cage when it's done. Mostly I've been browsing here: http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/habitat-pictures/ as most US reptile keepers go more toward easy to clean rather than pretty. I'm also fiddling with non-toxic clay to try to get the packed earth effect in my leo cage.