Bugs in my back yard.

I love bugs, I like taking photos, put the two together, what do you get ?

An adelescent mantis gives me the evil eye while lurking on a small solar cell.

A robber fly sits in wait for prey on.. well. I have dogs.

The robber fly moves to a slightly more photogenic location.

Little jumping spider, part of the family Salticadae, traversing the threads of a towel. My favorite arachnid.

A wolfspider crouches on the porch, look closely you can see one of her young.

Captured wolfspider; our house was sprayed with pesticides, I dropped her off on the neighbors wall.

All these photos will probably be on my site dhymers.com soon,
with the exception of the robber fly on dog poo. Probably.

Greenery

Greenery from the inside, 1 of 2 tables. Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Lemon trees, Grapefruit trees. And Cacti.

Baby Lemon Trees. Need more pots. These will likely become Christmas presents.

ignore this. its silly.

Read it. (click that link, then click on the title of the .pdf to load)

Depression

It hits us at funny times, and for funny reasons but depression is definitely not funny.
I am depressed for several different reasons.

1. Being double house poor and having to choose between paying for a house that wont sell, or short-selling it, feeling guilty and ruining my wife’s credit (the original owner)

2. Not having any money to do the things that I feel scream for my attention. Building fences and finally getting around to planting some of the stuff I’m growing in the ground.
My electric Go-Kart project, this is a healthy fantasy.
A much larger PV system (20 to 1200watts, an upgrade of 1980watts, and a difference of around $9300

3. Electric cars vs reality. Now I know that I don’t have the capital to build one yet, that’s not my problem, what is my problem is the 40-50 year timespan its taken us to realize that we need electric cars DESPERATELY and the realization that the driving public is being controlled and lied to by the likes of GM.

The technology the bankruptcy dodging “Government Motors” is trotting out in their new Volt has been developed into healthy incarnations since the 70’s and many smart people know this. Heck GM knows this, just look up the EV1, the poster child for tortured EV drivers everywhere who know that we took the wrong fork in the road at the junction of destiny.

4. Directly related to reason number 3: Every day I see trucks and SUV’s on the freeway I drive to work occupied by only 1 person and doing an average of 10mph over the posted speed limit. This literally reaches the pit of my soul and takes a huge bite out of it. “You really don’t give a shit do you ?”
These people have been conditioned to believe that they know best, they live in the best country on Earth and they drive the best and greatest machine money can buy and they can drive them however they godamn please. How dumb can we be ? the answer lies all over this great Earth in showrooms, on freeways and television screens. That dumb.

There is a guy in my neighborhood who actually spent his hard earned cash on a Tahoe Hybrid. Good job buddy, you’re definitely doing your part !

I really want to type a set of very nasty words here, but I’ll go outside and yell them at the heavens instead. I’m sure the neighbors will love that.

Bright spot: Hopefully this fall I am going to take a weekend course for a month on photovoltaic installation, maybe I’ll meet a few people with brains.

Sell your Television.

Put down the cellphone and talk.
Get out of your car and walk.
Run from the market and farm.
Don’t shop, build & make.
Talk to your children & thier teachers.
Recycle your waste. Don’t waste what you cant.
Consider your impact.
Consider your perspective.
Consider the unorthodox.
Be prepared.
Be sustainable.
Be educated.

Just don’t be an idiot.

Well, this may have been a little hipocritical of me. I just bought a used TV, so now I have 3
It’s a 1986 Mitsubishi 40″ projection TV, for $40 its a riot.
200 watts, as it has a large speaker cabinate. I can power it with solar no problems including a diddy 20 watt DVD player
Just ripe for Netflix nights.
Speaking of solar. I have a quote to aim for. $8 a watt for a tile roof mounted system, 1200 watts to qualify for our local utility company’s grid tie requirements. $9600+tax Whoo.
Save the pennies.

Cordless phone saves trouble.

A couple of days ago a guy came into my place of work and asked to use the phone. He said he had been rudely treated at a store down the street; asked to get his nigger ass out. Well, ok we’re not going to ask why that happend, sure you can use our phone. We gave him our cordless phone and he sat at the counter and made two calls and left. Not before asking if we knew what time the other store down the stree closed up, I said I don’t know, about 5-5:30. Whatever.

Well, a few minutes go by and the store owner from down the street came in and started asking if we’d seen a rude black man. We said we had, but he wasn’t exactly rude to us. We heard her story about how they let him use thier office phone, and he sat there for 45 minutes making calls, interrupted a sale of thiers apparently, and when asked to leave he got very abusive. It probably got a lot worse from there.

Anyway, it suddenly hit me a while ago that we had a much better experience with the guy for 2 reasons. We didn’t LET him take advantage of our kindness, and the soul reason; you can stay behind that counter and use our cordless phone from in the back.
We didn’t invite him to use a phone behind the counter and potentially interrupt the running of our business.

Now, would the situation have been different if he came into our store first ? yeah, it probably would. He would have sat at our counter with a cordless phone making calls for 45 minutes, probably pretty annoying, but it wouldn’t have impacted our buisiness much. He was pretty quiet for the 2 calls he made from our phone.

Technology. It saves a lot of f*cking hassle. Love it.

Crazy birds.

So, for my birthday a bunch of us went to Rooster Cogburns Ostrich Ranch. It was a great laugh and I recommend that eveybody go, oh, and definately take the monster truck tour of thier ranch grounds; WELL worth it, especially for the Ostrich Fishin’!

Feeding Frenzy!

I recommend feeding the Rainbow Lorikeets also. But beware, they will land on your head, and help themselves to the little tubs of nectar you can buy; they have become incredibly adept at opening the things themselves.

Bathtime.

If you can't get the cap off the nectar you're in trouble!

Operation Northwoods

Google it. Read the history. Be afraid, be pretty damn afraid of all governments.

Goodbye girl.

Brook, as Megan affectionately named her, was with us from May 15th to May 31st. Today we made the tough decision to let her pass on. (or as we tearfully refer to it: Set her free)

This little dog with a big heart didn’t have a chance. My theory is that she was bred for breeding, cute as a puppy, used as a momma dog and then kicked to the kurb to turn up unwashed, uncollared and unloved at animal control. Where she most likely contracted the distemper that almost 95% of cases, are fatal.

Docile, and enjoying a good petting

When the end came, she couldn’t stand and when she did manage, she fell and had uncontrollable tremours. What hurt the most though is that she was fully concious, she knew we where there, her tail would wag and she would look directly at us. Thats why we prefer to refer to euthenasia as setting a dog free. Thier mind knows thier body has almost all but given up.

Thats the tough part, how do you know when ? when is the right time ? In cases of distemper, as I am now painfully aware, pretty much any time is the right time.
As soon as the syringe was empty, her little body finally stopped convulsing; we knew she was finally at peace.

I look at my other dogs and feel such luck and thanks and only wish that Brook could have joined us all and shared in our love.
I feel such sorrow; I actually apologised to her; let down by almost everybody she came into contact with. Even I feel personally responsible; she came to our house and we tried to help, did we do all the right things ? when she refused food, should we have just tried harder ? It tears you up inside.
Goodbye Brook, I am so sorry you had to leave us this way.

Oh Sh*t

A couple of weeks ago, me and Megan brought another dog into our lives. We saved her from being put to sleep at Pima County Animal Control Center. She had a cold, we nursed her, gained her confidence and got her to walk confidently and go to the bathroom.

In the last couple of days she grew weak and stopped eating, got wobbly on her legs and as the latest vet visit confirmed, she lost 5lbs We’re pretty sure its distemper, and there is a high probablility she won’t make it.
I hate to think that we saved this animal from one cruel fate, only for her to suffer another.

I think we took a great risk, not only to our own animals, who have been pretty good about it. But also risk to our emotional state, for the dog, but also our emotional feelings towards the world. If you get entangled in the cruel realities of the world and all of its nasty, horrific, seemingly unsolvable problems you end up hating that world with hellatious vigor.

And we do, we HATE the world for what it has done to this animal and countless other thousands, we HATE the world for its indifference to suffering, waste, pollution and at times we HATE ourselves for being complicit in its machinations.