More bugs and the Mechanic

I know that I have shown a picture of the whip spider before, but here is another one. These non-dangerous spiders just fascinate me. The one below is a small one and as long as it stays outside, I am fine with it. They eat tons of bugs without the need for a web and are pretty fast when they want to be.

As Rick and I were gathering some firewood, I noticed these blue, spotted bugs on a dead tree trunk. I have never noticed them before, but I think they are pretty cool looking. I think my picture taking was getting in the way of the piggy-back ride the female bug was giving to the male bug....haha. The other green bug shown is some kind of leaf bug. If it was not on our porch and had been on a plant, I doubt we would have noticed him.

Fungus is not good to have around a farm, but this one looked like coral and was only found on some damp, dead wood that we had not picked up yet. I guess we will have to work a little faster on picking up some of the old dead wood around the property. It is not like there is 10 years worth of it lying around...oh yeah, there is! 

Okay, time for the update on my small repairs for my car...sigh.
I bought a car knowing there were a few issues, one being the hood release. The old cable had broke and a mechanic had modified a wire release on the outside of the car until the correct part was ordered. In the meantime, the car was purchased by me. The seller had already paid for the new part and told me which mechanic had ordered it for them. I was to take the car in and pay $15 to have the mechanic install the new release cable. No problem....!
Problem 1: Mechanic kept pushing the date out further for him to repair it.
Problem 2: Mechanic did not show up to any of the finally scheduled appointments.
Problem 3: Original owner, who paid for the part has now left the country, so they could not put pressure on the mechanic for their money back.

After the mechanic once again did not have time to install the part, I offered to just pick it up and have my husband install it. The mechanic jumped at this idea. I should have known then that there was something wrong.

After we picked up the part, we realized the mechanic had given us a used release cable that was much smaller than what we needed and it went to a car that was not even a Honda! All in all, the cable is worthless to us, it cannot be modified to work properly and since I was not the one that paid for the part, there is no getting money back on a used part this mechanic found somewhere....ugh!

These are the times that I miss the big box stores and Amazon shopping the most. If we would have known, I could have ordered the part 4 weeks ago and saved ourselves the trouble of calling, going to the no-show scheduled appointments and all the frustration. 

Now, I am on to Plan #2. I just ordered the part from Amazon and it was cheaper than what the car's original owners had paid that mechanic.