A less eventful week thank goodness

A less eventful week thank goodness. The electricity problems have been sorted, hopefully there will be no more power cuts. The weather has been mild this week, very wet and windy but thankfully not too cold. The garden certainly seems to think that Spring is just around the corner, many bulb plants are flowering and there are buds appearing everywhere. I have also seen a few brave moths and ladybirds. Our puppy Teddi is allowed out today as it is one week since her final inoculation so hopefully she can run off some energy and stop wrecking the house. I think she should be renamed 'Slipper' as she is always on my foot, I only have to sit at my desk or stand in the kitchen and she settles on my feet.

Things in the bug house are going well. My Trinidad Olive egg sac hatched, there were lots of little babies running around the box when it came to feeding day this week. Actually there weren't that many, they are quite large spiderlings for the size of the adult spider. I spent time yesterday potting them up individually and I also sorted some of the Barking Birdeater spiderlings. They are more difficult to sort as the spiderlings build tunnels in the peat, they don't sit on the surface or hide under egg trays like most do.

I am still busy in the bug house sorting out the new stock that I purchased at the show a couple of weeks ago. Some of the spiders were not in a great condition and have been put in my 'hospital ward' for special attention. It is not always easy to see what you are buying at a show. They are very crowded and there is nowhere to put everything down and really sort through it. I have several spiders with damaged or missing legs. With plenty of TLC and time most should recover but it can be a long process. Some spiders only moult once a year and it can take two moults for a leg to fully grow back. At least I didn't purchase any 'pots of dust' this time. A couple of years ago I bought several species of spiderlings from a trader at a show, only to discover when I got home that the spiderlings were no more due to complete desiccation. It does irritate me when people think that I just buy stock in and sell it out. There is a lot more to it, after a show I obviously need to house, feed and label the new animals but then I need to enter everything that I have purchased onto my stock lists and then again enter it all onto my website. I can only type with one finger so believe me it takes ages! I wish I had learnt to type properly, I'm too set in my ways now and I do actually type quite fast with my one finger. Some animals will sell quickly but others may be with me for a very long time indeed and sometimes for their entire life.

I am finding my postal bills huge these days and unfortunately I have had to put up the European rate this week. I send most parcels by Airsure and was charging £10, the rate is now set at £12 because I found that almost all my overseas parcels were costing over £10 and then there is the cost of the box and heat pack. I decided on Monday that I could no longer hold the price when a parcel to Ireland came to over £16. I am trying to keep the UK postage at £8.00 but it isn't easy. I have been trying to source a cheaper supplier of heat packs and think I have found one that is slightly less pricey. Up until last year I had a friend who imported fish and sold me heat packs at cost, this meant that they were pennies rather than pounds. Royal Mail will of course be increasing postage in April as usual. I may need to look at increasing prices for next winter. I have toyed with the idea of charging a separate summer and winter rate. During the summer my parcels are cheaper, I can use smaller boxes, less packaging, no heat pack (each one weighs about 80g).

Lastly for this week but very exciting for me - I finally have a working doorbell in my bug house! We have spent a fortune and tried everything over the years but still the various bells would at best work intermittently. The cordless bells could not cope with the range, even with boosters in place, my hubby ran a cable down the garden but again the distance was a problem. When he did get a bell working it hummed loudly both in the bug house and in my office indoors. I couldn't stand the constant hum and I didn't think it was good for the bugs. Finally he worked it out with transformers, transmitters or trans-somethings and it now works. Joking apart it has been a huge problem. My poor neighbour has had to take in a multitude of parcels for me or I have been stuck indoors listening for the bell when I really need to be outside working. People calling to pick up orders ended up having to ring my mobile because I couldn't hear them at the door. It would be great if we had rear access to the bug house but the only way to do that would be to cut across my neighbour's garden.