A very busy week, lots of orders coming in and things to do
A very busy week, lots of orders coming in and things to do. The weather is steadily getting colder, I will soon be using heat packs in my parcels. The post has been really reliable lately, I have had no delayed parcels reported to me for ages (if you don't count the parcel that I sent to Finland recently, goodness knows how but it was delivered to New Zealand and the poor guy is still trying to get it back!). I have sold quite a few of the spiders and bugs that I purchased from the AES show, so now I am ordering in lots of new stock, it should arrive over the next couple of weeks. I will then be well stocked for Christmas, which is approaching fast.
I was sent a beautiful book this week, at first I thought it was a competition win but then I realised that it was the new book from Dorling Kindersley and it had been sent to me as I provided a Jungle Nymph stick insect to be photographed. The book is called 'The Natural History Book'(the ultimate visual guide to everything on earth) and it certainly lives up to it's name. The photography is stunning and it seems to cover all the living animals and plants on this planet. My Jungle Nymph is on pages 278 and 279. I won't be stocking the book as it would cost a fortune to post!
I acquired quite a few larger tarantulas at the recent bug show and I have had lots of questions asked, such as, what size is the spider, sex, age, etc. I am always happy to measure a specific spider, I use body length because it is far more accurate than leg span. Some of the spiders came with a date of birth and it is really interesting to see how different species grow at completely different rates. Some spiders look large after only a year and others are still relatively small after several years. I haven't got a clue about the sex of most spiders until they mature and it is very difficult to know when a female spider is fully adult. A male tarantula usually has mating hooks and if not he 'just looks male' by having longer legs and often changing colour on his final moult. It is far more difficult to tell if a female tarantula is fully adult. I never have this problem with stick insects, grasshoppers, crickets etc. They develop wings on their final moult so it is immediately obvious that they are fully adult. If tarantulas had wings it would make it easy to see when they are adult but I think many people would have a problem with airborne tarantulas. My family have enough of a fit about Daddy Longlegs flying around!
I again realised this week (with the aid of a helpful customer) that I hadn't been selling a particular animal because it was blocked on the website. I do wish people would let me know if they are having problems placing an order. Since taking the block off of the Horse-Head grasshoppers I have almost sold out! I was wondering why on earth I hadn't sold any, the block had been on for weeks. I know it's my own fault, I had copied over information and forgotten that the original item was 'collection only'. Hopefully there are no more blocks on the site but if there are please let me know. I really do rely on people to let me know if something is wrong on the site. I only look at it when I am changing information so it is really easy to make a mistake such as miss-spell a word and it just remains there. I never see it as a moan when a mistake is pointed out, honestly I will be grateful! However, talking of moans I do wish some people would not expect their parcel to arrive the next day after ordering. During the week this may well be the case but most of my orders come in over the weekend and I cannot possibly get that number of orders out on a Monday. I need time to do the associated paperwork on the orders and get the animals sorted out for despatch, this always takes up a great deal of my weekend. Most people understand that I work alone but others seem to think Virginia Cheeseman is a company, not a person - I wish! If you could see my family's reaction to bugs you would soon realise that it's just me here.
Most of my customers are great, I get so many nice emails and very, very few complaints. I do appreciate it when people take the time to let me know that their order has arrived safe and well.