All be worth it in the end
It will all be worth it in the end, or so I keep telling myself! It has been another very busy week, I don't think we could have picked a worse time of the year to move everything. Since Easter I have been inundated with work, mountains of emails and orders and a multitude of new stock coming in. I received a huge amount of new spiders, scorpions, beetles, millipedes and various other bugs last weekend. I still haven't entered them all onto the website as I need to take photos and write descriptions, I really cannot find the time. Yesterday I received my long awaited order of 50 Giant Train millipedes, they are amazing creatures and by far the most popular pet millipede. Their size makes them truly unique and they also tend to rummage around on the surface rather than just burrow away as most millipedes do. They certainly eat! They prefer fruit and vegetables instead of the usual leaf litter. I always provide them with leaf litter though and deep substrate on the bottom of the cage, they appreciate some of my 'cockroach mix', they seem to especially like the dried cat biscuits.
Among the new stock that came in last weekend were some Tail-less Whip scorpions, they are fantastic creatures (well I think so, my hubby hates them). I already had a nice big Exo Terre tank set up in preparation for them and they are doing well. Unfortunately I only received ten, I was expecting twenty so if you think they are very expensive, that's why, I don't actually want to sell them. I would much rather keep them and try to breed. I have bred them before and the babies are just so cute. Talking of babies I sorted out my 'mated' spiders and found that my pretty Ornamental Baboon tarantula was surrounded by little spiderlings. A nice Spring surprise (I think it may be Spring now, no icy mornings for the last few days). My New Mexican and Cameroon Baboon spiders are still guarding their egg sacs. I don't think it will be long until they hatch. Sadly my Vietnam Earth Tiger appears to have eaten her egg sac, there was no sign of it in the tank. I'm assuming she didn't like the move into the new bug room?
I know the new bug room will be an improvement but it is still chaos at the moment. Feeding all the larger tarantulas was a two day job this week, it was just so complicated as everything is in a different place. The shelving is not perfect but once we got it assembled there was no way we were moving it out again. We originally had it laid out with the shelving in rows but I soon realised that I couldn't work like that, there just wasn't enough room between the shelves. It is better laid out now but there is so little space compared to my old bug house at the bottom of the garden. My hubby is now working out there in preparation for moving all his stuff. He is still flat out on his days off, today he is laying a new floor. The painting is finished so we should be able to move all his things out of the living room, dining room, bedrooms - most of the house really. I still don't know what to do with the things that had to come out of my office. Our home is a complete mess, we cannot wait to get it all sorted.
Certainly there are huge improvements from the move. I am just popping in and out of the bug room and getting far more done. It is so easy to check on stock and send a quick email to someone on the spot. I must admit that the constant noise of crickets in the next room is rather irritating when I am on the computer and trying to concentrate. I am not one of those people who likes a background noise. When I am concentrating I like peace and quiet. I'm still not totally convinced that my daughter was actually revising effectively for exams when there was music blasting out of her bedroom.
I had my first visitor to the new bug room this week. I am planning on having visitors but I will need to get straight before I actually advertise that fact. There is not enough room to go back to having open afternoons. I think it will be by invitation only and I will need to know what the caller is interested in as I will need to get the items out in advance. I do have a few people who ring me when they are in the area and pop in on the day. These people are mostly interested in tarantulas and it works out well. It is easy to get a few tarantulas out (well I say that, as I mentioned earlier I am still getting used to where everything is). Things will get easier I know but right at the moment I feel swamped.
I intend to concentrate on the animals that I have now, rather buying in any new stock for the next couple of weeks. It is stupid to take on more when I cannot cope with what I have. I'm not neglecting the animals, I am just not getting much more than the animal care done. I get so many emails on a daily basis that they seem to monopolise my time. I need to sort out the pile of paperwork sitting on my desk this weekend!
I love the fact that the new bug room is so clean. I was forever cleaning the old bug house but it was full of spider webs (spiders that had come in on the bramble and bred like crazy in the warm) and escaped cockroaches. I haven't seen any Pallid cockroaches in the new room, hopefully I will never see one again, I have been trying to eradicate them for years. The room is painted white for maximum visibility, the floor is totally sealed and cream coloured (too light really but it was cheap, well cheaper).
I need to speak to my website guy today. I really don't think I can hold off a postal rise any longer. I charge £8.00 UK and £12.00 Europe, I think I will have to put it up to £8.50 and £13.50. I realised this week just how much the postage has risen. My three European parcels sent on Monday cost £13.68, £10.20 and £15.42, the average was £13.10 and each had a heat pack in there and of course there is also the price of the box and packaging materials. Most of my UK parcels are fairly light but the mid range postal charge is now £8.25 and between 1-2 kg is £11 (£3.00 more than I charge). The heat packs and larger boxes with more insulation have cost a fortune over the very long winter. I am really hoping that next week will see me sending out the first orders of the year without a heat pack, fingers crossed. Even if I put the postage up by £1.00 now (99p!), I think I will still need to charge for heat packs next winter. I just cannot afford to lose customers, I am busy now but the latter part of last year was absolutely terrible (hence the down-sizing). I know times are tough for everyone so let me say again, I really appreciate all my customers and every order that is placed!
