Busy, busy, Spring is on the way

Busy, busy, Spring is on the way. Thankfully business has really picked up and I have plenty of orders. After those appalling winter months I am extremely pleased. All is going well in the bug house and I discovered yesterday they I have some baby Giant Orange Blush millipedes. I am really delighted as these millipedes are new to the hobby, they only came into the country at the end of last year (I had never seen them before and neither had the importer). They are a large, attractive species so I am very pleased to have bred them. Millipedes are pretty popular at the moment and I have been making a real effort to breed as many species as possible. My African Olive millipedes are breeding well but unfortunately I still haven't managed to get hold of any Giant Train millipedes. I have also seen what appear to be larvae in my Tok-Tokie beetle box. I will have a proper look when I feed them today. Sadly, although I am constantly asked for beetles, it is clear from my website statistics that people do not want to pay more than a few pounds for them. I love beetles but I obviously need to breed them in order to make a profit. I am now selling the Tok-Tokie beetles for little more than I paid for them, as they have not sold. In contrast the fruit beetles that I have bred myself and can therefore sell at a very reasonable price are constantly selling out. I have to be careful not to let too many go as I need to maintain my breeding stock. I have also been selling beetle larvae that I obtained from a French breeder, these too have almost sold out. There are several problems with imported adult beetles. Sometimes they can look perfect but die quickly, others will last for months, some are impossible to breed and some of the most beautiful metallic beetles eat only exotic plants. Each year the brightly coloured Rainbow Frog beetles are imported but never seem to live for more than a few days or if lucky weeks. They are imported within cocoons but once hatched I gather they need to feed on a vine that is not available in this country.

I have run very low on cardboard boxes over the last couple of weeks. I did order some new ones but they needed to be made up and have taken a lot longer than anticipated. I am assured that they will be with me today (not convinced though). I really hope so because I am scrounging boxes wherever I go, the supermarket, garden centre, cafe, basically anywhere that I see a small box.

Some of you may have noticed that I have once again given up on the idea of people visiting my bug house. It just doesn't work! When I wrote a list of 'rules' nobody came, when I removed the rules chaos ensued. I just don't have the time to make myself available and people not turn up or just come to look. I have regular customers who ring up and pop in which is fine and of course everyone is welcome to call and collect an order that they have placed in advance. I think I will just have to leave it and if someone wants to call they will ask and I will see what I can do. It was so much easier before I had the current automated website. I used to print my lists off and take them out to the bug house but now stock numbers and prices change continually and there are far too many pages to print out. I cannot possibly remember all the prices, the laptop never works properly out in the bug house (or is it me?). With the bugs at the bottom of the garden and my office indoors it is pretty impossible and sometimes awkward when the family are around, not to mention our hyperactive dog. I'm not saying that people can't call but it has to be on an individual basis and Saturdays probably weren't the best days either, weekdays seem to be better for most people as they often want to pop in when in the area.

I'm glad the weather has warmed up, my office gets freezing and with the cat and dog constantly around my feet as I work at my desk, I had to give up using my lovely warm plug in heater. The cat brushed against it and ended up with a lot of singed fur, she was fine but it stank and panicked me. I think Teddi would just go up in flames with all her fur. Over the last few days our garden has been taken over by frogs. I love them but there are far too many, I doubt if anyone else around here has a pond and we have four. I spent ages fishing out clumps of spawn from our large pond yesterday. I put the spawn in one of my wildlife ponds at the end of the garden but I noticed just now that there are at least another four clumps laid and I have nowhere to put it. The large pond has huge goldfish in it (hubby loves them) and they will eat all the tadpoles. I know it is nature and I can't do much about it but if anyone lives locally and would like some, feel free to give me a call. I gave away some last year, it is easy to just scoop out the spawn, I hate the idea of all those 'future frogs' being gobbled up. There are once again Blue Tits in our bird box (camera connected to my computer), they have started to build a nest, so are coming and going throughout the day. My hubby wants to move my office into our spare room at the front of the house. He wants to knock down the wall of my current office and extend his workshop. I would like him to have a nice workshop, he enjoys wood work and making things but I love my office. It is decorated to my tastes and looks out onto the garden and all the birds. Perhaps I could get used to looking out onto the front garden but I don't think it would be the same. My office looks a right state I know but everything is where I like it and the walls are covered with kids pictures and little things that my customers have sent me. I hate change, not sure what to do?

We did have our anniversary break in Brighton last week (hence no blog last Friday) but let's just say that things didn't go to plan and it wasn't as relaxing as it might have been!

I have yet again been looking at sexing tarantulas. I cannot believe how many people claim to know the sex of their spiders when it appears to be so difficult to do. Even if I crack it, I cannot imagine offering sexed spiders as it is so complicated, you need a moulted skin, magnifying glass and lots of time. I would like to breed more spiders so I will just have to persevere. I have some lovely adult/sub-adult spiders at the moment.

Off out to the bug house now, I collected bramble yesterday and it's sitting in a bucket of water just waiting to be fed to the stick insects. Less than a month until Spring now, I cannot wait for the plants to start growing again. The recent snow has left the bramble looking very tatty.