May 1st 2014
It's been a whole month since I wrote my last blog. Was it too long? You tell me? I may compromise on writing the blog once a fortnight but every week was honestly taking too much time. I'm sure lots has happened in the last month, it's just a case of remembering it!
The open afternoon that I had in April was a success and I have another one planned for next week (see the pink information box for details). Several people came and each made a 20 minute appointment, although people are welcome to just turn up, on this occasion nobody did. It became clear that 20 minutes wasn't enough so I have changed the appointments to 30 minute slots. I hope to have regular open afternoons but it depends if people continue to come along. It is really nice to have a chat and meet some of my customers.
Lots of bugs are breeding at the moment, it is a lovely time of year. The Hissing cockroaches have recently reproduced for the first time this year, they give birth to live babies, about 20 at a time. My Kilimanjaro Baboon tarantula egg sac has hatched, the babies are still in the nymph stage but are just about to moult into 'proper' spiderlings. My Pumpkin Patch spider laid a surprise egg sac. I was showing her to a customer at the open afternoon when I realised that she was tightly gripping a white, fluffy egg sac. I think she had been carrying it for some time but it was hidden away so I didn't notice when I fed her each week. I think hatching is now imminent as she has webbed over her hide, this is generally a sign that the spiderlings are leaving the sac. I don't want to disturb her too much but I will probably take a peek at the weekend. I have several clearly pregnant scorpions and one of my Giant Black Asian forest scorpions has young on her back and another set of babies have just left their mother's back. I separated them from their mum yesterday as she may possibly get peckish and devour the young. I really like scorpions and hope to breed a lot more. Sadly they are nowhere near as popular as tarantulas but trends change. Perhaps they will be the creepy crawly pet of 2015?
I am really rather low on larger tarantulas at the moment but that will all be changing this month. I will be getting a lot of new tarantula stock during May so do keep checking my website regularly! Beetles are still going strong, I have bought in several new species since writing my last blog. I have some large larvae of the Rhinoceros beetle and plenty of fruit beetle larvae. Millipedes too are doing well and lots of them are also reproducing.
Having said all that April has been a really bad month for sales. I can only assume that the downturn has been due to Easter being later. Last year April was my busiest month of the year! You never can tell how things will go, I suppose it is like that in many jobs and is of course always a problem for self employed people. I think many people went away over the Easter holidays this year. Hopefully May will be a bumper month. I certainly have plenty of bugs and beasties for sale.
I was talking to a lady from the Practical Reptile magazine yesterday and she was saying how she had enjoyed reading my website before calling me to discuss advertising. She said that she doesn't know a lot about bugs but she had thoroughly enjoyed looking at the site. It was nice to hear. I subscribe to the magazine and this month there is an article on scorpions. I read it this morning and the guy who wrote the article now lives in Africa and does motorbike tours out there for reptile/bug enthusiasts. Sounds great, I don't much like motorbikes but my hubby loves them and it could be a way to get him out bug hunting (he really doesn't like bugs at all). After reading an article in the last BTS (British Tarantula Society) journal, I decided that Surinam was the place for me. The article was great and all about the spiders and other creatures that the guys had encountered on their trip, the photos were lovely. I then suggested it would be a great place to go on holiday, to which my hubby replied "have a good time then". We have now booked a summer holiday to Cyprus. A nice safe place but we are staying in the main wildlife area of the island so there will be plenty of bug/snake hunting going on as well as sun bathing.
I had an email from Butterfly World in Florida a few days ago. They were requesting some net butterfly cages from me. It really took me back as I haven't supplied them or made any cages for several years now. At one time making a range of net cages was a large part of my job and we even had a bedroom turned over to their production but sadly the price of raw materials went up and it was no longer viable to continue.
Anyway another bank holiday on Monday, more disruption to the postal service so I won't be able to post anything until next Tuesday (I really don't like bank holidays) but if you are doing something nice I hope it goes well and the sun shines.
Please do let me know if you think the blog is ok monthly or you would prefer it fortnightly. It would be really helpful to get some feedback, thanks.