Royal Mail Postal Strikes

It seems no time since I wrote the last blog entry but it is a whole week. Everything is going well, no thanks to Royal Mail, I'm not sure what is happening about postal strikes. I keep hearing news of strikes on the radio but I couldn't find any information on the Royal Mail web site. I thought there was a strike today but I'm not too sure now. I didn't post any livestock yesterday just in case. I do think that Special Delivery gets priority treatment, parcels generally arrive the next day whatever is going on. I have sent quite a few orders to Europe over the last month or so. I use a service called Airsure. It seems to work really well, parcels almost always take only two days to arrive and there have been no fatalities reported so that's good news. I was thinking of giving up on posting to Europe after a series of 'time waters' but things have certainly picked up since then.

I have been having a major sort out and tidy up in my bug house this week, partly because I have an open afternoon tomorrow but also because it really needed it! I tipped out a huge bag of old tubs (that I use for posting bugs in) and finally sorted out the ones with lids and those without. A tub without a lid really isn't much use so I have finally thrown them out. I also cleared the floor and then mopped it. Quite a few boxes are still out on the veranda so I need to put them back in place today. There are loads of those leggy little spiders in my bug house, they hide under the shelves and make a real mess. I don't know what they are called but I could do with something that eats them. In my old bug house I had geckos out loose but when I moved house and put up the log cabin sadly my geckos died. It was really horrible and I didn't know why at first. It turned out that the walls had been treated and as geckos lick moisture from surfaces they had been poisoned. I have never let any geckos out since but I do wonder if the treatment has worn off by now. The bug house has been up for five years. It's tricky because I certainly don't want to harm any geckos. I was searching for some stick insects that escaped recently and came across one of my baby Crested geckos (he had escaped because I had accidentally left a vent open). I'm not sure how long he had been out but I certainly think it was days rather than hours and he was fine.

Another pest in my bug house is the Surinam cockroach. I have been trying to eradicate these for at least two years but they keep popping up again. I have found them at the bottom of my mixed stick insect cage. They are living in the substrate but goodness knows what they are feeding on (I hope it's not stick insect eggs). I have been trying to pick them out but they burrow quickly and are dark brown, so very well camouflaged.

I have lots of new baby tarantulas arriving today (hopefully!) so I had better get on with sorting out homes for them. I have printed all the labels but I can't be sure of their sizes until they arrive so I haven't sorted out their food yet. There should be about twenty species, some I already have but most are new species not currently on my site. I will try and get them loaded onto the site later today. I decided not get more Chile scorpions this week as they are not selling as well as anticipated and I have enough to care for right now.

Last but not least, how did I end up with such a wimpy daughter? She went ballistic yesterday when she found two maggots in the fridge. Ok, I should have put them in my bug house fridge but I was tired when I got in from shopping and thought they would be fine in there until the morning (maggots make great food for spiders and mantids and will last for weeks if kept cool). I don't know how they broke out of their 'secure' box but honestly there were only TWO. Yes, I have cleaned the fridge and my dog happily ate anything that was open in there (I checked there was no sign of any maggots). My hubby was really good but he has been working such long hours this week that I just don't think he could be bothered to join in.