Running out of time...
Running out of time, this will have to be a short blog entry and I have so much to say! We were completely snowed in for a few days, the hills to reach our village were treacherous so the only day that I managed to send off any orders was yesterday. I am therefore very behind and having my nephew's children on a Thursday afternoon and the tarantula show coming up this weekend has not helped the situation. My husband had a couple of days off this week and has been powering on in the workshop, in preparation for moving the bugs. The kitchen fitter came out and moved the washing machine from the workshop yesterday afternoon. It wasn't the best time with the kids here, we were trapped in the living room as the kitchen/dining room were covered in tools for all the re-plumbing work.
This morning I have a guy coming over to bring me his collection of tarantulas. He is moving house and cannot take them with him. It is sad to hear how many people seem to be giving up their collections due to changing circumstances. I took on another collection before Christmas and only yesterday I was asked to make an offer on a customer's collection as he too is giving up keeping spiders. Obviously I am more than happy to take most of them as they have generally been very well looked after and there are some stunning adult females amongst them. I rarely know the sex of my spiders but I'm sure some males will be maturing soon so it would be great to breed some.
I have a very large number of tarantulas now but not that many actual spiderlings. I will be focussing on buying in smaller spiders at the exhibition. I must not get carried away as everything that I buy now, that doesn't sell immediately, will have to be moved into the new bug house. The way things are going it may not be as far off as I thought. Mind you there is still a lot of decorating, sealing the room (cricket and cockroach proofing) and there is the electrics to sort. I have an amazing number of electric sockets in my current bug house and there are very few in the workshop. The sockets are mainly on a central thermostat which works very well with all the heat mats. At least if I do need to go around turning everything off when it is warmer, the bugs will be a lot closer. I can also leave a door open as it leads to an outside walkway on our property, rather than directly to the street. Oh it is exciting thinking about the move, it is going to save me so much time. I am very happy with my life (still very upset about my cat) but I never have enough time!
I have a shopping list, as ever for the tarantula show and I will try to stick to it. I hope there will be some other bugs available to buy. I would like to get more millipede and beetle species if possible. I was on the brink of not going yesterday as I really do have so many other things to do and as hubby has taken the day off work for the show, he could have just carried on with the workshop. However it is good to see and chat to other bug people, among them a lot of my customers. My husband's aunt lives five minutes from the show venue so it will give my mother in-law a few hours to spend with her sister. She is going in for yet another operation next week so it will be nice for her to get out for the day. I need to get some new stock just to pay for the petrol, it will cost about £60 to get there and back.
Hopefully the snow will disappear as predicted over the weekend. Rain is due here on Sunday, it isn't often that I look forward to rain but digging bramble out of the snow for the stick insects was beyond a joke this week. Not least because most of it dried up and died as soon as I put it in the warm cages. I could have screamed!
Well the spiders are now here and all looking good. A big bonus is that they are all nicely housed in their individual containers. I bought new boxes yesterday and plenty of crickets to feed them but they clearly won't need immediate care. Which is great because I hate to say it but I am very ..... busy. Have a great weekend.