Still madly busy ....

Still madly busy but I thought that I couldn't let another week go past without making an effort to do my blog. I am writing this a day early as I will be out all day tomorrow. Honestly I have never been so busy, not just work but my life in general. I am delighted to say that last month I had the best sales total that I have achieved since 2010. I spent a lot on new stock, so my spending was high too but it is certainly a great boost in the current economic climate. I would like to announce the winner of my '30 years in business, longest serving customer' competition. The runaway winner was Peter, Peter informs me that he was purchasing from me in 1986 (and probably before that date too) and only last year he bought some millipedes from me. Peter wins a £30 gift voucher to spend on my website and I just had to award a prize to Huw as he informed me that he was born in November 1982, when my first price list was produced. Huw wins an £8 gift voucher, which gives him free postage on his next order.

Things in the bug house and my wildlife garden have been mostly going very well indeed. I have a Chile Beauty spider with a large egg sac, my Trinidad Olive tarantulas mated, I 'think' my Cameroon Baboon spiders mated. I still cannot be sure that the female is fully adult but at least she didn't eat the male. I have baby Hissing cockroaches literally everywhere! I don't know how they keep getting out, every day I am finding a couple and putting them back in their tank. Unfortunately the Trinidad Mahogany Tree spider that I mated ages ok, managed to conceal an egg sac from me. I can only assume that it was hidden under the bark in her box. The first I knew of it was when I found a few spiderlings climbing on the shelving. At first I couldn't work out where they had come from, they looked like the Violet Tree spiderlings that hatched a couple of months ago but they were too small. I then realised that I had mated the Trinidad Mahogany, which is another Tapinauchilus species. I looked in the box and sure enough found a couple of spiderlings. The rest had escaped out of the air holes. I was kicking myself, if I had seen the egg sac (I did look for one several times) I would have blocked up the larger holes. I will check harder next time, she obviously didn't carry the egg sac around as most tarantulas do.

I have bought in spiders, scorpions, bush crickets, snails and many millipedes over the last couple of weeks. I managed to get some lovely adult millipedes, there are several species but I especially like the ones that I have called Ghana Speckled Leg. They are long, fast moving and have interesting speckled legs. I don't think it's a great name or a great photo on the website. I may need to change both as I haven't sold any yet. If I had a shop I'm sure they would all be gone by now. I think they are something special, I have never seen them before. It would be great to get them and all the others breeding. I have got a good collection of millipedes now, not all are shown on my website as I am keeping them. I think it is too easy to disturb millipedes and disrupt their breeding. Some of the boxes I only open once a week for feeding and I try to disturb the substrate as little as possible. I went over to my local woods recently and collected a huge bag of leaf litter and rotten wood. I could barely carry it home (I don't know why I bother going to the gym!).

At last the bramble, privet and other food plants are growing well (not surprising with all this rain). It does make life easier to have a supply of these plants in my garden. I mentioned recently that I am trying to cut down on stick insects, I am trying but I have rather a lot hatching at the moment. My plan now is not to buy too many new ones in. I love stick insects but there isn't much of a market in them and I find that people are not prepared to collect anything other than bramble. Some of the most beautiful stick insects feed on Hypericum (St John's Wort), it is a very common plant but I gave up trying to sell these stick insects some time ago. I even find it quite difficult to sell privet eating stick insects, I have several lovely species feeding on privet at the moment. All these plants keep their leaves in the winter. The Peruvian Fern stick insects will feed on any ferns but nothing else (as far as I know), even I admit that it is a pain getting ferns in the winter but they are such pretty stick insects. I don't think people have gardens as they used to, especially in towns. My garden looks like a jungle but I love it. I have to dig something up to plant something new as it is completely overgrown. Much as I love the garden, I certainly don't have the time to keep it neat and tidy. My excuse is that the animals like it that way! I would like to have a bee hive but I would worry about bees swarming (none of us eat honey). I have several bumble bee homes, a bat box, hedgehog box and nesting box, complete with a bird family in it (which I can view with a camera linked to my computer).

Well I had better get a move on, I sent off some orders this morning, I have fed most of my small tarantulas but there is still plenty to do as I won't be here tomorrow. Monday is another bank holiday (they do put me out with the posting) so next week is sure to be hectic. I think I will aim to write my blog every fortnight, rather than weekly at this busy time of year. Let's hope the rain finally stops for the bank holiday (but I doubt it).

Postage - I cannot believe how much it has increased, a topic for my next blog I think.