Summer at last

Summer at last but you wouldn't know that looking out of my office window. The sky is grey and the rain has been falling for hours. I am going to get wet when I take Teddi for a walk this morning. Worse than that I left my huge bag of leaf litter and rotten wood out in the garden after collecting it yesterday. I thought we were about to have a heat wave, where did all this rain come from?

I have decided that collecting leaf litter and rotten wood is my least favourite job. Unfortunately it is vital for the survival and breeding of all my millipedes and fruit beetles. I am also realising that many of my other creatures thrive when given leaf litter and rotten wood to eat and mooch around in. All my cockroaches seem to appreciate it, the beautiful Question Mark and Domino cockroaches especially. It is a trial I have to endure but I derive no pleasure from at all. Firstly the woods are private and the only way in is through my neighbour's garden, the leaves become very heavy as I need so many and I have to dig the wood out with a trowel. Yesterday the dustmen were emptying our bins as I struggled back and one of them kindly rushed over to help me. He tried to take my bag before I managed to grab it back with a "noo I need that". Clearly he thought I was nuts and quite honestly I've given up trying to explain what I'm doing, it just seems to get worse the more I say. Oh well the joys of being a bug breeder!

I did have a nice surprise this week when I came home from a meeting to find that someone had dropped round the most gorgeous male Stag beetle that I have seen in years (you may have seen on my Facebook). He was absolutely perfect, with huge antlers. I gave him a sugar water meal and released him in my garden. I do hope he found an equally beautiful female to mate with and start the process all over again. They are so much rarer than they once were but I have seen quite a few over the last five or so years and again his year there are lots of butterflies in our garden (when it isn't raining).

I have had a flurry of super reviews posted on my website this week, I must make a special mention of Dean and Nick who both took the time to review each of the items that they purchased. I really do appreciate this, I'm sure it makes the site more successful. I often read reviews before buying online and I do think it influences my purchases. When I can find time (the story of my life!) I will sort out a reward for my reviewers. I really don't want to start 'bribing' people to write a review but I do wonder if I need to bribe people to point out obvious mistakes on my website. I am sticking to my promise and adding info to the website every day, I think I have now added a description to almost all of my tarantula species but it is really difficult to check everything. The website has a vast amount of information on it and I have no way of searching other than checking each and every page. I think people feel awkward mentioning that I may have made a mistake but I really need your input and I am honestly grateful, if it turns out not to be a mistake that's fine. Please try and help, there is only one of me and clearly not enough of me to go around. You are far more likely to find the mistakes (or out of date information) when you are surfing my site than I am when I'm deliberately looking.

The bug room is looking good, I am trying to keep it tidier, no mean feat with so many animals. I don't like working in a mess if I can help it. I did have a break out of Orange Baboon spiderlings in the week. I couldn't work out how they had escaped but then realised that I had blocked the air vents on one side of the box and hadn't realised that the other side had air vents too! Today's major job is to feed all my larger tarantulas. I have an awful lot of them but it is really good to see the changes from week to week. Something has always moulted and this can change the spider's appearance amazingly, especially if they are maturing into an adult. Some spiders change colour entirely. I am generally not happy to find that one of my prized tarantulas has moulted into a male but there is not much I can do about it. Having said that, I was pleased to see a male Tanzanian Blonde Baboon last week and I intend to introduce him to my female this weekend. Wish me luck, they are not the friendliest of spiders, I certainly won't be putting my hand in between them if things go wrong!

The Blue Tits in my nesting box (viewed on my computer by camera) are preparing to fly as I type, I'm sure they will be gone today. Not a moment too soon, they have cost me a fortune in mealworms but they are lovely. My bat box (viewed on our television by camera) still has no residents but I'm ever hopeful.

I think that's it for another week, the dog wants her walk, the spiders want their breakfast and there are umpteen other things that need my attention today. Enjoy the heat wave this weekend (if it's happening in your area). Just been told that Scotland is fabulous today!