Too much!
Too much! I have decided this week that I have got to cut down on my mini zoo. I am spending way too much of my life feeding and cleaning all these little creatures. I love them but praying mantids, stick insects, beetles, hermit crabs etc. take hours of care and simply don't make enough profit for all the hard work. I'm not getting any younger and there is only so much that one person can do. Some people sell reptiles, I love reptiles but I wouldn't want to sell vertebrate animals, however there is clearly a lot more money in it. Some people sell just spiders, which is easy compared to what I do. Sadly it's the huge range of animals that make my working day longer and longer. My husband has been trying to tell me this for ages, he told me to stop buying in new stick insect species but I carried on and this week I have really felt swamped! I had last Thursday off which is a main posting day and I have been paying the price ever since by playing catch up all week. It's great that I have so many orders at the moment but most of them are for arachnids and I am left feeling like I am 'playing' with the other bugs. Perhaps my New Year's Resolution should be to listen to my husband but that's never going to happen so I'm planning more along the lines of 'look at the statistics of what sells on my website' and stick with them come rain or shine. Talking of the weather, luckily there is no snow here yet but I hear it is on the way.
I know that I have mentioned it before but I am astonished and delighted that Special Delivery seems to be working perfectly, better than it has ever done. I haven't had a single parcel delayed for months. I was thinking of writing to Royal Mail and telling them how well they are doing, that really would be a first. I have had people report that their parcel hasn't arrived but when I have checked the tracking number, a delivery has been attempted. I am surprised when people report that they have not received a card to say that a delivery has been attempted. My postman always leaves a card. In fact only yesterday I came in from the bug house to find a card on the mat (that stupid cordless doorbell is clearly not working again). I noticed that the delivery van was still parked at the top of the road so I grabbed my jacket and ran up the road. I tracked the postman down to a nearby street and thankfully he drove back down to me with two large parcels (Christmas presents, not bugs). I really won't be buying in any new bugs before Christmas so please get your orders in now. I have had lots of requests to hold orders but there is no way I can do that, also leaving orders until the last minute may well mean that you don't get the goods because they will have sold out when you are ready to order. I will be allowing people to collect at the door up until Christmas Eve but I will cease posting out the week before Christmas.
I had a Pink Toe spider moult into an adult male a few days ago. I am kicking myself now because I sold both females recently (typical). The Barking Birdeater 'eggs with legs' have reached the nymph stage and should be moulting out into spiderlings soon. I had fun with the Giant Huntsman spiders this week. The juveniles are quite large now and I still had some together in a tank so I thought I should separate them into individual boxes. Oh, they move like lightening, I removed the lid and they shot off in all directions. I'm a dab hand at catching spiders so I'm sure I got them all in the end. Practice makes perfect and I've certainly had a lot of practice.
Some nice family news, my niece had a baby boy this week, he is gorgeous. They have named him Luca, I don't think it is in tribute to my lovely dog that we lost in August (more down to their visit to Italy earlier this year) but I have told them that when we get a puppy, we will call her Ellie, after their daughter!