Wow, what a month July was....

Wow, what a month July was - the postal side of my business went crazy, Ginny’s Jungle saw real progress and we had some super, scorching hot weather!

I am off on a cruise with my mother in-law next week, it is just a week but as always there is so much to do in preparation for being away. All the bugs need to be fed, cleaned and housed for a week on their own. Obviously, they are not actually alone, the rest of the family will be here but they will just be following my instructions and doing basic maintenance, such as opening the doors when it’s hot and spraying the cages, plus feeding bramble where necessary. I have quite a few ‘special’ bugs that I care for daily so I will have to sort them out properly, among them are my collection of praying mantids that I am very fond of. I have a plan in place to add an appropriately sized maggot per day before I go and these should then hatch each day, that’s the plan!

I had a large number of new bugs come in at the beginning of July and also bred quite a few of my own animals too. I am still carrying out my master plan to make more time and I am stopping some of the bugs that just don’t sell. On my hit list at present are the Ethiopian crickets, Cave crickets and some of my cockroach species. Not only will this save me a bit of time, it will also free up some much needed, space in the bug room. The tall tank that the Cave crickets currently reside in will be perfect for breeding locusts. Barney (my Bearded Dragon) loves locusts and lots of my bugs would eat them if given the chance. They are not cheap to buy!

I seem to have turned into an unofficial boarding cattery for my family recently, first we had Bella for a week and now we have Bel for over two weeks! I love cats but it is a responsibility that I could do without, it is so difficult to make sure that they don’t disappear out of the door and they constantly scratch the furniture. I also had our neighbours Leopard Gecko ‘Felix’ for a week up until a couple of days ago, much more my style, gorgeous little thing! But I will be on a cruise ship soon, no animals to care for, just my mother in-law J

The recent heat was a worry in my bug room but everything coped very well. I had to unplug all the lights, they are attached to timers and just come on during the day, the heat mats are attached to thermostats so I didn’t need to worry about them and I had a large fan going (which I took up to bed each night, I needed it too). I did have to leave the bug room and office doors open which meant that my flies had access to the whole house. This was not a popular choice with the family but I need the flies to feed my praying mantis collection so it was a small price to pay in my opinion, hubby would tell you otherwise – flies do like beer J

I have been doing well with Facebook recently, I have kept up the posts and I am understanding things a bit better as I go along. It is difficult as I have three Facebook pages, my private one, Virginia Cheeseman and Ginny’s Jungle. I am trying to raise the number of ‘likes’ that Ginny’s Jungle receives and at the moment I am running a little, fun beauty contest with some of my praying mantids. I picked out my favourite and it was the same as hubby’s favourite but I’m really surprised to see that people are voting for lots of different ones. I will keep the vote going until after I get back. I was again on the local radio station Wycombe Sound last Friday and this Friday I am visiting the main High Wycombe library for a ‘Meet the Bugs’ event. It is free and runs from 2pm-3pm, do pop along if you are in the area (I know it is unlikely for most of my customers).

Well as you can imagine it is a busy week so I had better stop rambling on and get moving. Happy holidays everyone!

This month’s photo – My tiny, baby Tail-less Whip scorpions (so small that I couldn’t see them initially and thought that mum had eaten them!) I’m sure they will soon grow and even now they are super cute.    

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