Friday 13th again,
Friday 13th again, is it me or do we have a lot of Friday 13th's? It has been a crazy week, I clearly have too many bugs as it actually took me until Tuesday to get everything fed after the holiday. I am now nicely set up for the weekend but come Monday it will all start again! I really could have done without another power failure yesterday morning.
I had loads of orders to get off and my husband had already gone to work before I realised that once again there was no power to my bug room and office. I was pretty panicked as without electricity I am truly power-less, no computer, no lights, no internet. I couldn’t even get into the garage to check the power supply as the door is electrically controlled and on the same circuit. I ended up phoning my hubby and he had no choice but to come home and sort it. He is pretty sure he has isolated the fault this time but as we already knew, he will need to rewire this side of the house. He ended up working from home (too far to go back again as he works in London), it wasn’t ideal as he and our son have flown out this morning for a weekend away watching the Formula One racing in Barcelona (I would honestly rather watch snakes). I have huge plans to catch up on ‘everything’ this weekend, paperwork, clearing and cleaning my office (possibly some of the house) and definitely getting out into the garden (even if it pours). I do like the jungle/wildlife look but it has gone beyond wild since we went away.
I got in some amazing new millipedes this week, I haven’t had the Madagascan Fire millipedes for literally years so I am delighted to see them again and the Giant Pill millipedes are the largest I have ever seen. There is also a new black species that I haven’t had before. A few scorpions and beetles arrived as well, I still haven’t had time to add the beetles to the website (it’s on the list for the weekend, my list has actually run over onto two pages).
I will be restocking plenty of other bugs this month, next weekend I will be collecting a whole host of new stock (hence needing to get myself straight this weekend). I should have spiders, scorpions, beetles, millipedes, cockroaches, snails, stick insects etc. I have met a really good supplier this year, I do prefer captive bred animals but he imports some super creatures and if I can get them breeding it would be wonderful. I love to breed bugs, it is always exciting. I posted some photos on Facebook this week of my new, baby Tail-less Whip scorpions, they are so cute. Aptly named, Pudding, the hugely pregnant Shiny Burrowing scorpion that is housed in the dining room and getting ‘special treatment’ still hasn’t produced any young, she looks fit to burst.
Before my holiday I bought a number of ‘jelly pots’ off of the internet. I thought they might make feeding some of the bugs a bit easier for my daughter while we were away. I have never really used these much but I now realise they are incredibly useful and can save a lot of time. I may actually start stocking them to sell on. They are small, sealed plastic tubs filled with fruit flavoured jelly. They come in many varieties and I have found that millipedes, cockroaches, crickets, beetles and a number of other creatures thoroughly enjoy them and they are much less messy and smelly than fruit.
I would like to tell you more tales of my adventures in Cyprus with all the lovely little creatures out there but sadly I have run out of time and need to get going. I do have lots of photos to sort out, especially of spiders and I will get around to it soon-ish. I certainly decided while on holiday that I have a least favourite arachnid! There were a lot of goats in the areas we visited and I assume that’s why we encountered several ticks on our walks. They completely freaked me out with all the stories that I have heard lately about tick bites causing Lyme’s disease. We didn’t get bitten by any but found several on our clothes. I tried to take some photos but I was sure they were about to bite so I kept flinching and the photos were consequently fuzzy.
Of
dear, it has just started to rain and I need to take Teddi for a walk – well it
is Friday 13th!