Won A Weekend In Switzerland

A busy week, lots of bugs coming in and thankfully lots going out too. I have received many new spiderlings, some large Pink Toe tarantulas, land hermit crabs and a new species of millipede. My open afternoon last Saturday was very well attended. I hadn't expected so many people and my daughter wasn't here to help. It was a bit hectic at times but I think everyone went away happy, I did try my best to cope. I have already updated the site with my new open afternoon next month and my daughter assures me she will be here to help. Quite a few people have mentioned that they work on Saturdays and therefore cannot come to my open afternoons, so I thought I should say that you are welcome to call at other times. You would need to book an appointment (see 'notes to callers' on page 23 of my web site). The only day that I am not available is Sunday.

I won't be here to write my blog next Friday as I have won a weekend in Switzerland! I do love entering competitions and I have a fair degree of success, one day I will bore you all with the details. I am really pleased with this prize as I have been moaning about my lack of summer holiday this year. The trouble with working from home is that I never seem to be off duty and I need to get away to relax. That said, I am already worrying about being away from the bugs for three whole days. My daughter will be here and my mother in-law too but as I've said many times before they haven't got a clue! I will write out instructions and label the cages. I have lots of praying mantids at the moment and they must not be sprayed with water when they are moulting. If they are sprayed directly they will fall down and may be crippled or even die. A few years ago I left my son caring for the bugs and unfortunately I didn't make this clear to him. When I got home most of my Chinese mantids had gone through their final moult and about half of them were a real mess. I love mantids but they certainly aren't the easiest of bugs to keep.

The weather has been rather changeable this week but while the sun has been out, my huge buddleia bush in front of my bug house has been covered in butterflies. It's really great walking down the path and seeing butterflies everywhere. Sadly I haven't seen a single Small Tortoiseshell but there are lots of Peacock, Painted Lady, Comma and Red Admiral - not forgetting the Cabbage Whites that seem to be laying their eggs on my radishes. The wildlife area at the end of my garden is doing really well. The new pond isn't looking so new and there are lots of wild flowers around it (some might call them weeds).

I will of course be busy preparing for my weekend away so I don't want to take on too much next week but I have sold several more of the Chile scorpions so I will probably get some more in on Monday. They are very easy to keep, I haven't lost any and they don't take up a lot of space so I intend to replace the species that I have sold and get some new species as well if possible.

I am hoping that my hubby and I will get time over the weekend to photograph some more bugs for the web site. I have some very attractive new male tarantulas, the Paulo Fiery Red Rump is huge and very pretty, or should that be handsome. It was pointed out to me by an eagle eyed customer that some of the links to the photos on my site were not working. I soon discovered what the problem was, my husband had decided to get rid of some old photos on my computer and he managed to delete some of my original photos that I don't have copies of! If anyone has any photos of something on my site that is lacking a photo and you don't mind me using it on my site, I would be most grateful if you could email them to me.