Virginia Cheeseman Blog

A busy week, catching up on everything. I haven't had anything new in this week but I have several new species of tarantula spiders coming in next week. I received my weekly delivery of crickets yesterday so I will be spending most of today feeding spiders and scorpions. I fed my multitude of praying mantids yesterday. Many are maturing into beautiful adults, the African are a stunning lime green. I have an adult male/female pair and several yet to mature. The first of the Taiwan Flower mantids has matured, he now has long, delicate wings. Hopefully a female will moult into an adult soon. It's all go with my new web site! I spoke to the web designer yesterday and he is getting started today. I am very nervous about a whole new site, it will keep track of everything and I'm sure it will be fantastic in the end but I don't like change. People expect to be able to place orders online now and bringing my business into the 21 st century is clearly long over due. I think it...

Well what an emotional week, the bugs are all fine but everything else seems to have gone wrong. I have spent so much time sorting out family problems and pets that I am very behind with the bugs. I have only just come in from feeding the mantids and it's gone 8pm. I am writing my blog this evening rather than Friday morning as usual because my dog has to go in early tomorrow for tests at the vets. I have way too many praying mantids, they are amazing creatures but keeping them is time consuming and very disheartening when I sell so few. I don't know why mantids are such slow sellers because they are brilliant 'bug pets' and at this time of year they are easy to keep because they will feed on any suitable sized creatures from the garden. The Taiwan Flower mantids are looking great now, they still don't look much like flowers but they are moulting and several are turning green. I haven't seen them as adults so it is quite exciting. I thought I had found somethi...

A busy week as usual. I haven't had too many new animals in but I have been re-housing and re-arranging quite a lot in my bug house. I have also had a lot of paperwork to catch up on. I spent most of Wednesday at my desk and expect to do the same today. It's amazing how the smallest of tasks can take ages. I was on the phone for 30 minutes yesterday trying to get an engaged tone put on my mobile. It drives me nuts that when I am talking on the phone, people calling get a ringing tone rather than an engaged signal. I very often finish a call only to find that I have one or two messages left for me. I then have to call these people back. If they heard an engaged tone, people would know I was using the phone and call back in a while, simple! But no it isn't, Vodafone set up an engaged tone before but when I went to Switzerland recently I switched off my answer machine and everything reset. Nobody seems to be able to help with this problem now. I have the instruction book and b...

No blog last week due to me and hubby being in Switzerland. I won the 5* trip in a competition and it was pure luxury. The hotel was out of this world (certainly out of my world), the spa was amazing. Just last Sunday I was lying in a warm Jacuzzi on a Swiss hillside - anyway back to real life! I have received lots of new spiders this week. I am very pleased to have managed to locate some Blue Fang tarantulas. This species is so beautiful, I have a framed photo of one on my desk. The photo was in pride of place in the living room but it has mysteriously been demoted to my office (hubby I think?). I have some new Jumping spiders which I'm sure will be lovely when they grow. At the moment they are the size of a fruit fly. I have also got some scorpions and some amazing Whip scorpions or Vinegaroons. All in all a very busy week for housing, feeding, cleaning and general maintenance. It is surprising how much planning it takes for me to have even a short break and of course I had thr...