Virginia Cheeseman Blog

A pleasant week, warm at last and in only two days it will officially be Spring. The bugs are all going well and many are breeding prolifically, especially the stick insects, but there is still no bramble in sight! Off to the good old Homebase car park again today for more brambles. I will leave my mother in-law in the car as 'look out', I do hate it when people come over and ask what you are doing. When I tell them, they think I am mad anyway. My garden is coming back to life after being completely flattened by snow and I am really pleased to report that it is once again full of frogs and my ponds are full of frog spawn (if anyone lives locally and would like some spawn you are welcome to some). I actually saw two butterflies in my garden yesterday, a Peacock in the back garden and then I went to empty some rubbish out the front and saw a beautiful bright yellow Brimstone. It hasn't been such a great week for spiders. The spiders that I was expecting last Friday arrived o...

Oh the joys of being self employed. I have been rushed off my feet for weeks and then suddenly I have had hardly any orders at all this week. I have no idea why? It is most odd but I can't say I am too upset because it has given me some time to catch up and get on top of things a bit. I say a bit because I could honestly just keep going with all these animals, the more I do, the more there seems to be that needs doing! I have purchased some new millipedes this week and some captive bred Pancake slugs. I was really excited to get these slugs as I have only had wild caught adults before. They grow huge and I think they are really beautiful (my husband disagrees). I have lots of new spiders coming in this afternoon so I will certainly have plenty to do today. They will all be spiderlings but there's a good selection. I am especially pleased to be getting the Green Bottle Blue in again. Lots of people have asked for specific spiders recently but I don't have time to keep a ...

Well at least it's March now and the sun is shining but it doesn't feel like Spring yet with all the frost in the mornings. The pond outside my office window still has a thin layer of ice on it and where are all the frogs this year? My garden is usually full of frogs by now, I have three ponds in total and I haven't seen even one froggy stirring. I do hope they are still hibernating and not dead! I will put my rubber gloves on later and have a gentle poke about. Everything in the bug house seems to think it's Spring. The Peruvian Green Velvet spiderlings hatched this week, more Hissing cockroaches gave birth and the first of my huge Imperial scorpions produced a clutch of little white babies. They are all over mum's back and I would guess there are about a dozen. Scorpions really hate to be disturbed when they are carrying their young on the backs so I have only had a quick peek. You cannot miss the babies, they are bright white in contrast to the mother's jet ...