No more bank holidays for a while so back to 'normal' this week (thank goodness). April was one of my worst sales months on record, I was thinking 'it's off to Tesco to ask for a job' time. Our street party was great, the food and atmosphere was lovely. My hubby is recovering from his motorbike accident and the sun is still shining!
The bugs are doing well, lots of new ones, both home grown and brought in. I have a couple of tarantulas with egg sacs, so fingers crossed for those. It is so good to see all the plants that I need to feed my bugs, once again growing in the garden. No need to ask friends and family if I can check their garden for any ferns or privet or visit the Homebase car park to cut brambles. It is really nice to get 'different' stick insects but it can be a problem when they eat something slightly unusual. There are some beautiful stick insects that feed on Hypericum (St Johns Wort) but unfortunately due to their food plant I found that they were unsellable. Various giant stick insects feed on Eucalyptus, for this reason I planted trees in my garden. Eucalyptus grows very fast, the trees are now several years old and several metres high! I think we may need to take some of them down as I rarely keep stick insects that feed on Eucalyptus anymore, sadly few people want them.
I am determined to learn more about technology and more importantly use it. I need to be able to email photos to people, I want to have featured animals shown on my website. I have some stunning tarantulas and scorpions, I'm sure if I had a photo of the actual animal on my site it would sell immediately. The Giant Flat Rock scorpions that I got in a couple of weeks ago are a good example. They are huge and stunning, yet I haven't sold a single one. My other idea is to have people call by appointment on a Saturday? I'm thinking about it, I can't really go back to the old system of open afternoons as it is not something I can do on my own and they were sometimes so poorly attended that it didn't warrant paying someone to help me. Unfortunately most of my customers live miles away, for some reason I have lots of customers in Scotland. My automated website is great but I don't fully understand it, my hubby was 'trying' to show me how I can use the discount voucher system to reduce the postage for a limited time on perhaps orders over £50 or issue a voucher to people who recommend a friend. The trouble is I never get any time to sit down and sort these things out because I am constantly tending to the animals and family (this week hubby has been off work recuperating from his accident, my nephew's wife broke her big toe so I have been on child duties and my mother in-law's 'new' hip keeps dislocating). Live things will always come first with me. I haven't even mentioned Teddi, our hyperactive puppy who runs me ragged!
One thing I really must do this week is update my home page. Most people do seem to read the notes that I put on there, ie. when I am away or unable to post etc. I think I may add a few permanent notes. The main one would have to be about sexing spiders. I have been selling pet tarantulas for many years but just recently an incredible number of people seem to think I can just look at them and tell their sex. I know I am always going on about it but it almost makes me want to say "yes, the spiderling that I'm sending you is female". Let's face it, I have a fifty fifty chance of being right, it will be several years until the person knows and most importantly my customer will be very happy with me! Instead, everyone asks for a female, I say sorry I can't sex them, they (sometimes) say I will go elsewhere. I'm not aware of anyone being able to sex spiderlings? I deliberately don't want to sex spiders. We can't all have females! It is stated on each and every spider on my website that the spiders are unsexed.
Anyway, better get on with my paperwork pile and then I hope to do a little gardening. The forecast is for rain tomorrow, I can't complain as we have hardly seen a drop for weeks but my friends who are taking part in a forty mile charity trek tomorrow won't be too happy, so I hope it holds off until Sunday.
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