They are in!

They are in! All the bugs and beasties have been moved into their new bug room. It has been an epic journey and there is still some way to go until I get everything straight. No, it didn't all fit but we have found a place for everything, it just isn't exactly where I would have liked. I have glass tanks almost on the floor because there was literally nowhere else to put them. So much for organising it that everything went together e.g. all millipede boxes on one shelf, all the cockroach species on another shelf, all the spiders together and the scorpions and so on. In reality everything is where we could fit it in. Everything non living is now in my office or the living room, everything previously in my office (all my competition things, magazines, craft boxes, kids toys etc) are now piled up in the living room and dining room. The snakes are staying permanently in the dining room, there was no alternative. My poor hubby is going nuts with the mess and he doesn't like my snakes much more than he likes the bugs. He is now working on the old bug house to get it ready for all his stuff. He really, really doesn't like bugs so he has cleaned it out and started painting everywhere. He's laying a new floor and has even removed my curtains (almost brand new), he is paranoid about anything living out there but he shouldn't worry, the weather is still freezing here. None of my tropical bugs could possibly live out there without any heating!

I received a statement from our energy suppliers this week, it was informing us that our monthly direct debit is about to be increased by £50 a month. The electricity for the bug house on a monthly basis is incredible. I'm sure all our hard work over the Easter 'break' will be well worthwhile. I am already feeling the benefits, I received a huge number of emails over Easter and have been ploughing through them. Lots of people had asked me to measure spiders and check the sex or number of bugs in stock. It is bliss to simply walk through a door and be in my bug room. I can answer the emails immediately and there's no walking to the end of the garden several times an hour.

The bugs seem to be settling in fine. We are attempting to heat the whole room, rather than using heat mats everywhere and it appears to be going well. I have an amazing number of used heat mats to sell off, they will appear on the website when I get time to sort them out. The plug sockets in the old bug house were thermostatically controlled and I was worried how we would control the heating without it in the new room. We found a company not too far away supplying thermostatically controlled plugs so we bought several and they seem to be doing fine. I have one radiator on during the day, along with various heat mats and lights and then a second radiator is used for the night. The only real problem that I am finding is how dry the atmosphere becomes. I have put bowls of water and then damp tea towels on the radiators but the room is still pretty dry. I also have a small water fountain, it looks cute but I'm not sure it is doing much.

I do like the lighting in my bug room, I had loads of lights in the old bug house but none of them seemed to give out much light. I now have 'in your face' strip lights, they are really bright and very useful as my eyesight is not what it used to be.

Enough (until next week when I will carry on about my new bug room again!), I should have received 50 Giant Train millipedes this week. I have lots of people waiting for them but unfortunately they have been delayed. I am expecting a lot of new stock this weekend, tarantulas, scorpions, millipedes, beetles, Whip scorpions and more. I will put them on the website as soon as they arrive, I never put anything on the site that I don't physically have here with me. I have learnt over the years that things can and sometimes do go wrong.

It has been any incredibly busy week, not only sorting the animals out but I have received a very large number of orders. I managed to get them off but since posting out yesterday another lot have come in, so next week looks super busy too. I'm not complaining, I need all the orders I can get after spending so much lately. The new postal rates came in this week and the price increase is very high. I am trying to work out a way to reduce my monthly postal costs but not raise the rates that I charge. Thank goodness I did restock with new heat packs a couple of weeks ago, I actually had to start using them yesterday. I never really thought that the cold weather would continue for this long, it is truly awful. We had snow falling here for almost the entire afternoon yesterday. I am usually feeding the stick insects on fresh bramble in April but I don't think it is even starting to bud yet. I don't remember a Winter ever lasting this long.

Well I had better get on. All the spiders need feeding today, I haven't had time all week, I don't usually feed them all on the same day but the crickets didn't come in until yesterday and with tomorrow looking full up already, today is definitely - spider feeding day. The Jumping spiders that I received last week have gone like hot cakes. I have kept a few back to try and breed. They are stunning little spiders, absolutely beautiful.

Lastly, sorry I did not realise that in all the chaos my office landline has not been working. I could answer the phone on the extension in the bug house but the indoor phone was not ringing. I'm really not sure how long the fault had been going on but it is fixed now!