Virginia Cheeseman Blog

The BTS (British Tarantula Society) exhibition was excellent as always, I spent far too much money and ended up with far more stock than I intended! I have only just managed to house up all the new animals properly and the show was almost two weeks ago. I really have been unbelievably busy with the bugs and birthdays. We were incredibly lucky with the weather last weekend. Friday it was pouring and Tuesday it was really pouring (lots of roads flooded in our area) but Saturday (sister's birthday barbeque), Sunday (daughter's 21st family party) and Monday (mother in-laws birthday) were all fine and pretty sunny! It was also Stephanie's 18th birthday, Stephanie is my daughter's Mexican Red Knee tarantula (not sure exactly when she was born but she was a present for our daughters 3rd birthday). Stephanie had been acting a bit odd for a couple of weeks and then my hubby went to fix some draws in our daughter's bedroom and noticed that her heat mat had fallen off her ta...

What a busy time of year, everything seems to be thriving, eating loads and reproducing. Yet again I need to go into the woods and collect leaf litter for my multitude of millipedes. I really like millipedes and it is great to have so many different kinds. I said last year that I wanted to breed more of them, most are imported as adults. I'm really pleased that I do have a fair number of babies now, they are however incredibly slow growing. I always give my millipedes a little fruit but mostly they eat rotten leaves and also rotten wood. The leaves are ok but the wood weighs a ton, I must look very odd struggling along the road with my large green plastic sack. At least I am not collecting bramble so often as I have substantially cut back on stick insects. It's a shame that nobody really wants them anymore. I think a large number that I supplied in the past were for schools. Sadly these days it seems few teachers want to be bothered with keeping school pets. I'm sure all ...

Love my new room at last! Things are certainly getting easier. I cannot believe that I ever managed to work with my bugs at the end of the garden and my office indoors. I must walk miles less each week and that means more time. The trouble is I just seem to fill it up with more things to do. I am catching up but it is a slow process. The house is still full of stuff from my office but I intend to spend the weekend getting it sorted. My hubby has now moved most of his things out to the old bug house so it is down to me now to get things organised. We did have a laugh this week. My hubby needs his workshop to be dry and I need mine to be humid. I was looking at getting a humidifier for the bug room but I seem to have got there now, the humidity is fairly constant at 70% which feels about right. My husband on the other hand was forced to buy a de-humidifier as the workshop was still at 90% humidity (all his tools would go rusty). He is currently emptying over a litre of water from th...

Another week gone by, I can't believe it is time to write my blog again! It feels like only yesterday that I wrote the last entry but obviously it was a whole week ago. My life is just so busy at the moment. I am pleased to say that April was my best month for sales in over a year. Last year, especially the Winter was a real struggle to keep things going. Long may the orders continue, thanks to you all. I am feeling the huge benefits of being in the new bug room now. Everything is settling down and most things are in the right place and easier to find and care for. I was worried that the room may over heat in the sun but we have had a lot of sun this week (at last) and the bug room has remained a fairly constant temperature. I have pulled all but one of the blinds down as the windows are just below the ceiling and therefore some cages on the top shelves are directly in the sunlight. I probably will need an air conditioning unit as the summer goes on but they are easy to obtain...