A bit tired

A bit tired, I got up at 5am to collect my husband from Heathrow airport this morning. He was out in Abu Dhabi this week and certainly has some tales to tell of how the other half live. Me, I have just been slogging on as usual. I have been really busy with orders, most unusual for this time of year but also most welcome. It is hard to keep up the hours of care that my 'mini zoo' needs when I have no orders coming in, I mean it is hard to keep up morale. It is difficult to explain how I am just as busy when I don't have any orders but I am, because everything still needs caring for and things just pile up on me. Despite having lots of orders I still have way too many bugs at the moment. I need to cut back NOW or I will be spending the entire Christmas break in my bug room. I am surprised that I still had several orders to send to countries outside the UK this week. I always worry during the winter but the animals seem to arrive fine so it seems I am worrying unnecessarily. The heat packs obviously do their job and I use larger boxes and more insulation in the cold weather. It was certainly cold this morning, the windscreen was iced up and I couldn't find the scrapper. I had to turf poor Teddi out of the boot (she comes everywhere with me) but I found it in the end, in the storage section with the tools.

It is nice having the bugs indoors rather than at the bottom of the garden. I have no regrets moving out of the log cabin. I can now just pop in and out when I please, I often check on everything before I go to bed. So many of my little friends come alive at night, cages that look empty during the day are teeming with life at night. The stick insect cage is fascinating as they all vie for position to get the best leaves to eat. During the day the cage looks literally like it is full of sticks. The spiders are all out hunting, I pop in an extra cricket here and there but generally most things in the bug house get fed once a week. I have a weekly feeding list and a colour for each week. A small circular sticker of that week's colour is placed on each cage or shelf as they are fed. I have lists for everything and many stickers for various tasks. When posting out the bugs I am often asked what the coloured dots represent. I think what they represent is - hard work!

You may want to skip over this paragraph or just cease reading. It is rather yucky but I have to update you on the snake saga. Oh how I wish I had just given the eggs away or simply kept a couple. I still have seventeen snakes, only three have found new homes. I intend to advertise them next week, so fingers crossed! Most of my babies are feeding and growing well but sadly I still have a few that just will not feed whatever I try and believe me I have tried. This week I thought I must do something drastic, the idea of them just fading away is horrible, even if it is natural selection. I thought about taking them to a vet to have them humanely put to sleep but then I thought I would try liquidising a baby mouse and syringing it into the snakes. I thought my daughter's kitchen gadget was a blender but discovered that it wasn't (cooking is not one of my hobbies). I then became desperate and chopped up the mouse to try force feeding. It was a long process but worth the trouble and my disgust at chopping up a baby mouse (defrosted, not alive!). I only got a small piece of meat into each snake but I didn't see any regurgitation (something I was told was bound to happen if I tried force feeding) and the following day some of the babies had been to the toilet so all looked good. Yesterday evening I had another go and managed to get each snake to swallow some food. I found it a little easier but clearly this is not a long term solution. I don't know what the future holds for these little snakes but I am a lot more hopeful than I was. Clearly I will not be taking up reptile breeding and if my snakes lay eggs again I will give them away immediately (Corn snakes are very common). I have spent so much time and effort on these little fellows that I am falling in love with them but even in my nuttiest moments I know I cannot keep them all! I should have heeded my own advice. People often ring and offer me Indian stick insects as they have hundreds. Sadly Indian stick insects are not as popular as they once were (most schools no longer keep them) and it is very hard to home the nymphs. My advice is always to dispose of the eggs before they hatch (they lay a huge number), it is much more difficult to dispose of the hatched stick insects. We live and learn!

I have again had a couple of customers call this week and I have somebody coming tomorrow. This is certainly something that I want to expand on. I was approached by a film company this week, they are hoping to make a TV program about animal breeding and wanted to come and film a little this week for a test shoot. With my husband away I really didn't have the time but they may come along next week. With so many orders to pack my office and bug room have been a total mess with boxes and containers everywhere. Nobody could move around properly until I cleared up. I intend to do some major tidying this weekend. The trouble is I just don't have enough storage room. I don't like throwing things out because they are generally useful again in a short time.

I don't think my website guy is going to find the time he needs to finish my website upgrade anytime soon so I have decided to make the most of what I've got. I'm sure the site could do a lot more if I were better with technology but I am doing the best I can. I think the tarantulas need to be laid out better, each species needs to be grouped together along with the various sizes available. My hubby started this project some time ago but I stopped him because it is a massive task to undertake. However I now think it is something that we need to do. I say 'we' loosely, I really mean him, when on earth would I find the time for it? I am getting organised with the special offers. I have reduced some tarantulas and marked them *** on the site so anyone entering *** into my website search box can find them easily. Hopefully this will reduce my stocks a little as they really are vastly reduced and the only reason for the reduction is that I have too many and have had them too long.

I keep mentioning all the changes that seem to be occurring in my life. I just hate change, I am clearly not good at adapting, I need to be in control! My lovely next door neighbour, who I see very frequently, has now sold her house and is moving into sheltered housing. A builder and his family are moving in next door, I haven't met them, I'm told they are very nice but obviously I am a little worried. The house is small and poorly laid out, there is no doubt that they have huge plans for the place. My office and bug room are in an extension on the side of our house and it is on the building line with next door. I may be panicking about nothing (panic is my middle name or it should be). I have joined a new gym this week, since the close of my old familiar one (second home as my sister called it). The equipment in the new gym is great but I don't know anyone. It is very odd as I knew just about everyone in the old gym and was good friends with all the instructors. I read an email from my online competitions group this morning, someone in the group has won £70,000. I am really pleased for her but oh, why couldn't that have been me? (no I didn't enter that particular one, but I do enter lots of others!)

Must get on, I am way behind this morning. At least my hubby is off work this weekend so he can walk Teddi, a time consuming chore that I could well do without. It's a good job she is just so adorable and cuddly.