Oh dear, New Year, same problem, no time! One of my nephew's daughters has been unwell this week and therefore great aunty Ginny (or 'aunty Ginny who is great', as I prefer) has had a little helper. The week started off so well, I soon caught up on my emails and posted off all orders that had been placed over the festive break but since then, everything has become a frenzy of jobs that need doing. I have begun restocking and yesterday collected some new scorpions and adult tarantulas. I have ordered some spiderlings that will be with me next week and there are lots of things on the horizon. The weather is still pretty good here for the time of year so I have had no problems with posting orders. I have now entered the details of the 72+ hour heat packs onto the website but whenever anyone asks my opinion I would always wait for the better weather before ordering from outside the UK. Almost everything arrives ok but I am not a risk taker.
I spent most of last weekend getting the animals sorted out and trying to ensure the stock counter on my website is totally accurate. It is very difficult to keep a check on everything, especially the beetles as one minute they are larvae and the next they are in cocoons. I never post the cocoons as this is the most temperamental stage of the lifecycle. If something is going to go wrong it will be within the cocoon and of course we can't see inside. Humidity seems to be very important, too damp and the developing beetle will rot away but too dry and it will have trouble moulting into the adult stage. I still feel really excited to see the beautiful adults emerge. The Superb sun beetles began to hatch over Christmas and they are indeed Superb. I have never seen this species before, they are so pretty. I do hope they lay eggs, most Pachnoda species are very easy to breed.
My part male/part female Jungle Nymph (gynandromorph) has matured! I was so pleased to see that 'he' made the final moult ok. I say he because the stick insect is far more male than female. Although fascinating he has no value whatsoever, he can't breed but I hope my hubby will be able to attach a photo to this blog. I say 'hope' as my icloud photos seem to have disappeared. The photos should now appear on my iphone, ipad and desktop computer as they are all linked but there are some photos on each and of course I have no idea how to sort it out. Hubby and I are off to London today and tomorrow, to see some friends but hopefully he will sort it at the weekend. We will be leaving behind my usual team, mother in-law for dog sitting and daughter for the bugs. Neither are great but together they should just about manage until tomorrow afternoon. I have a couple of people coming tomorrow to collect orders. I certainly have more customers calling since moving the bugs indoors. It is so much easier with a door leading straight into the bug room and not having to walk through the house and down to the bottom of the garden.
A couple of things now before I sort the bugs and myself out for the day. I had a letter from Harrods over Christmas. It was informing me that the store has closed its Pets Kingdom department. I was so sad to hear that news as I got my very first stick insects from Harrods when I was about nine years old. I have since tried many times to persuade them to once again stock stick insects but to no avail and it is clearly too late now. I wrote a reply to the store yesterday, saying how sad I was to hear the news. Oh I do hate change, my parents had an office in Fleet street when I was a child and we regularly went to visit Harrods and of course the pet department. I have never been into Harrods and not visited Pets Kingdom (not that I go there very often these days).
My New Year's Resolution - I settled on "Don't overwhelm yourself with livestock to look after". Hopefully I can stick to this as there really is only so many animals that one person can care for. I intend to come back to this topic, I don't have time now but I was talking to a reptile expert yesterday about the good old days when he bred reptiles and I bred bugs and people didn't just import from the wild (a controversial topic).
Lastly I was walking Teddi in the park last weekend and moaning about her manic, hyperactivity to another dog walker, she turned to me and said "you are a chilled person like me". I just hugged her and pointed out that she may well be chilled but nobody has ever described me as chilled in my life! I am still laughing about it now. This is not a lady I had just met, I have walked around with her loads of times. Where on earth did she get the idea from, I pointed to Teddi and said "where do you think she gets it from"!
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