A week of sunshine, I love it

A week of sunshine, I love it and the bugs love it but I have had to keep most of the blinds pulled down in my bug room as direct sunlight is certainly not good news for animals if they can't move away from it. I have been working hard this week getting everything ready for my holiday. It is a mammoth task but I'm delighted to have had so many orders, there won't be quite as many creatures for my daughter to look after. Her boyfriend will be staying here while we are away, I'm sure he will keep her company but he grew up in South Africa and seems to be scared of everything creepy crawly. I don't anticipate him being any help at all with the bugs. Let's hope he is good at watering because I am also panicking about leaving my lovely garden!

All is looking good in the bug room. I was delighted to see baby Vietnam Rainbow millipedes a few days ago. I have never heard of them being bred in captivity before. I have kept them for years and seen them mate many times but I have never before had babies. I really am doing very well with my millipedes. Perhaps it has something to do with all the leaf litter that I keep collecting from the woods across the road. I cannot tell you how sick of it I am! It is such an ordeal! The woods are private and fenced off so I have to rely on a friendly neighbour letting me in through his garden. There are men rebuilding the house opposite, goodness knows what they think as I continually lug bags of leaves across the road in front of them. I don't look up, I have learnt from years of experience that when you try to explain what you are doing, you generally end up sounding more nuts. The millipedes and fruit beetles all rely on the leaf litter and rotten wood that I collect but of course when I clean them out, I then have mountains (perhaps hills) of used leaves, wood and peat to dispose of. I think my garden is getting higher and higher but I'm damned if I am going to start taking stuff back to the woods! I do feel that I should give myself a break on the beetles front for a while. I am putting in so much effort and yet selling very few beetles compared to earlier in the year. I was only thinking yesterday that this is what happened with praying mantids. I gave them up about three years ago now, I love them as pets but as part of my business they were hopeless because of the time and effort that they took. I am beginning to feel the same about beetles, they are beautiful but they are taking so much time, effort and space. They obviously have to be kept separately as the larvae look identical. I have boxes of larvae everywhere. The adult beetles don't live for long so I have a very short window in which to sell them, much like praying mantids. Tarantulas are so much easier and actually increase in value the longer I keep them (unless they mature into adult males but that's another story).

I have had lots of special offers on the site this week but they will be finishing very soon. People are welcome to order while I'm away but I will switch off most of the special offers as they are only there to clear stocks before the holiday. I do wish I knew what was going to sell, it is so hard to predict, it is always changing. I couldn't breed or buy beetles quick enough for all the orders at the start of the year and yet now I have had some beautiful beetles hatch this week and they are just mooching around in their tank, going nowhere. I must make sure that my daughter knows they fly or she will open the lid to put in new banana and they will all take off. I was really pleased to get in some huge Giant Train millipedes a couple of weeks ago, they always sell like hotcakes but not this time! Why?

Anyhow, enough moaning, I can't wait for my holiday. We are going in the early hours of Wednesday 2nd July so next week will be my last week to send orders. I may post orders on Monday 30th but it depends how the last minute cleaning and feeding goes. I am up in London on Saturday so that's a day less to get everything ready. I obviously can't feed and clean things too early and I will also need time to pack. I always intend to pack early but we never do, again it is not really something you can do in advance.

Speeding up, must get out - my hubby is still away (he gets back this evening)so I have to take 'monster dog' for her walk (a drive away) and then I have to drop her home, pick up mother in-law (who hasn't been well this week)and drive to a distant garden centre to fill up the car with bags of peat! I use loads of the stuff and found out last week that my local garden centre no longer sells it. I have tried several garden centres this week but evidently they are all going 'peat free', panic! I hate coir but it is the only real alternative that I know. It always seems to be full of fungal spores so as soon as it is damped down they spring to life and produce toadstools everywhere. I certainly don't think this is good for my animals, especially the spiderlings. The garden centre that we are going to has a whole pallet of peat, I don't think I would get it all in my car but I'm hopeful of half a dozen or so sacks, perhaps ten? Then we have to run around doing errands, the usual Friday stuff as it's the only day that I don't send out orders.

Lastly - my open weekend, what a waste of time! Nobody came in the end, the only guy who had actually booked to come, had to admit when I rang him that he had completely forgotten. At least I ended up with a very tidy bug room but I can't say that was much consolation at the time. Unfortunately most of my customers are clearly too far away to visit.