Sunshine this morning which makes a change, I thought autumn was setting in with all the rain and dark skies this week. July has been a good month for business but it is now the holiday season and orders have been thin on the ground for the last few days. I have been trying to catch up on practical jobs in the bug room that keep getting put off. I have set up a large mixed millipede box and have been gradually sorting my multitude of millipede species. It seems silly to have so many smaller boxes with just one or two individuals left in there. I have of course been checking as closely as possible that I haven't thrown out any babies. Hopefully I haven't! I am selling the assorted millipedes at a knock down price on my website. If they lay eggs in there I will have to then sell the babies as 'mixed' too as I won't have a clue what they are!
It is still all go here with a rather chaotic home life. I can't help getting involved with too many things and too many people and animals. I have been trying to get some help for my mother in-law this week, we spoke to Age Concern about possible options and I contacted a documentary maker who wanted to get in touch with older people and discuss their life stories. I thought it would be a bit of company for mum but the lady just latched onto my 'unusual job' and wanted to do the documentary about me, noooo - that was not the idea at all! On Monday I ended up rescuing two baby pigeons, their nest had fallen from a tree in my garden during the storm on Sunday. When I saw the bedraggled chicks on the floor I thought 'not on a busy Monday' but I immediately rang Tiggywinkles. They said "bring them in" but I pleaded that I didn't have the time and was there anything else I could do? They said I could try making a new nest out of a hanging basket and putting it up in the tree. That was it, contents of hanging basket chucked out and replaced by hay (who needs pretty flowers when an animal is in danger). I picked up the two baby pigeons and placed them in their new nest and bingo, the rest is history. Mum and dad soon came down to feed them and the babies are now growing stronger and preparing to fly.
Sadly the desert scorpion babies that were born last week all perished, I didn't really hold out much hope when I saw them scattered around the floor, rather than on mum's back. I think another of the same species is pregnant so I have set her up in a larger box and placed it out of the way on a top shelf where she won't get disturbed. Scorpions can be very nervous creatures and really don't like being disturbed, especially when they have babies. I also think that a couple of the Israeli Gold scorpions that I have may be pregnant, fingers crossed.
I have been experimenting with substrates for my spiders this week. Hubby doesn't touch the bugs but I did get him sieving my extremely lumpy peat (the only peat I could get) and mixing it with sand for me. So far so good, I am hoping it won't hold as much water as peat alone. I may try mixing the peat with clay cat litter this week and see how that goes. I did buy a soil water meter as mentioned last week but the substrate isn't deep enough in the spider tubs to get a proper reading. It has been useful though for my Exo Terra tanks, they house various stick insects and grasshoppers. I don't want their substrate getting too dry as the eggs are laid in there. The tanks do tend to need regular spraying as I have lights on them during the day which obviously dries things out.
On the whole the bug room is looking good. I am even considering having another open day or perhaps weekend if there was enough call for it. Now that I have discovered Facebook it may be a good place to advertise an event? I'm not sure though as my bug room is pretty small, I think I would need people to say when they are coming and I know from before that people don't want to make an appointment, they just want to turn up. As I write this I'm talking myself out of it! What do you think? Might you be interested in coming along? There is of course the opposite problem to be considered, that nobody will turn up and it will be a complete waste of time.
A couple of quick bits and then I must take Teddi for a walk and collect mother in-law for her opticians appointment. I am still trying with Facebook and Instagram (not quite sure what the point of Instagram is? I put on pretty pictures and link to other people's pretty pictures?). Martin come back and give me another lesson, I know you showed me how to edit my photos but I can't for the life of me figure it out now! Facebook seems to have much more purpose, when I put a picture of Brutus on a few days ago it reached more people and got more comments than any of my other posts. I am clearly going in the right direction but it certainly doesn't come easy to me and it takes time (the one thing I never have enough of).
Next week I am going up to London with hubby and spending the night in a nice hotel on the Thames. It will be forty years since we met as sixteen year olds starting in our first job up in the City of London. We are going for a drink in the evening with a few others who joined the company on the same day, in that dim and distant past! I'm really looking forward to a break and it won't affect my posting days as I will be here on Monday and Thursday as usual.
I was chatting to a customer a few days ago, he bought my last King Baboon (Pelinobius muticus). I was saying that I had had the spider for ages and it was still only a couple of centimetres long. I told him that in my opinion they are the slowest growing species I have ever kept and he told me that they actually take eight years to mature. That is a very long time, they do say "patience is a virtue".
Better get a move on, sadly my car failed it's MOT yesterday so that's another thing that needs sorting.
Just checked my Facebook and I have over 500 likes. Brilliant xxx
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