Half term and bank holiday
Half term and another bank holiday have meant that this week has been very slow for orders. Hopefully next week will see a change as I am inundated with new stock from the recent BTS show and I seriously need to clear some ASAP! I have massively reduced all my male tarantulas today, sadly they are of no use to me as I don't have any corresponding adult females. I was however delighted to see that one of my Tanzanian Blonde Baboon spiders had moulted into a male this week. Some of you may have seen the photo on Facebook of the pair. I will attempt to mate them next week so fingers crossed I'm successful. Not only have I got a lot of stock from the exhibition but my own animals seem to be rapidly reproducing at the moment. I had another Asian Forest scorpion give birth this week and I have plenty of spiderlings, millipedes, cockroaches, grasshoppers etc. etc.
I won't be around tomorrow as I am taking my sister to Tiggywinkles. The trip was already planned but it was a strange coincidence last night when we saw a hedgehog in our garden. Our daughter saw two hedgehogs in the garden when we were in Cyprus but I hadn't seen them (I haven't seen one in years). It was very exciting, however today when I picked some salad for tea I realised how the slugs had been munching on my lettuces, as I daren't put slug pellets down. Never mind, I can feed my lettuces to the bugs (they don't care about the holes and slime) and buy a lettuce at Tesco. I would much rather have hedgehogs than lettuces in my garden!
I am writing this blog a day early yet again. It seems to have turned into the Thursday evening blog rather than Friday morning. This is because I can't post orders on a Friday so it is my 'out and about day' and now that my hubby is only off at weekends in his current job, it falls on me to walk the dog and do all the other household chores first. I have in fact abandoned the ironing to get this blog written, as my mum used to say a "woman's work is never done".
I noticed in this month's Practical Reptile Keeping magazine that one of the reader's photos was of a Black Beauty stick insect that has a front leg missing. I can only assume that the monthly competition run by the magazine doesn't have enough photos of bugs to publish. It is a nice photo and probably most people wouldn't notice but I think everyone should get a copy of the magazine and send in an entry for next month! It's a great magazine, I get it on subscription and have been buying it from the start. It is very well produced and there are always articles that interest me (just read that back, I would like to point out that I am not on commission). You just need to send in a photo of your pet spider, reptile or bug. If you do win please let me know. You all know by now how much I like competitions.
I think this blog is probably a bit shorter than usual but I do need to get on with the ironing and I still have to put the bugs to bed. Looking at my diary for next Friday the morning is clear (at the moment) so I will try harder. I am trying harder with Facebook but it is still hit and miss if I notice messages sent to me. My hubby is out with friends on Sunday so I intend to catch up on non essential tasks and Facebook messages are certainly on that list. In the mean time feel free to email me, you will definitely get a quicker reply. I am running behind this week as last weekend was taken up by family birthday celebrations, Monday was bank holiday and tomorrow I am out but hopefully I will catch up this weekend. You will notice that I have given up on weekends off. When my hubby changed jobs that was the plan but one of the things when working with anything live is that it is seven days a week. Especially if you work on your own!