I'm back, sorry about the lack of blogging last week

I'm back, sorry about the lack of blogging last week. Life is just so hectic at the moment and last Friday my hubby took a day off work to help me with everything so I couldn't really devote a couple hours to my blog as I generally do on a Friday morning. I was going to put a note on the site explaining that but even to me, it just looked like a whinge! I would love to say I am more on top of things now, but I would be lying. I have had quite a few new bugs in this week and I have a lot of captive bred spiderlings arriving later today. I do seriously need to look at what I'm doing, I clearly have too many little animals for one person to care for. I cut out praying mantids last year and I think it is now time to cut down on stick insects, they take a huge amount of looking after. I am certainly not intending to cut them out, just reduce the species that I keep and therefore cut down on the number of cages. The bramble is budding at last but it will still be a few weeks until the new leaves are large enough to feed to my menagerie. I love the Horse-head grasshoppers, they eat a fair amount of bramble but they are worth the effort. I bought in a new species this week, one that I have never kept before, they are very pretty.

I just think I need to be more business-like, spiders, scorpions, millipedes, fruit beetles all sell well and don't need a huge amount of care. I must concentrate on these and stop 'playing' with the stick insects. I love stick insects and they are what I started off with all those years ago but times change and they just don't sell well enough. In these hard financial times I must be more sensible. I still cannot believe that I bought in all those Giant Spiny stick insects a couple of months ago, they are getting larger and larger, look great and yet for some bizarre reason I have only sold one - honestly one! Spiders on the other hand are flying out (well almost). The trouble with spiders is that I get really attached to some of them that I have had for a while. People laugh when I say that some of my spiders are set at a high price because I don't really want to sell them but it is true! I have some lovely spiders at the moment. I often say that choosing a pet spider reminds me of choosing a dog, they are all so incredibly different, both in looks and temperament. I love fluffy, active dogs and think that dogs like an English Bull terrier are not at all attractive. Unfortunately I said this to a customer recently only for him to reply that he has an English Bull terrier (sorry Simon). I am constantly asked which spider I would recommend, I can give it a go on temperament and care but when it comes to looks I prefer people to pick their own. I am hoping to find time soon to put proper descriptions on all of my spider species. It will be a mammoth task but I think it will be worth it in the end. I would love to have better descriptions of all the animals that I keep but I think that may be some way off yet. This is the sort of thing that I never get a chance to do but if I could cut down on some of the day to day chores in my bug house, it would be great. I have loads of ideas but little time to implement them. One idea that I did put into action and am very pleased with is selling cockroaches in bulk. I have sold several lots of fifty adult cockroaches this week. Could this be a way forward, a step in the right direction? The only problem is that I ran out of sweet jars to send them in but my 'wonderful' daughter went out and got me some more today. I only know of one shop that still uses them and it is a fair distance away (no way could I have gone up there myself this week). I seem to have done a huge amount of re-stocking lately, not just animals but cardboard boxes, plastic boxes, plastic tubs and today I collected my order from the Post Office of Special Delivery stamps. I have bought them now as they are printed with the weight and when the postage goes up next month their price will obviously go up. I wouldn't like to say how much they cost but enough for the cashier to worry about me being mugged on the way home!

Spring at last seems to be on the way and I haven't needed to use many heat packs in my parcels this last week. I have had a couple of parcels delayed by a day, which is very annoying, however all the animals have been fine. I am really pleased by the nice emails that I have received lately, I know I moan a lot but my customers are lovely. I have had a laugh recently with several people on the phone. In my last couple of blogs I moaned that some people send such long winded emails and that phoning would be so much easier. The amusement comes from the fact that people have been trying to be helpful by phoning but we then realised that some things are better in an email! Measuring a spider can only be done when I am in the bug house, not when I am in my office or out in the car and making an appointment for someone to call and collect an order can only be done when I am in the house and therefore within reach of my diary.

Anyway must make that trek to the bottom of the garden (as I do many times every day) and sort out all the containers for the new spiders that will be arriving today. I have printed out the labels and now need to make up their little houses. I have about 50 coming in, that's a lot of little houses to make up!