Where are all my customers?
Where are all my customers? What a strange week, I have received a fraction of the orders that I generally receive at this time of the year. I know there are a multitude of bank holidays which are messing up the postal system and people are away at Easter but honestly it has been pretty dire this week. I certainly hope business improves soon! Especially as I have new stock coming in on an almost daily basis. I have got some lovely new stick insects this week and a large number of spiders, about a dozen new tarantula species and a couple of true spiders. I haven't had time to enter them all onto the website yet but I will be doing it later today. Next week I have a lot more tarantulas arriving so I really, really need to sell some to make room! Not to mention money, there is far more going out than coming in at the moment. I'm not very good at maths but it's blatantly obvious that the situation is a worrying one. Of course I could panic for England and I may well be rushed off my feet in a couple of weeks once the royal wedding is over and normality returns.
Life in the bug house is all good. It seems so funny to be leaving the door open to cool things down in April, this week has been more like August. I absolutely love it, the warmer the better for me. I have so many arachnids now that I have been rearranging things in the bug house. At one time I had far more stick insects, their cages occupied the entire back wall but now I only have three large cages for them and several smaller ones. The trouble with stick insects is that they need high cages and these don't fit on my shelving units. They also need more light so I have moved them to the front of the bug house, nearer the windows. Having a verandah means that the sun never shines directly in, which is good because direct sunlight is not healthy for any of the animals. I have had many a phone call from customers who have placed their glass tank in a window and found that the animals have over heated while they were out. I had a horrible experience several years ago, when we first moved here, before I had the bug house built. The animals were housed in an extension on the side of our house that had a plastic roof. I was only out for a couple of hours but the sun came out and 'cooked' a whole shelf of my favourite spiders. I was devastated and felt so guilty, only the Mexican Red Knee spiders survived. I keep being offered praying mantids but life is much easier without them. They are amazing pets but having them as part of my business makes no sense. It is lovely to walk into the bug house and not get dive bombed by Bluebottles. I still have fruit flies but not the number that I used to keep when I had hundreds of tiny praying mantids to feed. I did try to contain the flies in cages but they always got out!
I was pleased to get in some new Tapinauchenius tarantulas this week. I love these tree spiders, they are so pretty. I have several species now and they are all a bit different. Unfortunately they don't sit out on show like some tarantulas, they tend to build a thick web but when they do come out, they look beautiful. They are very fast moving though.
Well I had better get a move on, Friday is generally paperwork and feeding day. I know it is Good Friday but I still have a lot of catching up to do from being away the week before last.
Happy Easter everyone and enjoy the Royal Wedding, we are having a street party in our friendly little cul-de-sac. I'm not particularly interested in the wedding but I'm looking forward to the party!