A Wildflower Morning

This Sabbath we went to church and found more kids than usual in attendance, and less adults in attendance. I think there was something happening in another place on the island that people were attending. This meant that there were fewer adults to sit with the kids. At the beginning of church someone invited the kids to go find an adult to sit with. The kids didn't move. So Rob and I moved forward one pew and sat in the middle of a bunch of kids. Soon kids were swarming around Rob and trying on his reading glasses. A little girl moved right up beside me and started leaning on me. Kids were moving from place to place, changing seats with other kids, changing pews. There was a general buzz in the room. But when it was time to sing, they sang clear and strong, all focused on the music. During the sermon I took out my journal and found a photo of the view of the sea from near AWR and started drawing it. Several kids became magnetized on my page, trying to see what I ...

On Monday I enjoyed being in the house.  It is my free day with no tutoring.  I worked on my blog, sorted photos, and researched critters I couldn't identify.  We were going to go the Guam passport place and do what we needed to renew our passport, but we discovered it was Martin Luther King Day and also a government holiday, so that office would be closed.  We would have to go tomorrow.  I recently discovered iNaturalist.org and decided I would start posting photos of what I saw.  I hope it will contribute to research and also help me learn the identification of things I have never seen before.  I'm am already finding the people there to be supportive.  A professor from the University of Guam helped me to identify an orange spider I saw as a Dome Spider. On Tuesday I did my tutoring in the morning, and as soon as I was done at 10:30, we set of for town and the passport office.  But Rob had an additional responsibility for us too....

After lunch we emptied our tent and loaded our car.  The pathfinders worked on striking camp.  When that was accomplished, they could all go swimming.  We decided we wanted to go for another walk down the beautiful beach.  There is not enough opportunity to be in a place like this.  My photos only begin to tell what we saw on our walk.  The color of the water surpassed all I had seen so far on any of our trips to Tarague beach.  My camera caught the colors very well. Yesterday while we were walking on the beach on of the boys had found the exoskeleton of a lobster and given it to a girl, who then gave it to me.  It was like it was painted with watercolor greens and purples and blues.  I also found two legs that seemed to go with it. We don't know what species it is yet, but it is very beautiful and I would like to get an ID of it. Limestone formations.  Waves rushing in.  Video clip. https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1...

Sunday morning I woke up really wanting to draw and paint something about the Blue-banded King Crow butterfly and its environment.  It was rainy and for a good while most of us stayed in the shelter. Breakfast was pancakes and eggs or tofu.  I got some tofu and was sure I would enjoy the meal, but was surprised to find that the tofu was scrambled in a lot of the same slimy, strong, oil, that same that the corn soup had been made with.  I almost couldn't eat it.  I've never had oily tofu before and was so disappointed because tofu has enough moisture that there is no need to use oil when cooking it.  Just add good seasonings and stir. Pathfinders spent the morning working on classwork and camping skills.  I sent Rob on a walk.  He begged me to go too, but I was planning on some art time in nature.  I went to one of the bushes covered with butterflies and started drawing.  Some flew away, but some sat there completely still for me to dra...

Rob had his eyes set on a clearing made for power lines that headed out through the jungle of the Pati Preserve.  You could see that cars drive there sometimes, but it wasn't a road. There was some shade on one side of the cleared area for us to walk in.  Hopefully we wouldn't get sunburned.  As we walked, we noticed what we were seeing along the jungle edge.  There were things there that we did not see at AWR. We watched the butterflies and I was able to get a very nice photo of one of the Blue-banded King Crow, with his wings open wide.  Along this path they were feeding on the flowers of a vine-like plant. I still didn't see any eggs or caterpillars, so I am still wondering what their life habits are and how long they live. I saw one Golf Friterary, but it paused long enough for me to get a photo of the inside and the outside of its wings.  Both are beautiful! We saw butterflies that were black that reminded us of some kind of Swall...

Rob was the first to notice that the sun was above the horizon Sabbath morning.  We looked out of our tent and saw it rising out past the beach, lighting up the clouds.  I got photos and from there we went for a long walk that included a side trip behind jungle bushes.  While out walking we found evidence of a large lizard.  There were foot prints with claws and a long tail trail marked between.  Our friends told us that the big lizard here is a Mangrove Monitor Lizard  ( Varanus indicus ) .  They have lived on Guam since before the first European contact with the island. Wikipedia says they are 3.5 - 4 feet long. Roger Krum told me that sometimes they come into the SDA school gym, and as he is the PE teacher, he has to catch them and take them out so the kids can play safely. They have claws on their toes, and sharp teeth, so you have to pick them up in their middle. Go to this ebook about the Flora and Fauna of Guam, scroll to...