A Wildflower Morning

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....

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...

I could hardly get up out of bed this morning.  I was so tired, even after sleeping.  I didn't head out and go walking.  I didn't feel like eating.  So i just sat on the couch to try to get myself awake enough for tutoring.  Then I had diarrhea.  That's the problem.  I thought I didn't have long until I had to start work.  So I immediately swallowed some charcoal capsules and prayed for recovery.  Then to my relief, I realized I still had one more hour until my first student, not just 10 minutes.  That was a blessing.  The charcoal helped.  I was feeling much better at 8:30 AM. When Rob got home at noon, we ate lunch and packed things to take camping with us.  We were going with the pathfinders to the northern point of the island, up on the Air Force Base.  Even before we landed on Guam, we told them we wanted to join them again this year.  So far we have been able to go every time we have come to Guam.  O...

  I don't tutor on Mondays, because that is still Sunday in the states, and my students need to have all weekend free from school.   On Monday, I started the day out right, spending time with God, then I went walking around 6AM, in the dark, before it got hot.  Rob walked with me too, but I must say, it is hard to get him out of bed to enjoy the quiet part of the morning outside.  So I am really thankful when he does come.  I spent some time doing housework, sweeping, cleaning the bathroom a bit, and doing some laundry.  I have a real wash machine and dryer here.  Then I starting doing what I really wanted to do, drawing and painting some of the fish I saw on Sunday, at Piti Bomb Hole Marine Preserve.   The fish and coral are thriving there now because no fishing or boating is allowed in the marine preserve. This was not true in the 1970's.  I read that the ocean floor was red clay sediment washed down the river and into this ...

Nothing like a Sunday morning relaxing at home.  We were going to pop out of bed and go snorkeling early this morning.  But it was pouring rain from first light until later in the morning.  It was a good morning to relax.  We talked to Araya back in her dorm room where it was still Saturday afternoon.  She was headed out for a game night.  We couldn't get William to respond.  Was he sleeping all day or did his phone break? I looked up the tide chart and we decided to go snorkeling a couple hours before low tide, which was at 3:00 PM.  Someone said online that there is less sediment in the water then.  We went to Piti Marine Preserve.  So far is is our favorite close place.  Some say there are over 200 species of fish there.  We saw some species of fish we had never seen before.  Protecting an area from boating and fishing really does help an area.  It also seems that the fish really like the fresh squid that they ...