St. John Mon. 3/12/12

I found my mystery fish in a guide last night - it was a juvenile three-spotted damsel fish - a very pretty yellow! Dave and I finished the rock garden behind the museum. It will need some dirt and sand to fill in, but we took out 4 large bags of snake plant roots and it is looking pretty good. We spent the rest of the morning baking the chocolate chip cookies. I love baking cookies - there is something very satisfying about making them! After all, who doesn't love cookies! I will have to decide what kind to make next. We also finished the laundry from the Radford group. After lunch, Dave went back to the cabin to take a nap - he is either coming down with a cold or is suffering from allergies so was feeling a bit tired this afternoon. It did him good as he is feeling a bit better now. Barb and I went to Greater Lameshur for a lovely snorkel. We saw lots of porcupine fish today. I also saw a large Queen Trigger Fish and a number of hound fish along with the regulars who hang out there. My favorite was a yellow-tailed damselfish - dark blue with iridescent blue spots and a bright yellow tail - just beautiful! We could see it raining on the water off in the distance, but it was sunny and gorgeous at the beach. Today is Meatless Monday so Willie and Deb are making eggplant parmesan. Both groups have just returned to camp. Manhattan hiked up Ram's Head and then snorkeled in Salt Pond. Iowa visited a local school and interacted with the kids in the horticulture program. They all seemed to have a good day.

St. John Sun. 3/11/12

We decided to make up the batter for the molasses cookies last night and let it sit in the fridge until today. They are easier to roll when the dough is stiff. Today was a busy day with housekeeping chores. We had lots of laundry and sweeping to do from the Radford crew. When things seemed under control, we baked the cookies. After lunch, we went to Greater Lameshur for a snorkel. I saw a new fish today so will have to go to the library later to look it up. It is a lovely day again - bright sunshine and the water temperature is just right. After showering, we noticed the kitchen was empty so Dave and I made up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. We have a smaller crowd now, so am not sure when they will be needed, but they will be ready to bake whenever. John is making some type of pork for dinner tonight. It sure does smell wonderful! The Manhattan kids went out on a boat today for an all day snorkel trip around the island. They were very excited because they saw rays, turtles, and sharks. Radford left this morning and we all sang "Happy Trails to You" as they drove away. One of the boys wrote a lovely thank you letter to the staff - we have it posted on the fridge. That was really sweet of him. Iowa comes in tonight, but they are eating dinner in Cruz Bay so we don't expect them until late. The pictures on the blog today are of Jerry climbing the coconut tree and using a machete to get some ripe ones down for the kids, another anole in a century plant, and a picture I took of a butterfly, but now I can't find it in the picture! Does anyone want to play, "Where's Waldo?" Life is good here in St. John!

St. John Sat. 3/10/12

We had a busy night last night! Ital came in to educate and entertain the Radford students and shortly thereafter, the Manhattan College kids arrived via Hamilton's bus/truck. The new arrivals had a tour of the camp, ate dinner, and went to bed - they were tired! Ital talked about a variety of herbs and folk medicines. He passed around samples of each, talked about medicinal uses or folk tales associated with each one and then quizzed the students on the names and how they are used. The winners were each awarded a fresh coconut! He then showed some of the crafts that he had made of local bean pods - painted noise makers, branches - mated with bottle caps to make a percussion instrument, calabash (looks like a round gourd) - carved to make masks or put on sticks as musical instruments. Lastly, he and Zoe drummed and he engaged the kids in singing and dancing. There was not a student left sitting! They all got up and danced and really had a great time. Many of them were still singing and dancing on their way back to their cottages. Dave and I clean the office after breakfast this morning - dusted the shelves, washed ledges and screens and surfaces, then swept and mopped the floor. Just as we were finishing we had a huge downpour - I felt sorry for the kids - the Manhattan group were out snorkeling and the Radford kids were out finishing their projects. They all got thoroughly soaked! We then helped with cleaning the bathrooms before moving to the museum where we refolded and straightened out the tee shirt cabinet. After lunch, Dave and I made snickerdoodles. We will be the cookie people for a while - you have to bake them practically every day when there are this many people in camp. Dave, of course, is thrilled that we made his favorite cookie today! I think we might make molasses tomorrow. The sun was out all afternoon and it again is a lovely day. The snorkelers came back and said they saw a rainbow at the end of Yawzi Point while they were in the water. Dave is sitting at the picnic table and working on carving a spoon for the kitchen and Emma is "helping". Deb and Willie are making chicken pot pie for dinner and the scent is wafting out here where we are! We just relaxed around camp today on our off time - it was quite pleasant. Tomorrow will be a big cleaning and laundry day as Radford is leaving and Iowa State is coming in.

St. John Fri. 3/9/12

No rain last night for a change. It was a lovely day today (as usual) - the wind has died down and the sun is bright! Dave and I started a new rock garden today. The Sierra Club from last week spent an afternoon helping around camp and pulled most of the snake plant from this garden so we dug for roots and rebuilt the stone wall. We are not quite done, but should finish in another session. Dave got stung by a wasp (they call them Jack Spaniels here) so I mixed up some baking soda and vinegar to put on it. They must have a nest nearby as we saw quite a few of them. We collected a few new "critters" for the students to look at - a grub as thick as Dave's thumb, a fairly large scorpion, another slave gecko, and a blind snake. At first we thought the snake was a legless lizard, but the scale pattern was wrong. I saw a hermit crab climbing a tree today. He went very slowly, but inched his way up - very persistent! We had fish tacos for lunch. I had never had one before - it was quite good. After lunch, Dave took a nap and I went for a snorkel and swim. The water was great, as usual, and I enjoyed being in the water after digging in the dirt all morning. Ital (the drummer) is coming tonight to put on a program for the kids. Charlie, Pete, and Zoe went scuba diving this afternoon out from Cabrit Point. Charlie said they had a very good dive. He has a wonderful underwater camera and is putting some of his pictures on the computer in the camp office. I will have to see if I can figure out how to download some of them - you will be amazed! The kids from Radford are still working on their projects. They are really a very nice group of kids - very polite and appreciative of everything we do. We will miss them when they leave on Sunday. No pictures today - I was too busy to grab the camera - will try to do better tomorrow.

St. John Thurs. 3/8/12

Last night a lecturer, Barry Devine, came in to talk to the kids and invited the staff to sit in. He talked about biodiversity and the patterns of flora and fauna from the ridge to the reef in the Virgin Islands. It was very interesting and the kids asked very good questions. He reminded them that our generation was the one to identify problems in climate and the environment and that their generation must be the one to begin fixing these problems. The loss of live coral was the most dramatic change that he showed and we have seen that for ourselves. In just a short time, the percent of live coral has gone from 80 to 15! We had more rain and wind last night, but it didn't last as long as the night before. We had just gotten into our cottage and it began pouring. We heard the stomping of feet on the boardwalk and screams from the girls so obviously some of them didn't make it to shelter in time! Dave and I did housekeeping this morning. We are expecting a group of students and staff from Manhattan College tomorrow so we tidied the rooms, made beds, etc. I then did laundry from Glenn and Harry as they are leaving today. Our next job was spreading mulch. The town trucks were around yesterday cutting brush and small trees next to the driveway and road heading to camp and today they came back to chip. Randy went out with the truck and kept bringing back truckloads of chips which we spread in the newly formed gardens. What perfect timing! The gardens looks great with all of the mulch (see photo). We had a quick lunch and then took Glenn into Cruz Bay to catch the 1 PM ferry over to St. Thomas. We also took Jerry who was going in to town for the afternoon. After seeing Glenn off, we checked for mail at the post office, picked up Charlie who had gone in with John and Harry earlier in the day. He had been bitten by a spider in his armpit and wanted to get it checked out at the clinic. He seems to be okay, but will watch the area for a couple of days to make sure that it is healing. We took the north road back so we could return the projector to the National Park and stopped along the way to take a few scenic shots. In the Maho Bay shot, you can see the tents on the hillside. The other shot is of Trunk Bay. We stopped at the grocery store for more bananas for people and got home in time for a quick swim. The kids have been busy all day with their projects and seem to be doing a great job and having fun at the same time. One of the girls who is doing the mongoose project just stopped in for water. She said they have caught 26 mongeese today! They have traps set up at camp, on Yawzi Point, and the Lameshur Bay trail. We have connected with a friend of Jon Owen and will try to see him next week sometime. He lives out on the East End, not too far from the Round House. Happy Birthday, Dean!

St. John Wed. 3/7/12

First a correction to yesterday's blog: Dave looked up our skink which turned out to be a slave gecko, so named because they came over to the islands with the slaves who were brought here to work the sugar cane fields. The students caught several mongeese yesterday afternoon (see photo). The group that was doing a study on them measured their length, the length of the tail, brushed them for exo-parasites (mostly fleas and ticks), took pictures of their teeth (for counting purposes to determine age), checked if male or female, weighed them, shaved a patch off the leg and marked them before releasing them. Some of them were quite feisty and others were resigned to putting up with all the fuss. Most people have heard of Rudyard Kipling's story of Ricki-tiki-tavi, but these are quite a bit smaller than the Indian ones who tangle with cobras. In fact, we found that they are close cousins to meerkats! We had a huge rain/wind storm last night. It was quite exciting as the cottages only have screens so the wind came whipping through as the rain beat on the tin roof. It was great to listen to and we both slept soundly. We took the day off today and drove Barb, Jim and Glenn into Cruz Bay. We had to wait at one point as a herd of five cows were meandering down the middle of the road (see photo). We went to visit an artists house/studio that Barb and Jim were familiar with. I bought some of her postcards and enjoyed looking at her watercolors. He dog posed quite nicely for me so I snapped her picture (see above). As we were getting back to the jeep, we spotted a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig in the surf (see photo). His owner was luring him in with Cheerios. His name was Ziggy and he was rather cute. Jim renamed the spot where we saw him, the Bay of Pigs! We stopped at the post office and mailed some boxes and letters from the staff. We also picked up mail going out to camp. We drove down to Mongoose Junction and did a little shopping (not that there was much there, but I did pick up a few things). We ate lunch at a Texas BBQ place and decided we had had enough of the "big city" and decided to head back. Unfortunately, the parking brake was stuck and we could not unstick it no matter what we tried. Jim and Dave stayed with the car while the rest of us walked up to the car rental place to see if someone could help us out. One of the guys drove us back to the Jeep and he basically pounded on it until it became unstuck - we probably would have broken it if we had tried doing the same - so no more parking brake for us! We stopped at the National Park Service area to borrow a projector for the camp and then headed out the north road for home. We made one more quick stop at Lily's in Coral Bay for bananas for some of the volunteers and then made it back to camp by 3. The back seat of the Jeep is not really made for 3, but we managed. The students just got back from their hike. They went up to Ram's Head, Drunk Bay, and snorkled in Salt Pond and then back to camp - about 6 miles round trip. They are now working in groups on a variety of research projects - mongeese distribution, sea urchins, anoles, etc. They are all busy doing their projects, but look like they are having a good time, too. By the way, the lemon squares were a big success!

St. John Tues. 3/6/12

Another gorgeous day! After helping to clean up the kitchen this morning, I baked lemon bars for tonight's dessert. We are out of confectioner's sugar, but I found a recipe that uses granulated sugar so I am hoping they come out okay. About 9:30, I got back in the rock garden. They guys built a lovely stone wall around it and I worked over that last third that didn't get done yesterday. Dave turned over a stone and found a nice tarantula which Glenn caught on a stick for me to photograph (see above). Glenn caught a skink which is pictured above on the thumb of his glove. We stopped for lunch and then Glenn offered to take Dave and I kayaking. Dave was very uncomfortable as the kayak was narrow and was pressing on his hip bones so he hopped out and walked back to camp. Glenn and I paddled around Cabrit Point (see photo) until we could see Ram's Head. As you can see it was glorious on the water. It was a big rough in the deeper water, but it was still fun. We rode some of the rollers for a while and then paddled some more. We saw a great blue heron and two oyster catchers on the shore. We also saw someone fishing with a hand line near the point. On our way back to the dock, we saw John and Harry on the boat and stopped to say "Hi" and then saw Laura and Pete who were just getting ready to jump off the dock for a snorkel. The college kids went to Hurricane Hole to snorkel this morning. After lunch, they baited have-a-heart traps trying to catch some mongeese and then worked around camp on rock walls, pulling snake plant, and generally cleaning up. They will be hungry for dinner tonight! The final picture for the day is of two Cuban tree frogs who live in the toilet tank in back of cabin 2. There were 3 of them, but one of them used to hide in the bowl and one of the guys got tired of him being there and flushed him! Poor froggy! Oops! I see that I got 2 pix of Cabrit Point and skipped the toilet toads so will try to add it. I got interrupted because the kids caught a mongoose in one of the traps and I stopped the photo upload to take a picture of the mongoose.