Company

One of the absolutely delightful things about living on a Virgin Island is that people want to come visit us.  I say this with total sincerity, we are thankful and excited that we’ve had lots of company since we’ve been here – and we hope and pray that it continues.  We’ve had our friend Michelle and her daughter Caedmon here with us since Wednesday.  They were here for just a few days two summers ago and loved it, so this time they’ve come back for a week and brought Michelle’s sister and family.  Delightful!  (Except that we got them all soundly sunburned on their first day here and everyone is still recovering!)

There are many things that are wonderful about having company, but one of them is that in showing off our tropical island, we make new discoveries ourselves.  For example, we were trying to find some iguanas to show the little ones (Nash is seven and Juniper will be four tomorrow!).  We were talking about that with my knowledgeable neighbor, who told us to seek iguanas in the morning in the tops of trees, where they will be sunbathing.  Who knew?  Yesterday morning, we had a field day spotting the prehistoric dragons hanging out in trees all around the house.  They’ve been there all along and I’ve never seen them.

The kids have had lots of fun catching lizards (we have a thriving population of anoles around and on the outside of our house).  But the very best discovery we’ve made this week, was made at the beach.  We were at Columbus’ Landing (historic! It’s the only place owned by the United States to be a documented site that Christopher Columbus came ashore). We were doing a little beach combing, and Michelle looked down, then bent down, and retrieved a tiny hermit crab. This little guy could stand in the middle of a dime and not touch any sides.  Soon, we’d found sanctuary for him in a Tupperware from the car. Now the hunt was on for a larger shell for him to be able to change into when he needed it. In that process we located a nook on the beach that was literally crawling with hermit crabs.  Teeny- tiny ones.  Ones in black and white geometrically patterned shells and ones in smooth pinkish shells – all very little but perfect in their miniature marvelousness.

So now, we have a ‘crabitat’ (not my word, it came from an internet site that is teaching us how to care for hermit crabs). Our crabitat is a plastic bin filled with sand, and it is the new and happy universe for seven happy crabs all named and cherished.  Hummm… a pod of crabs? Herd?  A murder of crabs? Flock, Team? A political party of crabs?  I’ll have to look that up.  Anyway.  They are fun and feisty, and if you think that it is only the two little kids who are enjoying them, think again!