THIS IS MY FATHER'S WORLD

I'll start going back to the park--and sketching--tomorrow. Here are a few more pics before I do:

I couldn't believe it when I saw this one, so I had to take a photo. Grass was growing out of a rock in the creek, & it looked like the blade split perpendicularly, into the form of a cross. Since Okinawa has been called "The Rock", I grinned, saying, "There's a Cross on the Island!"

I've written numerous times about the dainty little hoverfly that buzzes about, masquerading as a bee. This one with its iridescent wings held me charmed more than all the others, I think.

No matter how insignificant we are, do we go about reflecting His beauty the best we can?

Altho' the park's decreasing greenery saddens me, I'm repeatedly reminded Creator God is completely aware of everything. One morning, God deliberately lifted the clouds over some thinning bushes I was mourning and shined rays from heaven.

I almost seemed to hear, "Don't forget: this is still my universe."

FIGURING OUT SOME THINGS

Yay. Photo Story time! It's just that when it got cool enough to go back to the park in the morning, I got some pictures I just had to post.

A more experienced photographer might've been able to do something like this on purpose, but not me. God had me stand at the right place where the light would shine into the lens at just the right angle--I couldn't tell you how it was done. But the picture seems to sing out how my heart was feeling to be able to get out and see my park friends again.

Because it still gets terribly hot during the daytime tho', I go out early in the morning. Altho' the sun's rays coming into the camera lens in that picture make it look like it was really bright out, that was 5:30 Aug. 30. On Sept. 2, when I went out at 5, the moon liked like this:

Most people schedule picnics on fair weather days, but I ended up aiming for a day when showers brought down the temperatures.

I was delighted to hear my toad friends and see about three others at the park this year. Other years, no humans came on wet days. Maybe it's been so hot this year, more folk are realizing precipitation isn't all that harmful, can be something to be grateful for.

Yeah, some things I used to grumble about, I realize later on can actually be blessings. He just knows I take a while before I figure out some of these things.

WELCOME BACK, KRITTER

When I came back to Iwatsuki after almost 2 months of being away, I worried about seeing the animals right away. But it was no problem (I wrote about it Feb. 27 post). The other day, I was finding myself concerned about having to stay away from the park animals so long. Would they welcome me?

When I thought back to Feb., I knew they'd welcome me back as one of their own to their flock, school, or murder..."murder"? Oh--that's a group of crows. I didn't sketch them, but they always come.

SNAKE RESCUE - THANKS MOM

If someone said they knew a serpent story about a mother who threw comfort to the winds for the safety her young, most people would imagine a human mother dashing out to rescue her child from a snake.

Two years ago, when the greenery at the park had not been cut back so much, there was a bush at Corner Cove on which I saw an Ao Daisho, a nonvenomous tree climber snake. All of a sudden, it released the branch it seemed inextricably coiled around and fell into the creek below with a splash. Almost in the same instant--and then I realized it hadn't fallen off the branch; it was a purposeful DIVE, and its tail had HACKED the water intentionally--I saw it curled around and hurriedly ushered tiny tapeworm-like snakes into a side rivulet. Safe.

From her perch on the branch above, had she seen a predator in the water about to prey on her little ones? I don't know how reptilian mothers feel about belly flops or headaches due to sudden changes in air pressure, but I do know even the staunchest, most dangerous swimmer below would have been scared away by suddenly descending shadows from the sky accompanied by exploding tsunami sound.

Thanks, mom.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

Most snake stories make the serpent the "bad guy". This was the first time I even thought of associating a Snake with Mother's Love!

ROCKETTE

I suppose the time I really started to like turtles was that winter when it seemed most of the animals were either gone into hibernation or had migrated down south where it was warmer, and everything was icy and dead, except for that turtle. It was actually carp that first came out swimming that warm day in December when the ice melted, and I was thrilled to see them playing--THERE WAS ONE TURTLE THERE TOO! I took a picture and had Kinya confirm it to be sure it wasn't just my imagination.

The tragic thing is, no other turtle came out of hibernation, so that turtle struggled through 6 weeks of winter alone. I remember seeing it paddle the icy waters of the pond by itself and cheered it on. Feeling it had to be the rockiest winter of its life, I named it Rockette.

Rockette toughed it out until the other turtles came out of hibernation in the spring, but her milky eyes witnessed how tired out her body was, and she had to turn in her shell a few days later.

3 BUTTERFLIES

I stayed home for the past few scorching days.

When I went back to the park, a butterfly came wanting to be sketched. When I told it I'd draw its picture if it held still, it stopped on a water lily pad--much too far away to see it clearly.

I wish this butterfly would've seen the next one. It stayed nearby plus opened its wings for me! It was a tiny thing, the kind that welcomed my sisters and me to the resort in Okinawa. If you didn't look carefully, it looked gray; but it was actually dusty blue and silvery mauve.

When I went home, yet another butterfly came to the bush along the back wall. It had pretty red-yellow-black wings but didn't stay very still. I must say tho', it was easier to sketch than the first one!

FASTER THAN I THOUGHT

I really thought it would be way more than a year.

Last year, at the park, I saw a baby lizard come out of a bush; find himself face to face with a large dragonfly. I wondered what the two would do. They just looked at each other as if paralyzed--or sizing each other up, perhaps. After a long moment, the dragonfly flew off and the lizard disappeared back down into the bush as if nothing had happened.

That moment...I remember wishing then I had the ability to capture it on paper. I knew I couldn't then, and I stared hard at that place on top of the bush and burned the image in my mind so I would remember it when the time came I could draw it. In ten years' time? twenty? I didn't know.

I know I still have a long, long ways to go--my little lizard looks like a green mole!--but I thought it would be better to get it drawn poorly than to forget it completely, so...here 'tis.

Adversity or Prelude to Blessings?

Rats. The camera shut down after just one picture. I followed the pretty dragonfly toward the pond but then gave up when I spied...a charming little elf-like sparrow peeking out from behind a large rock.

Did he see me? I began sketching him from the shade of the tree he kept hopping towards, and I continued doing so until I had completed the monochrome version of today's drawing (I colored it at home). If the battery hadn't run out, I would've probably tried to photograph the bird--and possibly scared it away, instead of ending up with this.

I started to head out to the other side of the park...when a large insect floated onto the branch above my head. 

This poor thing--called a crane fly--is thought of as a mosquito on steroids, but it does not bite, cannot harm humans, and in fact, lives only 10 to 15 days.

So when I saw it had made the special effort to lift up from pond reeds to the tree branch to get my attention to be drawn too--well, I just couldn't say no. I stood there under the tree branch with my brush pens sketching until my picture was finished--people walking through the park couldn't see the insect so didn't know what I could possibly be interested in...a tree?

I'd started out the day thinking, "Camera died; no pictures today." But I went home with two!

I'VE GOT A SECRET

One day at the park, I saw somebody else with a camera aiming at something in the pond and clicking his shutter, then somehow beaming with the air of--"GOT IT!" And then it was almost like he tried to hide his expression, like he didn't want to give away the secret that there was something really good there, and he wanted to keep it to himself. Well, you can imagine what that did. 

Right. I grabbed my compact camera and took off in the direction he came from!

Maybe I missed what he saw, because by the time I got there, all I saw was a very pretty water lily scene.  You'll just have to see real beauty yourself in wildlife--God has put breathtaking displays of it all over the place. Here is my rendering of the sight that day.

But I wonder...do I go around with an expression of secret joy on my face to make others want to get it for themselves too?

FROG EGGS, TURTLE HEADS

I'm not sure I should even post this picture, because I'm not really sure what it is. This is drawn from a photo taken in the spring.

I asked the pond critters for something new to sketch, instead of the same old swimming poses I drew them in. But I wasn't sure what the toads would give me when I heard them calling to me one day.

I went over to where I'd heard their croaking and looked down, but I didn't see anything, felt a strange urge to take a picture of it. Could it be toad eggs just before they hatched? 

Bilbo wasn't much help when I went over to the Irrigation Ditch and asked him what he thought. He thought I should just sketch turtles.

THEY DID IT AGAIN

After the heavy rains, I'd gone back to the park and was photographing basking baby turtles when...didn't I notice familiar movement in the surface of the pond water?

Sure enough, the water level in the stream from the connecting pond on the other side of the other side of the park rose enough for carp to come up here again. I tried not to show it, but I was ecstatic. You just couldn't see the fish in the deeper murky pond--but here, where it's shallower, their shading differences were more apparent, scars/scratches/and fish scale groupings could be seen.

I could call my little swimming angels by name again! Besides, some were old friends, and I'd only have to name half a dozen or so. Panda, Fleck, Wavy, Mime Mime, & Kiss I already knew. Time to think of names. What a happy thing to have to do.

I thought you said No

Today, I saw a photo of a turtle who'd come to the Irrigation Ditch the very day I'd told them I couldn't sketch them because I'd done turtles so many times...but I found I couldn't resist and found myself unable to stop until the wee hours of the night, when it was finally done.

I hear God is like that in that we don't have to beg Him to bless us; He can't help Himself.

Oh--this is that turtle who came to the Irrigation Ditch wanting to be sketched. I would name him Noah; only, I would have no way of recognizing him among all the other turtles.

HEEYO BIRD, DITTO BIRD

Do you remember "No Problem Telling Them Apart" (April 14 post), in which I'd mistaken a Dusky Thrush for another bird? THIS is the friend I thought I was drawing! Debonair, isn't he? I call him "Hero", because the Japanese name is the "Heeyo - bird", for its signature call.

I don't say "HEEYO," but "DITTO." That is, once after a friend's prayer, feeling "me too," I said, "ditto, God," My friends chuckled because that was the first time they'd heard anybody use it like that.

I guess it felt natural to use "ditto" because much of my communicating with God is done while journaling--writing.

Got it. New verse to that song: "His eye is on the Heeyo!"

WHAT'S HE DOING?!

I don't know why, but the turtles at Duck Pond are funny. I didn't know it happened in the animal kingdom too--I thought it was only humans that you found strange people that lived in certain places, but...

I'm serious. If you ask the other animals in the rest of the park, they'll all tell you the turtles at that pond are a little different. Oh yeah...I forgot; animals don't talk. But really. I've seen turtles there in the strangest poses or even drying off in the rain!

I had to post this drawing I made of this turtle. I've seen quite a few turtles who anchor themselves onto a boulder with their front appendages then lift their back legs up and let the air flow through, but this basker was a nonconformist. He apparently made sure he wasn't going to fall over after getting situated then pulled his FRONT legs back into his shell and basked that way!

I am glad God deals with us as individuals, aren't you? Some of us are strange turtles!

SEE?

Sept. last year, I did this thing called "Gesture Drawing", where you try to capture the animals' personalities more than try to draw them accurately. Well, with animals like cats and dogs, maybe you can see personality more readily, I felt, but it takes a lot more help from God to understand fish, birds, and insects.

I always did a little warm-up with something inanimate before trying to draw animals. One of those warm-ups wasn't exactly alive, but it moved--and altho' it was just a warm-up scribble in monotone, the longer I looked at it, the more I liked it. No, that's not a whale, but the fountain at Duck Pond.

In Oct., I decided to try my hand at realistic portraiture, and no one would get upset at me for making an unflattering picture if I drew MYSELF, right? I figure that's why a lot of artists do a lot of self-portraits. There's a guarantee there will always be someone to pose, plus the model will never get angry at you!

(I know ONE Person Who NEVER gets angry with me no matter what I do! )

Anyway, I tried drawing myself. But I tell you, I should stick to doing gesture drawing warm-ups and testing new markers...

BLOOMING DESPITE THE SHADE

"Wow; nice sketch," a teenager said, politely commenting as he pushed his bicycle across the bridge.

I'd seen down there at the bottom of the gulley a tiny flower growing out of the wall and couldn't help myself--I had to draw it. Everyone admired the pretty blossoms at the front of the park, not here at the gate in the back where you didn't get much sunlight in the Irrigation Ditch.

But in that world of grays and browns, a small magenta pom pom turned its face toward the sun and was smiling! I looked carefully, and even smaller blossoms below its collar (I'll call it that) seemed to be depending on it for their cheer too.

Do others--family members, perhaps--look up because of me, or do I smile only when it's sunny?

BUT NOT AFTER 20 YEARS!

When I went to the park yesterday, I think it was the exact same turtles who came to the exact same spot the exact same way as before at the Irrigation Ditch wanting to be sketched again.

"I can't keep drawing you guys." I told them. "Do you know how many I've done of turtles swimming here?" It seemed they started swimming around in circles like they knew what I was saying but still wanted to be sketched, didn't really want to leave either. So...

I ended up drawing just one, not all of them. And it wasn't a mature turtle, but one of the little ones...but it was a make-believe picture, I guess, because it got the shell of one of the big senior swimmers! I think the face looks like it's trying to scramble out of the pond, saying the shell's much too big & bulky for it.

Okay, okay. The truth of the matter is, I just drew the shell too big. The animals are patient with my developing drawing skills. But if I keep drawing the same way after 20 years, that WILL be a problem!

LATE BIRD

I really wanted to draw this for Koree but couldn't get it done in time for posting it for the Growing Fish post on May 3. It's there now. Sorry I was a little late, Koree.

I've heard the early bird catches the worm. Well, the late bird caught a large fish, so maybe that wasn't so bad?

June...you got it all wrong...

NEIL MEDAKA

"But even if you can draw an insect ABOVE the water, or others ON ITS SURFACE, then...would you try drawing something UNDERwater?" Way down there in the inky shadows, something was moving. "People who come to the park see carp and big fish that breach, but most don't notice us little guys, I was almost sure I heard murmured from Neil the Medaka.

I've been drawing seriously for only 2 years, but I can at least try to make a drawing of the minnow-like killifish. It would be so easy for our Infinite Creator to trace its teensy weeny fins weaving its way between the seaweeds, but it was terribly difficult for me, and this is the best I could do. Sorry, Neil.

I gave him his name because he claims to be a musician from twanging on strings of seaweed and composing lyrics like the following:

* In the water, the murky water/the spider creeps tonight (he was thinking of the water spider that captures medakas who dare swim shallow waters--Mar.30 post)

* Breaching up is hard to do.(the big fish, of course)

Okay. To be totally honest, it was super hot today, so I didn't even go to the park. This is a drawing from last year, when Neil was swimming at Step Creek, on the other side of the park.

There. Got that off my conscience.

HARVEY FLY

It's "Golden Week" when the park is full of families enjoying holiday vacation together for a few days.

I was looking at turtles today when a father came shouting to his kids a bee had come around and shuffled them off to a safer place. But when I really saw the black-and-yellow critter flying around the flowers, I had to sketch it!

"Aren't you scared of bees?" it seemed to say.

I laughed. It was a Hoverfly! Bee-like markings make much wildlife wary of it too, but the friendly little thing actually has no stinger. Without these markings, this insect would have a hard time going about eating and taking care of daily work, but God sees to it it's given necessary protection.

"His Eye is on the Sparrow," I've heard sung. What about, "His eye is on the FLY/and He cares for such as I"?

Would you pray for my missionary sister Joyce back in the U.S, about to start furlough? It seems she may have diverticulitis. She was hospitalized for abdominal pain in Okinawa just before time to go overseas but God took the pain away then. The discomfort has returned, and Joyce sees the doctor tomorrow.

At best, this can be treated with antibiotics while she runs around churches as planned. The more serious scenario may include bedrest, hospitalization, even surgery.

So...if my Heavenly Father would care for a hoverfly, of course He'd watch over my sister, right?