Friday Tender Tracks Day 22

March 8, 2019
Waxing Crescent Moon
Lake Lagunitas

As soon as we hopped off of Juniper Rose at Lake Lagunitas, the children immediately spotted newts in the deep puddles and creek by our parking spot. We then headed to the sunny meadow by our climbing tree. All the children were checking on their favorite spots, and Raccoon Mom Margot made sure the Raccoon Home was ready for her family.

Ruby and Miles played a game of throwing small rocks through a looped branch, working on aim and accuracy. While Siena helped me set up the mats for snack, she spotted another sign of spring – tall purple flowers! We are so excited by all the telltale signs of warmer weather on its way!

At snack time we all got to enjoy a sweet treat brought by Violet, the birthday girl! I told the story of star (and moon) child Violet and her adventures leading up to turning 5 and we wished on all her adventures yet to come.

Grandmother North and Grandfather South played all day and we got sprinkles of rain, and warm sun, and some chilly cloud cover, and then sunshine back and forth! We played a game too, with lots of back and forth running! Each child chose a secret animal to become and Ruby would call out different attributes of the animal and if it applied to their animal they would run and try not to get tagged. We played many rounds of being local animals, fantastical animals and imaginary animals. We were foxes, deer, unicorns, bobcats and more.

We adventured a different way around the lake today up the trail to the stone steps. On our walk, Charlie and Siena would turn into rocks right on the trail so I had to knock on them and say, “Knock knock, rock! Please join me on my walk!” for them to magically come alive and continue on. Rohan was on a search for turtles in the sunshine near the lake.

We got to a lovely spot and found a wonderful tree to explore, the roots were upended and the branches were in the water so we got to climb on top of the root ball and also walk out over the water on the trunk. There was a heron sitting near the water and we held very still just like it so we could get a closer look.

The tree trunk became a highway of crawling and walking and scooting around branches and each other. The children practiced their balance and climbing skills and we found that all the children could fit (along with me) atop the roots!

We had a listening lunch where we tried to keep our voices whispery, or off, to better hear the sounds of springtime around us. We heard Woodpecker calling, our own munching, the breeze in the trees, some mysterious bird song, and our friends’ whispers. Blake and I created a small town with rock towers, stick borders, acorn boats, lichen trees, leaf umbrellas and acorn cap homes.

We had a silly walk and run back to Juniper Rose to share our gratitudes for sunshine (and sprinkles,) a big log to climb, the heron and newts! We even looked for more signs of spring on our ride back to Peri Park.

Siena’s sign of Spring!

our little nature town