Marin Tender Tracks Thursday Jan. 21, 2016 Day 32

Waxing Moon
Phoenix Lake

Ione was absent today.
The weather was clear, warm and a bit like spring. My experince though with this time of year for years and years is that, no matter the weather pattern of the year, Jan. feels like spring and then winter comes again in February. So, another year to check this pattern out. 🙂
Today was Velia’s birthday celebration and she was very excited to have it, particularly to receive the Tender Tracks gift.  We gathered around under the blue sky surrounded by the music of the rushing creek behind us.  They were all excited for the traditional birthday way and receiving the wonderful Paleo snack that Velia was proud to give out.
After circle they panned out to the great tree behind us, the creek and some needing to go to the bathroom.   Aaron was DELIGHTED  that he found a “beach” and took myself, Alara and Layton down to see this. Rhett was busy and content up in the tree along with Talay while Ariel and Velia went with Michelle for bathroom needs.  It turns out that the porta potties were very, very unpleasant so it was good that Tender Tracks has it’s own little “porta Pottie” that the girls used.
Down by the creek  Aaron invited all of us into making an Alter. Alara asked him what an Altar was. He said something to the effect that it was a place to put things you really like together.  He made a circle with stones and a water pool inside.  Layton sang me a beautiful impromptue worm song and invited me to throw “wishing stones” in the water together.   Alara found stones to paint with and Talay came down and did the same. Then Talay, Rhett and Alara became scouts to go and see if Michelle was still ok with the other two and come back to report to me. They RAAAN off with delight for the “mission!”
When everyone came back Michelle took Velia, Ariel and Alara on an adventure to the other side while the rest of us wound up trying to make a bridge over the flowing creek.  We tugged and pulled, pulled and tugged big fallen branches to get over and lay across. The waters were so rushing that it was hard for me to do it. We needed the folks on the other side to help. We waited and waited until they came back. When they did we all worked together to make this bridge.  Everyone got so excited and helpful to build this bridge up. It unfortunately never became stable enough to truly cross yet it was fun building it together.  The ones on the other side took a big adventure to get back to us and we watched as they did.   We then all played by the creek painting our faces. Rhett was a dragon, Layton a butterfly, Talay a Fairy with hearts on her hands ( Layton too),and Talay painted  me as a Tiger.  However, our paint did fade over time we discovered so we looked for different rocks that would make darker shades.
Lunch time came and we all gathered together for a sweet lunch after which they went to the shelter place there to play house.
After a while Michelle and I were able to get to our original intention of bringing out the tools. We did and they all gathered around for the rest of the day hammering nails into rotten logs, digging into the rotten logs, digging in the dirt and discovering many worms and discovering lot’s about them, making patterns with nails and so much more.  We were all together, tending to our joys, taking good care of the tools and discovering, discovering, discovering.
One of my favorite moments was watching Layton have so much fun trying to pull out the nails and falling backwards each time. She really liked this happening so she kept on doing it!
Before the hammering Velia and Ariel went way into the water so 15 minutes before we left I changed their cold bodies into their warm and dry clothes. While I was doing that Michelle gathered them all together and wrote down in her book all the different things they saw, heard, smelled, felt, and touched.  At lunch time we played a bunch of games with smelling, feeling, noticing the many things about their food.  We also played a game of plugging our noses while we drank our lemon water to see if it tasted any different or changed what we tasted or smelled.
Another expansive and fun day.