Marin Tender Tracks Tues. May 17, 2016 Day 61

Waxing Gibbous Moon
Lake Lagunitas

Rhett was sick this am, Talay at Wise, Velia on holiday, Io on a special day with Mom and Michelle got caught in traffic and was later then expected.

Therefore we had, Aaron, Alara, Ariel and Layton.

The day was very warm and we were glad to be under the cooling Redwood trees for most of the day.  It felt like no one was out and about any where, even at Peri park!  It added to the days ease, quiet and peacefulness.

When the five of us got to the Lake we went out and Ariel found a Yellow Jacket catcher on the table right where we have our circle. She was  not comfortable with it there.  I do believe it was a very, very old one that had fallen and someone carefully placed it on the table. To create greater ease for all I put it back up on a tree and they were all just fine with that.   We put our packs down and then had a contest to see who could gather all the different types of material we needed to make a fire.  I brought some material for the nest and then laid out different sizes of wood for four different piles.   Then OFF they went.  Their interest was wanning so I invited them to gather as much as they could in three minutes.  Then VOOM! off they went  gathering, gathering, gathering.

We then looked at each persons pile and from there, they each got a special wooden bead in the shape of a Butterfly.  They were given the opportunity to trade or to decline from whom ever wanted to trade ( in preparation for our trade blanket.)  All went so very well with this without a single complaint.  Alara got the first Butterfly and the only one who got a choice since she got exactly the size that we were looking for initially.  And still, no trouble at all.

Michelle still was not with us so we made our circle, sang our songs and then SHE CAME!! right when I was about to tell a story.  How happy we were to see her safe and sound.

I told a story I haven’t told in years. It was spurred on due to how slow we were singing a song at circle time.  It is an old story about the Slow Talking Sloth Medicine Man  and very fast Grandmother Monkey!!!  then I told a revised version of The three Billy Goats Gruff.  In this story, the biggest billy goat was a girl and she befriended the Troll who really was not that very big and just wanted a friend.

After circle and snack, we played a game called Coyote and Rabbit because Layton REALLY wanted to. They also found a small bull frog that, when approached, HOP HOP HOP SPLASHED away.  Alara was very happy because she said she had never seen a frog before.    We then went on a walk about looking for Dandelions, Chickweed, Elderberry Flowers and Madrone flowers to put in our Fritters that we were going to make after gathering.

We found all of these plants, and with a magnifying glass got to see that the Chickweed really DOES only have hair on one side of it’s stem and we discovered the False Dandelion  plant whose flower looks just like Dandelion but whose leaves and stems do not!
We roamed around going to the lake at the other side of the parking lot and visited some places we haven’t been to in a while.  We walked to where we went at the beginning of the year and gathered Madrone berries. Now we are seeing that most of the Madrone flowers are dried up and the green berries are just beginning to pop and then will be ready again in the fall!  We went up the hill and saw that the big debri pile was gone yet the big culverts were not. So, they played in those culverts and were throwing “shooting stars” in them. They had become astronauts flying to the moon!

We finally meandered our way back to our original spot where they went straight to the creek to play and we began getting the batter ready for them to mix and the fire ready for them to light. Layton got to light the fire first today because she was not able to try a match last time.  Brother sister wind  were being tricky so her match and the next two were having a hard time getting  lit.  Finally, the last person, Ariel, got the fire started with her match.  Yeah, and then we all made sure the fire kept going.

They all mixed the batter, put in the plants that we gathered, watched Michelle cook them up and then, butter, apple sauce and YEAH!!!  They were great.  By this time it was close to 1 o’clock! They ate those and some more of their lunches and then the desired, desired, desired thing happened, they got to play in the water and under the waterfall!!!!

Aaron and I got water and poured it all over the fire to put it out. There was stirring of this muck, putting clothes back on, packing up and going home.  A beautiful, sweet and gentle day.