Palo Alto Tender Tracks April 15, 2014 Day 57

Full Moon
Foothills Park

Serena, Juliette and Julian are all away on their own special adventures.
The rest of us enjoyed a most beautiful Spring day.   Today we went to Foothills park and it was just PERFECT.  The story that I read today was one I love to read this time every year. It is called  Rabbits Wedding. The pictures are so sweet as well as the story. In the story it had different plants in it that the rabbits played in and ate and would you believe it, we were surrounded by all these plants: Dandelions, Daisies, Miners lettuce, Chickweed, Clovers….The children, after circle had just so much fun finding the Dandelions and eating them and figuring out what is really a Dandelion and how do you figure it out.  We ate Clover leaves, miners lettuce from a huge patch that we found later in the day on the way to the Slippey Sliddey, plus chickweed but NOT Poison Hemlock!!

After eating and discovering all the wonders around us we ate lunch.  Zara and Eden went off on their own. Jill later joined them and I was with the boys.  Cole was actually sitting on his own at a picnic table, as he wished but slowly, slowly he came closer and closer to the rest of us until finally we were all together.
He and Zac had been wrestling a lot in the morning and wanted to continue. Cole wanted me to wrestle  so I began wrestling with them the way so many Tender Trackers over the years have wanted to do.   After awhile Finn joined in.  I asked if Ridham wanted to and he ran over to join.   He and Finn’s wrestling was far more playful and easeful yet the strength of them all was great and it was so very much fun.  I redirected after a time and Finn found a wonderful creature that looked like a version of a centipede.  They all became fascinated.  I needed to go to the bathroom and when I came back all four of them were huddled together looking at things in the grass. Then they discovered little cocoons under the picnic tables. All of them were sharing and very involved in discovering these creatures.   Then, wrestling again and then, off to sneak up on the girls and Jill so that we could make our way to the Slippey Sliddey.
While we were wrestling the girls were playing with Jill and having such a good time. At the end of the day Eden’s thank you expressed her gratitude for playing with Jill and, of course, Zara.
But oh, how can I forget one of the main things we did today?  I brought out baskets . We filled them first with paper bags made to fit inside, put soil in then wheat grass seeds.  They then took a spray bottle and sprayed them with water and then covered them up with a plastic blanket with instructions on how to take care of it.  They all enjoyed this greatly!!!!
So, after all of the above we made our way to the Slippey Sliddey.  We all hide from Zac and Jill who were coming down the trail after us.  They just LOVED hiding and being ever so quiet.  SURPRISE as they finally found us.  FInn was sitting peacefully down in one spot and invited me to see all the food that he was infront of. I came down and then we wound up playing on some logs near there. Pretty soon, Zac, Eden, and Cole came to play and see if they could climb up this fallen log.  Jill was off with Zara and Ridham. When they came to us Ridham had found a great Buckeye with a sprout coming out of it. He had a choice of planting it there or taking it home and experimenting to see how to make it grow.  He wanted to take it home but alas, as he was walking the sprout came off. I picked it up though and thought he could still succed but, it seems by the end of the day it disappeared.  Finn was really excited about this so Ridham showed him where he found them, though he didn’t think there were any more. But, low and behold Finn found one too and was delighted.
As our day was coming to a close I wound up telling a bunch of personal stories as Zac said, ‘if someone hurts me I will hurt him back.’  I said, I know another way and began to share.  He liked that and all was well.
Ridham, our Mapmaker of the week, began drawing and Zara and Eden really wanted to join in.  They helped him with his mapmaking by way of asking him questions about his map but ultimately he did all the drawing.