Palo Alto Tender Tracks Thursday Oct. 18, 2012

Huddart Park
Waxing Crescent Moon
Day 14

What a very fun day. We skipped circle in order to get to Huddard park in time to make a fire and put our soon to become capes, in the mordant so that we can dye them next week.  Gisselle was instantly unhappy with the thought of missing circle because she thought she would miss snack but that fear was soon put to rest when assurance came that snack would be there right when we arrived. And it was!!!  The children piled into the bus, they all said “put on the hat, put on the hat!” so I could give out the stuffies and off their laughter began.   To flesh this picture out a bit for you, in the bus is a purple Court Jester type of a hat.  Sometimes, when it goes on the funniest things begin to take place!!! And for some reason, the children think that it is sooooo funnnnyyyyyy!!!  I just don’t know why 🙂 And then sometimes the stuffies just FLY to them, or SWIM to them.  Well, it is just the oddest thing you know?!
So, we made it to Huddart park, out of the bus we went, Audrey and I put out some bandana/napkins for their snack to be put on and, to the table they came.  As they were eating I started to get the fire going. Then, when it was ready they came over to help put it fully together. I took out the match and they decided to sing the magic Unicorn song instead of the Fire song and so they commenced.  And, THE FIRE BLAZED!!!  Yeah!  we all sang some more but the fire went well. After it was solid it was time to put the pot on with the Oak Gall Mordant and then wait for it to get warm enough to put the capes in.   At this point all the children went to play accept Miu.  She stayed with me most of the time and helped keep the fire going. She didn’t want to be anywhere else and it was very wonderful to be with her.
The other children went on great adventures with Audrey to check out the Lizard Log up the hill or down another hill to find feathers.  Well actually, they did that later on in the day.
When the mordant was ready for the capes each one of them took a cape, got up on the side of the fire pit and, with great caution and awareness, put their cape in and begin to stir and stir their capes in the, true to life, cauldron!
They were beautiful as they put their capes in to the cauldron and, taking a big stirring stick that was found right where we were and stirred and stirred and pushed and pushed the cloth down into the dark brown boiling water.  When they all finished they went right back to playing in the cabin/house there and playing with water nearbye.  They were their usual and  many varied characters but mostly, they were some form of  a family.  Paul, who loves to guard everyone, was sent off on many missions to protect and guard everyone.  He was HAPPY with this.
When the capes had soaked enough and the water cooled down, Aoife and Emme had the time of their lives covering themselves up with the water.  They said that they were “conditioning” their hair.  They stayed with that pot and almost emptied it of the water inside.  They got soaked!  and thought this was all so funny.  All the rest of the children had gone on a the Feather adventure down stream down the hill from us and came back with great stories of scat, feathers and bones!   They found a very big bone that we spent time with.  They threw out all their ideas of what animal it could be, how big it might have been, who lives here that size any way and more thoughts and ideas about who this bone really could have belonged to.
They had a GREAT DEAL OF FUN, completely putting out the fire and feeling  how warm white ash really is and then hearing the singing sounds of water when it go poured onto the white ash.  Many experiments of discovery like this today and great fun and delight.