Palo Alto Tender Tracks Thurs. May 9, 2013

Day 62
New Moon
Huddart Park

All were here and it was a high energy day for some which altered a bit some of the plans yet in no way deterred us from becoming immersed into natures wonders.
Todays focus was mainly to carry on with the planning and practicing of things the children want to share on our last day of school with all you parents.  Due to the high energy at the beginning of the day I decided to take a bit of a walk to our destination instead of staying close to where we were parked.  This helped greatly because, the boys in particular, got out of the bus and ran back and forth,back and forth, back and forth and then I introduced, kick the large Pine cones.  There were several on the ground. This was a great game and so much like soccer that they took to it straight away.  Snack was laid out and gobbled up, they REALLY like cuties and can go through almost an entire bag plus chips/crackers.  Then, off we went down the road with our ears, eyes, nose and other senses open. The birds were making a rucous due to our sounds so we got a bit quieter and went through the Island Forest ( a little island in between the road.)  Just in the first part of our walk they found a great caterpillar, butterflies, and a slippey sliddey trail.  When we got to the meadow they found a lot of scat to dissect.  They went into an Oak tree grove where a dry creek bed was and where Audrey found Lizards.  She brought their attention to this and they explored for a bit. As we were leaving I found and caught a cricket.  We all sat down on the upper trail and took a good look at this new friend and sang some of our old songs to it.  It then hopped on Aoife who was DELIGHTED as she said ” I have never seen a cricket. I have never held a cricket before!”
We went further down the trail and found something else and then we went to a place that we know and settled in there.
From that point on there was much play and exploration.
Evan immediately went down to the creek along with Taz and then Kaden.  How they loved exploring down there.   The girls and the rest went down but there was eating as well.
Later on, Miu, Aoife, Paul and I all worked diligently with my hand drill. They were INCREDIBLE as they worked their hands on this and cheered me on when it was my turn.  I got smoke and they loved, loved feeling the heat, sometimes a great DEAL of heat, at the tip of the hand drill. Miu kept saying HOW MUCH she loved the smell of the smoke!  They all chimed in and, I must say, it is one of my all time favorite smells.   What is a smell that YOU really like?
While we were working on this Taz and Kaden would regularly run by and wonder what we were doing. Taz finally stopped and asked how to do it but, his patience ran out rather quickly and he never did try his hand at it.  Kaden just followed the running path and off they went.
Giselle was her classic magnificent wonder with her pretty bows and clothes yet scrambling up hills with ease, determination and smiles all the way.  Alice was down by the water most of the time and Emme, well, Emme was her glorious self as she wound up falling head first into the water and, as usual, loved it.  I did change her though because where we were was not that warm and she was dripping wet.
Taz had cut his toes a couple of times and got so very, very sad about this. He, in the midst of tears, kept asking “why don’t the others with bare feet cut THEIR toes???”  When we were walking back he cut his toe again and Alice and Emme showed him many different ways to walk so that he might not cut his toes any more.
This was a very glorious, growthful and beautiful bug filled day with great adventures.