Palo Alto Tender Tracks Tues. Dec. 18, 2012

Waxing Crescent Moon
Day 29
Thornwood Open Space Preserve

Taz, Miu and Giselle were absent today.
There were six children, Jill and I and it was a cold, clear blue sky day with a lot of fun sprinkled all in and around it.
Kaden: Quiet yet having a LOT of fun with the BOYS!  running, playing, being Iron Man and checking out mushrooms and plants.
Evan: Wanting to play not only with the boys but the girls and wanting to tease Alice.  I think he actually likes Alice quite a bit!
Paul:  Happy, playful, wise and having fun with the boys.
Aoeife: She came in today with so much ease, openness and fun, all day.
Emme: The same as Aoife. She was happy, playful and alive.
Alice:  She started the day with a great smile and loved playing “Family” with the girls.

We took our time at the beginning of the day to talk about our party on Thursday, where our other friends were, singing our songs, counting on our stick and, being able to eat snack in the Bus.  Unheard of!!!  They did really well keeping their snack in the bowels!
When we got there we had to figure out where we were going and where the trail was.   They had little interest in the trail landmarks as they really just wanted to run and run and run and run.  We stopped often though to look at scat and tracks all along the trail.
Paul got a splinter so the rest went ahead and he and I took our time fixing that.  Then we had such fun walking the trail together.  When we caught up with the others they didn’t know which way to go.  I had them do a lot of looking at the trails with a lot of probing questions for them to figure out which way was most likely the direction to go.  When they figured that out then we had more questions about a pile of dirt that  we found.  It was all bumped up on the ground.  They finally decided that it was a Giant Dionosaur or Dinosaur  Gopher poop that ate large worms, plants and sometimes people.  Evan showed us what it’s tracks must truly  look like so we were keeping our eyes out for such a creature!!!!
They then found the place where we were to set up camp and made our way down there.   The place where we landed had sun shining on this one spot so we immediately sat down there. But, indeed the sun moves and our sun would leave us and we would have to move to follow it or wait until the clouds passed by so we could feel some warmth again.
After eating Jill and I started working on the cordage for the childrens lanterns from Wild Iris leaves that were dried from last year and then reconstituted a day or so ago.   We needed to gather as dry a wood as possible  for our fire on Thursday too.
The boys found a stump and got to work creating a  great shop where they would get long sticks and some how balance them and make it so the sticks would break when they pushed them in just the right way.   The girls were across the way in a beautiful old Redwood tree playing family with incredible joy.
I found some GREAT Polypores, shelf mushrooms, and we all went exploring the world of mushrooms for a time.  A game of chase kept trying to commence but I wound up going towards the pond, they followed and then, great fun there happened.   Aoife somehow slipped on the mud and gently slid into the water but showed NO signs of distress. She and I went to find some warmer clothes but by this time it was time to go so we all packed up shortly after that to make our journey back and get warm by way of walking up and down hills.
Prior to all of this though I told them two stories.  The word Fart was coming up fairly often, as does at this age, so I told them a story I learned from Johnny Moses, a NW native storyteller about, The First Fart Power.  It is a very fun story and I told it in a way that was just right and playful for 4/5 year olds.  They laughed and laughed and then I told a holiday story.
The walk back was brisk, alive and Jill read many wonderful nature connection books on the way back in the bus that they enjoyed.