Palo Alto Tender Tracks Tues. Feb. 4, 2014 Day 39

Waxing Moon
Foothill Park: First Meadow

All were here, the Sun was shinning and new songs and stories for this month, where many celebrate mid winter, gratitude and Love,were introduced.   We are also and still, calling in the rain.  We sang new rain songs and I shared with them a Rain stick from our friends in the South.  I then had them get still, look around and tell me what they saw.  All the those things that they saw became a story. Stories are truly everywhere just waiting to be found and then told.  It was a fun story about a playful puppy playing with , rocks, big rocks, hills, trees and water, all the things they were looking at.  We then went to play in and with all those things for the rest of the day.
The children just began the first of several to come, jobs.  They have been doing this job all a long but now it is official with our little book to write names down in order to take turns.  The job is The Weather Watcher. They are the ones who hold the Weather and Counting stick and report to us about the Weather, the Wind, the Clouds and what we might want/need  to wear or take notice of.  Since it is Juliette’s birthday this week it is her week to take this job. She was delighted!
After circle it was our mission to gather Rabbit Poop and Pine Tree sap in order to make glue for our rattles.  They all got into gathering the poop during, after and throughout the day but Ridham and Finn really went for it and gathered the most.  Later in the day it was such a beautiful vision to see Jill, Ridham and Finn joyfully crawling on hands and knees all over the grass looking for rabbit poop. They discovered that when the grass was low or almost gone there was a lot of rabbit poop and when the ground was rough and govered with prickley plants there was no poop. They discovered a great deal about the different ground that the Rabbit Poop was or was not found.  As for the Pine Pitch, the first day of school there was a pine tree with copious amounts, actually odd looking pitch but a lot of it.  Today as we went there to gain a lot for our needs, low and behold, the tree was cut down.  Maybe in deed the pitch looked odd because the tree was ill.  We will still experiment with what was gathered on our first day but we also found some fresh pitch.     Zac, Serena and I went off to a Pine tree and found a small WoodRats nest at the base.  It had very fresh scat at it’s door, that is where they poop, and it was, as I said, small. Zac and I checked it out a lot and then I saw pitch up along the tree. I figured out how to climb up. Zac and Serena aided me in finding my way down safely.   We then met up with the others that had been gathering pitch on other trees.
Cole, Julian, Juliette and Zac wound up peacefully “fishing”for a long time by the pond.  Then, coincidentally? two fishermen came. They went closer to them and just stood there watching them.  It was so very, very beautiful.  This was a perfect day for standing in the Sun and cool breeze “fishing” and allowing the grace and charm of the day to envelope us with it’s peaceful beauty.
On the other side of the pond Eden, Serena and Zara were IMMERSED in what they love the most, playing house.  They called in Jill to be the baby because really, anyone they can get to come in is grand for them.
At the end of the day I brought them into a small game of See this and Find it.  I put four nature objects on a cloth covered, prepared them and then uncovered the items. They had about 15 seconds to take in all they saw. Then I covered the items up. They  then proceeded to run around looking for as many items as they could remember.    They all came back with three out of the four accept Serena who recalled all four: Pine cone, large leaf, stick and, a dried up Cat Tail leaf.
Ridham actually was contentedly eating and just watched everyone as they went through all of this.
It was then time to go so, off we went.