Palo Alto Tender Tracks Tues/Thurs. Sept. 18, 2012

Waxing Crescent Moon
Web Ranch and Foothill Park, the Big Meadow
Day 5

The day began with gray skies yet happy hearts, well, all accept Emme who just received her Mother back from a trip she just took.  Emme was able to part with her when she got to hold onto her sweet smelling sweater all day.  I hope you were warm enough on this day Mom!!!

Circle was different as when I arrived, Miu and her Mom were there and when we went to our circle spot, it was covered with all the mulch that the Guardians of the Park bring in. What to do?? Should we push this three to five inch mulch away? Will the Guardians be displeased with this?  Well, Miu and her Mother came up with a great idea, we made a hole like space in the center and then something similar to a moat all around where the mats went. Miu thought it really looked like a beautiful flower. She then put our center stone in, THE CENTER!  It really was the most beautiful circle I believe Tender Tracks has had, or at least the most creative. Miu went further and made a little mouse circle all with beautiful Oak leaves.  Just beautiful!

The story of the week was an animal version of Stone Soup with the main characters being: Ronda and Rickety Racoon who, in the end, got an entire village to come together and share their food and fun together.  And with that, and after circle they played then we went off to Web Ranch to get our own vegetables for our own Stone Soup!!

What fun they had picking out all the vegetables. They were in super fast mode gathering the vegetables and putting them into the container I had for them. We then sat on the ground and looked at everything we got and noticed what might be missing, POTATOES!!! Emme hadn’t gotten anything so, she went to get just the right potatoes for our soup.    Then, they all received a dollar bill, we took over to the store keeper. He then  told us how much money we owed and then each one put their dollar bill on the counter.  “Why did we all do that?” one of them rang out.  ‘So that we can all share making the soup we will create together on Thursday.’  They then ran up and all over the Hay bales and then into the bus where, we smelled all of our vegetables.  Before we got out of the bus to pick them we got our noses ready by imitating Rabbits!

When we arrived at Foothill Park they joyfully ran down the meadow and from that point on we found so many treasures!

They found the pond and then we found lot’s of feathers that matched each other and one that didn’t.   Jill told us that we could make a type of glue with rabbit scat and tree sap so we searched for rabbit scat and found lot’s !!!  We gathered, and gathered and gathered.  They found Cattail fluff yet still don’t know that the plant is called Cat Tail.The mystery is on and it will be fun when they discover where that funny downy stuff really comes from. Soon, very soon I believe they will figure this one out.

We heard an incredible bird that at first just sounded like a buzzing. We got quieter and quieter until, it buzzed right past us, and it looked a lot like a Kingfisher.  Wow, that was fun!!!!  Then off we went to lunch and then, great and grand exploring commenced.  I made many necklaces and braclets out of Cattail leaves and they played with sticks that turned into water and fire sprayers and then, some Turkeys came out of the bushes. There were four, five, six, oh my, seven, eight, nine, oh dear!  there were many, many, many that came out of the bushes!!!!!  I began to stalk quietly in their direction and the children quietly followed.  We bent our heads down to feed like the Turkeys. “Maybe they will think we are one of them?”  said Wendoly but, in the end, Evan and Kaden’s feet went faster and faster and woooosssshhhhh, away up the hill the Turkeys went. However, a clue that came to us when we first got off the bus seemed to bring about some answers.  We had found some scat on the ground.   I thought the scat was Turkey but, why was it on the road?  Do Turkeys even come here or was it goose poop like the poop we saw at the Duck pond. And here the Turkeys came and they went onto the road!  Could it really have been Turkey scat/poop that we saw when we got there?

We played great chase games and they piled me up with leaves.
Jill had spent a good deal of time with Emme, Gisselle and Paul under a beautiful tree.  Those children would come back and forth where I and the others were and then go back to Jill. When Paul saw all the Turkeys Jill said that he said” I know how to count them all because my dad is a mathematician’ or something close to that.

Before we all left we looked at all the things we had gathered this day: acorns, feathers, rabbit scat, fluff(cattail down) and told some stories of the day.

On the ride back the children in the back near Jill got to look at the wonderful Golden Guide Field guides for children.  They were entranced.  The ones up closer to me were involved in listening and requesting some True to Life stories of mine about Racoons and Skunks.