Palo Alto Tender Tracks Tues/Thursday Jan. 8, 2013

Waning Crescent Moon
Day 31
Pichetti

Brand new day of the year and all were here!  What a beautiful day. It started out so very, very cold and our new songs sang to the “King Winter” and “Jackie Frost” and the ‘winds and rains.’   The story that happened later on in the day was about the 12 month brothers and a new song about the 12 months, four seasons and 7 days of the week.
Taz was immersed in the Hulk and Super Heroes and Kaden joined his enthusiasm.  Paul and Evan took to “male bonding” and joined them now again yet played and built the “castle” with them often and then off on their own pleasures.  Emme began the day with very understandable tears due to a loss of her Nanny and her Nanny’s car accident. All is well with the Nanny though!  The group supported her hurt and were, as children always are, curious about her tears when ever they would well up and then supside.  When Emme laughed Miu was delighted and said “Look, she’s laughing now.”  Each one liked talking about the things that they did on their holidays and it was very fun to ask them about their holiday adventures.
When we finally left and then when we arrived we came straight upon the great Peacock, who, since our last visit has grown out his most beautiful manly tail feathers about a foot and a half!    Evan, Aoife, Alice, Paul, Giselle and Emme all tracked these horse tracks up the trail while Miu, Kaden and Taz ran ahead.   They waited for us at the top and then scooted off down to the pond. And was there any water from all this rain this season?  NOOOOOO!!!! How could this be???? I am baffled that there was not even a little puddle!  Even last year with a dry season and a very dry pond there was at least a puddle  after some rains. And, all the newts were gone today. We did not find a single one where as last time we came they were covering the ground.  Our house that has been being built over many visits, fell down in the middle and the boys and Miu got straight to work building it up.
After eating, I brought out for the the girls, mainly,  magnifiying glasses and Jill and I tried to make some dry grass alight.  We got smoke, we got some of the children to help out but we never got any real flames.   It was very fun though and we got to see the strenght of the Sun upon glass.
When I told the story of the day it was all the girls that came to listen.  Evan came in and out but he wanted more of my attention then the story or at least it appeared that way, so he went back to the boys that were still building.   Paul, though over with the boys, had his head poking out of the logs clearly trying to listen though maintaining solidarity with the male portion of the class.
Throughout the day I would start working with rocks as tools, or making wood into pencils and mud and water into ink to use on Eucalyptus bark for our paper.  Paul was really into writing Military messages to be sent and Emme found some nice bark to write some notes on to give to her Nanny.   Alice just spent a lot of time making ink and Miu loved playing with my hair.
Jill got them all involved with getting stones to gather which then they began building a stone house but then abandoned that.
I took Taz, Kaden and Paul on a stalking mission to do our best to catch frogs.  Well, we stalked, walked quietly,listened to what direction they came from yet, we never were able to outsmart the Frogs and catch any.
Giselle all of a sudden got quiet as if her feelings were hurt and she wouldn’t look at any of us but then she would secretly smile!  I sat near her and then had her lay her head on my lap to take a sun nap and she smiled without a word or a look and the other girls joined her as they rested in the now, warm, warm sun.  There was great contentment and we never did figure out if anything was bothering Gisselle and in truth, she never showed any signs, other then being quiet and not wanting to look at us, that she was upset.  When we finally got up she had radiant smiles and was delighted with the present moment.
We had to clean up and get back to the bus by this time.  Giselle, Evan, Paul and I went the short way and the others went the other way.  We hid and went BOO when they came up the trail and Giselle LOVED this!  Miu saw us and had fun with seeing us startle Taz and Kaden.
On the bus Jill read them a book that I brought from the library and it went perfectly well along with our time spent listening to the birds today and wondering what they were saying.