Palo Alto Tender Tracks Wednesday Oct. 10, 2012

Waning 3rd Quarter Moon
Foothill Park-The Big Meadow
Day 6

All were here today accept Mindy. She gave us all a beautiful goodbye for  the day yet children asked throughout the day, “Where’s Mindy?”  She is loved and was missed.
The weather was a questionable one as the night before there were great bolts of lightening, thunder and rain all about. The ground however was not really that wet and the clouds cleared with blue skys throughout the day.
We celebrated Jaspers birthday and he smiled so beautifully when he heard his name sung in the Nature Birthday song.
After circle they played for awhile exploring the Laying down Tree as well as the big stump and then off we went.
Picking stuffies is an intricate and caring time as they really want to hold just the right stuffed animal. Sometimes they choose one and then want to change their mind and get another one.  Two times is what is offered and then off we go and off we went.
Right when we got to the park three beautiful deer came into our view, before getting out of the bus.  These children seem to draw in animals to us.   It is wonderful!   They all took their time getting their backpacks and getting ready to move into the next part of our day.   We went to the “Magick house” (bathroom) first and then became all manner of animals as we went down and across the meadow.  Duncan, Sirena, and Julian were either frogs or snakes crawling across the lawn.  They morphed several times as well as some others and we made our way down the meadow.  Juliette was in the lead and ran to the tree where we set up camp.  I layed out the white cloth, they sat down, we said our Thanksgiving verse and eating we did. Well, as usual, some.  Zara REALLY wanted to see the ducks that were in the water and said she would be right back.   Davey went to see what she was looking at, ran over there but came back to eat some more.  Duncan did the same and the rest finished, again somewhat, eating.  Jasper stayed the longest languishing in all of the parts of his lunch and sharing his excitement about that.    The rest finally went running off to see what Zara was interested in.   There they were, a gaggle  of children huddled together looking at?  Well, I never did find out what but they WERE having quite fun at the water’s edge.
Audrey went over and they all transformed into many different animals and began a race: bears, coyotes, snakes and such.  These wonderful creatures came running over to me and TOPPLED ON ME!!!!  They thought this was soooo much fun. A grand chase and run game presented it self and what fun.  But Misha? where was he?  He was very involved with looking at some plants.  I took one of the long grasses and made him a “crown.”  Once upon his head he gave a GREAT BIG SMILE and went off  in the direction of some other children.   Then Zara, Duncan, Sirena and Harper wanted one so I made very, very simple “crowns” for them.  They became grand Princes and Princeses and they were very delighted about this!!!  Later on Duncan, Sirena and Harper made a castle up on the hill, rode off on horses and were very, very delighted about being Princesses and Princes.
Julian had a crown too and later on, when Audrey and all the children accept Jasper  found the “waterfall”, threw their crowns into the water.  They found the water because Audrey was guiding the children into stalking up on frogs at the waters edge.  However, they never DID find or catch a frog but they did hear one jump into the water.  We were all serenaded though by the frogs that were in the woods.  Davey, Julian and I, a little later, were listening to, what sounded like water to me, with our ears pressed to this metal lid on the ground.  I lifted it up to see but there was just a lot of  wiring and what looked like some kind of tube for water? to be going through. Maybe a pump.  As I put the lid down Davey said “Frog, Frog!”  I lifted the lid again and, THERE IT WAS, the same kind of frog that we saw swimming in the toilet during our second week together!!!!  He seemed quite scared of us and tried to get away but Davey kept trying to catch it!  I was finally able to get it out of this place that did not look like the best for him,( at least to me). I then held him, we all got in a circle to look and then this little treasure began hopping away.  On my arm, my chest, my neck then, off on the grass.  Hopping, hopping and the children followed it until they tired of this accept Misha who followed it until it got to the Poison Oak at which point, I shared with him that we couldn’t go any further.
Zara really wanted to climb a tree earlier so I found a tree for her to climb.  Other children tried with her and Julian was delighted with his ability to climb up it.  Jasper had joined the other children with the water and really liked that.   Audrey found “snow”
( Cattail down) and fluffed it all over us and then they went with her to try and find some more.  By this time, I couldn’t believe it, it was time to go.  This was no easy feat to get them all going.  Misha found great ants to play with as he so gently let them crawl on his hand with joy.  Zara wanted to kill them yet I encouraged her to see how gentle Misha was and she could do the same. She did!  The rest of them, as we were half way back, got inticed and excited about finding the mushroom people sprouting up all over and so did Misha. Getting them back really was not as easy or as simple as it might sound!!!  it is so hard to squelch curiosity and exploration like this!  However, pushing along we did and we made it!   Into the bus, waters out, story of the day and good bye song and off we went.  The children laughed the whole way back as they played their, “falling asleep game” and Audrey had them in stitches.