Tender Tracks Friday Day 12

December 7, 2018
New Moon
Lake Lagunitas

It was another clear and cool morning at Lake Lagunitas, with the loud rushing of water crashing down the spillway. Violet was not with us today, and was missed. Miles, Blake and Rohan were almost immediately playing in the creek, followed soon after by Siena and Charlie in their rain boots. There was much rock dropping, tossing and splashing. Miles’ calls of “emergency splash!! watch out!!!” precluded many a giant SPLOOSH!

Today was a tricky day, with a bit of lunch for snack in preparation for a special lunch addition later. We played with ideas of what we could call this hybrid snack lunch; a snunch? a lack? We heard a story about travelers with a lantern and their adventures in a village where they inspired all the villagers to contribute to their ‘Stone Soup.’

The children also got to choose new guardian roles from the secret bag. Margot and Rohan were once again our Guardians of Safety holding our mini first aid kits, Blake and Siena are the Snack Helpers who assist with set up and clean up, Charlie and Miles are the Guardians of the Earth that help protect Mother Earth from trash,  and when Violet returns, she will be our Weather Watcher who holds our weather feather.

After our snunch, we set out to our favorite spot for Raccoon Family play. All the children were soon climbing as Raccoons in a Redwood tree bathed in sunshine. Ruby and I were making small wreaths of Bay Laurel and Fir and some children though that the wreaths would be a lovely addition to various part of the forest. Rohan decorated the big climbing Redwood and Margot, Siena, Charlie, Miles and Blake decorated the fairy ring Redwoods that make up the Raccoon Home.

There was a new adventure afoot as our story from earlier seemed to play out right in the forest before us! The children found some hidden veggies: three carrots, two zucchini, one apple, one onion, and one sweet potato- just like the villagers’ contributions from the story! After scrubbing our hands and washing the vegetables, we set to work chopping them for a delicious Stone Soup of our own. Ruby started the small camp stove and helped to add all the beautifully chopped rainbow-colored vegetables to a delicious bubbling broth.

While the soup cooked, we ate the rest of our lunches. And then, perhaps the most tricky part of our day, we had soup for dessert!! It was so much fun to play with our day’s schedule, having snunch, lunch, and Stone Soup dessert. All of the children tried the soup, and many devoured their whole bowl!

Full of food, the children were back to the sunny Redwood for climbing and then Miles started a game of ‘duck, duck, goose’ and all the Tender Trackers and I joined in! Running in the warm smiling sunshine of Grandfather Sun was a treat for our afternoon.

It was such a full day together we had so much gratitude to share. Appreciations abounded for lots of water in the creek, beautiful wreaths for Raccoons, yummy soup we all helped to make, and fun times with friends in the forest.