Tender Tracks Friday Day 2

September 21

Waxing Moon

Sorich Ranch Park

We explored a new location for our second day and headed to Sorich Ranch Park. It was already warm and sunny when everyone summited the large rock and declared themselves kings, queens, captains, and leaders! We climbed and re-climbed the big rock, up and down and around and chased our friends on the hill trails.

We sought out some shade for snack and the story about a ‘house with no doors and no windows and a star inside.’ The sweet treat came when Ruby showed us the star inside of the apple! We all had a piece of our apple ‘house’ along with snack. This inspired a planting party where each child planted an apple seed to take home and grow.

Exploring out on the dry, dusty trail we found a grape arbor with some fruit growing that Lauryn and Ruby were tall enough to gather. After our little grape feast, the children found a line of stumps perfect for balancing, hopping, and jumping across. Everyone took turns to cross the stump line and show their best stump skills.

The children decided that the arbor we found would be the perfect shady spot for lunch and we brought our packs and lunches to enjoy the breeze under the arbor. Grandfather Sun was out in all his glory, warming us up and bringing out wasps, too. We ate a speedy lunch to avoid the wasps and then set out to visit Draper Farms. The children identified tomatoes, eggplants, squash and tall, tall sunflowers with giant seed-filled heads that drooped over us. The chickens were the stars of the visit, however, and the children all had deep meaningful conversations with them in various tones of ‘bok bok.’

By this time, all of Tender Tracks children had turned into chickens as we made the walk back to Juniper Rose! There were rainbow colored chickens that laid sparkly eggs and striped chickens whose eggs had glitter inside. There was much ‘bok bok-ing’ through the neighborhood.

Due to the heat, Ruby and Lauryn transported all the chicken-children back to Peri Park for a special wasp-free second lunch under the lovely shade of the redwoods. We happily ate the rest of our lunch on the stage and headed down to the creek to cool our toes in the the water. There was some fearless crossing of the muddy parts as well as floating logs and testing their buoyancy.

The chickens miraculously turned back into children and all our Tender Trackers headed home!