Tender Tracks Friday Day 27

April 19, 2019
Full Moon
Lake Lagunitas

We started our day with creek play at Peri Park, it has changed so much since our wet and rainy winter filled the creek with fast rushing water. It was much calmer today and friends wearing rain boots splashed across. Miles even found a baseball in the creek!

There was some warm and wonderful weather at Lake Lagunitas and Grandfather Sun was smiling in the sky as we set up in the meadow. There were many new signs of spring dotting the hill, Ruby’s favorite Douglas Iris! We only had four Tender Trackers today as Charlie, Margot and Violet were away on other adventures.

Ruby shared some bird nests from Wendolyn’s special collection and we kept our eyes out for bird nests in the trees around the lake. The children chose their roles for the day from the special bag of animal symbols, Blake was Guardian of Safety (Rabbit), Siena and Miles were Guardians of the Earth (Raccoon) and Rohan the Snack Slug (and official hand sanitizer squeezer!)

While exploring, we noticed some interesting insects- cicadas! We found two that had recently molted from their exoskeletons. We watched them climb the drinking fountain for a good amount of time, one was reddish and one was greenish. They were both slow and quiet. When we listened, we could hear other cicadas clicking and singing in the trees around us.

Before we set off on our big adventure, we dropped off our snack stuff at Juniper Rose. We remember our handprints on the big bus and gave our painted hand some high-fives. Then, a cicada landed on me! It was another opportunity to look more closely at this winged wonder. We took turns holding it and watching it crawl, and this cicada in particular, really liked Siena. It crawled up her arm, tickling the whole way. It stayed on her shoulder, explored her walking stick, sat in her hand. Buggy the cicada accompanied us on our walk, and as we reached Rohan’s Baby Tree, we gave gentle hugs to our favorite conifer and set Buggy on a branch.

Our favorite fallen tree was covered in turtles where the upper branches sit in the water, and we successfully snuck up and many stayed. The tree turned into a Spaceship and then a Pirate Ship! Blake was the captain, Rohan steered the ship, and Miles was in charge of the defenses. Siena and I harvested some cattail fluff. I held her hand as she balanced on a long in the water and reached and reached to the tall stalks. When she had acquired a soft handful, she made me a jacket by pressing some of the fluffy seeds on my shirt. She wore some, too!

During lunch we saw and heard acorn woodpeckers and red-winged blackbirds. We played I-Spy and pointed to the bird calls we could hear. After lunch there was more pirate play and Ruby and I got permission to come aboard. We did very pirate-y things and even got our pirate hooks stuck together!

On our way back to Juniper Rose, we looked for Buggy on Baby Tree, but he had flown away. There was a steep trail that everyone got a chance to climb, (and slide down a little, too)  and Blake was a caring Guardian of Safety when friends tumbled. Once on the bus, we shared our gratitude for a day filled with cicadas, sunshine, flowers, climbing, blue sky, turtles and pirates!

Cicada and molted exoskeleton

Flower Friends