Tender Tracks Friday: Day 33

May 31, 2019
Waning Crescent Moon
Lake Lagunitas

What a marvelous sunny morning we had! We played by the horse trough, which we hadn’t visited in awhile and were rewarded with a small green tree frog that Violet spotted! It was perfectly camouflaged in the green grass, I don’t know how she saw it. I walked up and she was silently pointing to the grassy ground, and once my eyes focused I saw the little critter. Charlie reached to catch it and was able to and it jumped quickly from her hands, Violet also tried to catch and hold it but our frog friend had other ideas and hopped away.

We missed Rohan and Blake and are looking forward to hearing tales from their travels. Raccoon Family play began, and all were immersed. The horse trough provided space for many Raccoon giggles and splashes. Raccoon Miles played baseball with a pinecone, which was tricky to hit with his stick bat but he succeeded many times. Later, Violet, Charlie and Ruby were snacking on Rattlesnake Grass and then Ruby and Violet took turns sneaking up on one-another.

We had a lovely Snack Café and heard the story of Turtle when he tried to fly with Duck and Goose, and why he has a patterned shell. After snack, there was more water play at the trough and shoes and socks were thrown aside as many Tender Trackers found they could roll up their pants and stand in the trough. I helped make some boats that we floated in the water and the children added many ‘passengers’ of cones, grass and lichen to their boats.

Siena, Margot and Violet all worked on finishing their Weather Sticks and practiced their knife skills with Ruby. They also used rocks with edge to further smooth their sticks. Then, their special feather chose them and I helped tie it to their stick.

Some children were very wet so we decided to have lunch in the sunny meadow near the creek. I brought some blankets from Juniper Rose so we could picnic and get cozy, warm and dry from Grandpa Sun. The children were very happy to have lunch and cuddle in the blankets and soon they were all being the babies to Siena as Mom. She was giving them each their water bottle like a baby bottle and being a very doting Mother (and all the children were well hydrated!) The little babies began to get into mischief and run from the blanket so Mom Siena had to chase and corral the babies back together. It was much silly fun with barefoot ‘babies’ running about and Siena calling ‘Sweetie! Come back! Honey!” as she ran after them.

Everyone ended up at the creek’s edge for climbing on rocks and finding other rocks to throw into the water for big splashes.

At the end of our day, on Juniper Rose we had so much gratitude for the Sun and Sky, Trees, Blankets, Frog, Water Play and Each Other!!