Tender Tracks Thurs. Day 42

March 7, 2018
Full Moon
Lake Lagunitas

Owen was absent today.

This is a picture of what is to be shared in this journal.

Today we all woke to pouring rain with rain reports stating that it might rain for a bit yet clear up mid-morning. What actually happened was that the day was cold, damp on the ground yet no rain falling from the sky upon our heads.  That was lovely as, though Ruby and I would have put up our pop up canopy, we did not have to carry this heavy thing.

We did, however, all work together to get the fire set up and get ready to make stick bread. “Stick bread?” they said. ” ” We don’t want to eat sticks!!!”  “Oh dear, of course, you don’t:)” and the explanation of what stick bread meant ensued.  Along with reminding them of the sticks we gathered and the wheat, we ground in order to MAKE this thing called stick bread last Tues.

But, before that, they all got so involved with finding Newts, and Banana Slugs and making a home for them. This process carried on throughout a good lot of the day. They all came in and out with each other making this grand home for the Newts and Banana Slugs.  They gathered lot’s of materials for this and just had a GRAND time.  All their heads were together many times as they were looking in and watching their little nature friends crawl all about.  I am not sure these “friends” enjoyed their newly built home as much as the children enjoyed making it and putting them in it! 🙂

We finally were ready to light the fire and they all came in.  We had pulled logs over and set out little upside down buckets for them to sit on and that was all quite fun and new.  From there we gave our gratitude to the fire, sent love to Owen and then began singing our fire song to bring it to life.  And, it did come alive!!!  We had also sung our other songs.

After building the fire up a bit I took the children over to the table where they got the dough ready to be wrapped on their sticks. They then took them to the fire where Ruby helped them cook them on their sticks. But oh I forgot one of the most fun parts!  Before they did this they learned how to use the sharp vegetable peelers we had for them and clean their sticks in order to put the dough on.  They all did very well “cleaning” their sticks with these fine tools, the vegetable peelers.

It takes quite a bit of patience, focus, and awareness of what you are doing to actually pull off cooking this stick bread so that you either do not lose it to the fire or burn it too much. There was much learning going on here yet when their breads were cooked, butter and honey was put upon them and YUM!! they ate them up!

After that they stayed by the fire for a bit and then OFF to play again and create with the Newts and Banana slugs.  They were so, very, very content that Ruby and I just stayed back and happily witnessed them ALL playing so beautifully together creating, laughing, exploring with their joy and delight.

We cleaned up and then brought them in for lunch.  After lunch we took a bit of an adventure walk up the stone steps, looking to see if any turtles were out yet, walked through Woodpecker Heaven, around two bends and to one of our favorite spots. And then, turn around and come right back and into the bus to go home.

The air was so crisp and clean and the walk was REFRESHING and INVIGORATING! The views of the lake were just stunning to be a part of. What a wonder-filled day!!