Tender Tracks Thurs. Week 4 Day 8

Oct.4, 2018
Waning Moon
Lake Alpine

Just a glorious, glorious day!! We all thought that is was going to stay sunny all day accept Luna who looked at the SE sky during circle and saw the gray clouds. She thought the rains were coming! And, the cold and clouds DID wind up coming. Yet, I move forward too quickly.
Let’s go back to when we first arrived: up the great Rock to explore, down the hill to discover the water, around to the plants to see what was growing….
Most of the children were on top of the rock but then Theo ran down to check out the creek below. The other children pointed out, “Where is Theo going?” and they wanted to follow but, “How did he get down there?” The search for his path showed up and they finally found it with joy. Down they all came, climbing over rocks and water happened, discovering unique beings in the water and tracks of Racoon, dog, and Deer in the mud. Then, circle time came…

There they had a story about a Turtle with a real live turtle shell which many enjoyed playing after circle. In circle, when Luna noticed the clouds, we typically figure out what we need to wear and bring for the day but alas, we did not do that. We got distracted I believe, and, that is too bad as we would have benefited from being better prepared on our adventure. But no worries, great things happened due to the lack of warm clothes. More about that soon.

After circle they all began to play and Theo discovered something Marvelous! He found a snakeskin sticking out of a rock. We went to see and sure enough, a very LARGE snakeskin was sticking out. I was able to pull it out intact. All the children came in and we passed it around. Ellie did not want to touch it but gave it a gentle graze, however. It was very remarkable as you could see the eyes/ eye covering. Theo said they were plastic eyes. We instantly thought it was a Rattler and remembered last year when the Ranger said to be very cautious as there were large Rattle Snakes around at that time of year ( The end of the school year.) Theo then found another snakeskin coming out of a rock and I tried to take that out but it broke a bit. What was really fun about this was that there was a great deal of talk about snakes as we were driving up and both Ruby and I had thought that we would have some kind of snake encounter today. And we did, big old long snakeskin encounter!!! 🙂

We came here because we wanted to gather some Rose Hips on a tree that is there. So, we all packed up and set out underneath the warm rays of the Sun. Ruby thought for sure the place where we picked them last was in a particular direction. We went that way but alas we did not find the Rose Hips bush. However, we DID find lot’s and lot’s of Madrone trees with berries gallore just needing to ripen and then be harvested.

Getting to this place the children needed to climb up and down and over, little hills and waterways, muddy spots and skinny trails. We went past the Madrone grove and then past where the turtles usually are when there is water. Ruby found some turtles but, they are so sensitive that when the rest of us walked over there, splash! they went into the water and the rest of us never saw them.

We went through a low lying place where water usually is and discovered that, in this one spot, there were so many yellow jackets there. Why? we wondered. Then up to the top and over to a spot that had glorious rocks and a beach. There we set up camp and explored.

Oh no, “Help” Eamon, Josie, Theo and Holden cried and the children ran to get us. They discovered true and strong MUD MONSTERS!!! It’s true, the Mud Babies sucked up their shoes. Josie escaped, barely! Holden lost a shoe and Eamon was in for the long haul.
I got several big rocks to put on the mud and Ruby got him out. Someone grabbed Holden’s shoe. It was a muddy mess so I proceeded to wash it and his hands and legs in the lake in order to get that shoe back on.

It was time to eat so we did but, what was happening in the sky world??? Darker and darker and darker it got. Mist came down in gentle droplets and cold set in. Now, where were those extra clothes? Oh yes, we didn’t bring them. I gave my coat to Theo and he was warmed though sad that his feet were a bit wet and muddy from the mud monsters. Eamon had his little raincoat but that wasn’t enough and Holden’s sweatshirt just wasn’t so warm anymore what with being a bit wet and muddy. I showed them how to do the warm dance and then we packed up and began to move our bodies toward the bus.

They pretty soon forgot about the cold, got warmer and we found a small bunch of bones that looked like a little deer had died, been killed there. We examined for a bit and then moved on.

When we got back to the bus there was an assessment of who needed a change of clothes and we did that. Luna rallied everyone into a train ride to??? on the little wooden fence there.
It was a grand day and, by the time all was said and done it was time to go home.

A glorious day.
Josie played mainly with Ellie today and Uma stayed a lot with Ruby and I or,playing with the boys. Luna was often seen in her own magical world, so very happy. She and Ruby walked sweetly along during our adventure, sharing the wonders of her world. Theo was ELATED with finding the snakeskins. Ellie was just happy playing with Josie and all were alive with the freshness of the wind, mist, birds, mud, water and surroundings.