Tender Tracks Thurs. Week 8 Day 16

Nov. 1, 2018
Alpine Lake
Waning half Moon

Everyone was here today, the day after Halloween.  The weather turned out to be hot like a middle of the summer day. And the weather with the children: Ellie was very tired yet such a trooper! Uma was fine accept needing some adjustment time when needing to put on a cooler shirt. Josie was in a very smiling, vocal, energetic and happy state. Luna was happy and warm-hearted. Theo was just grand, Eamon seemed a bit spacey and emotionally sensitive and Holden was fine too except for the nitpicking that he and Eamon had on and off. Even with all of that said, they ALL were troopers and up for the day considering the heat that presented itself.

Our intention of the day was to Harvest Rose Hips and Madrone Berries.  Rose Hips for tea and Madrone berries, if not fully ripe, for making necklaces.  When fully ripe dried Madrone Berry are great for eating raw or making a nice spice to put on food or to be cooked in rice.
We went to the first Rose Hip bush and did harvest a bit, however, it was so HOT where the tree was that we decided not to walk to the other Rose Hip bush but rather go across the dry lake to the Madrone Grove that we found a couple of weeks ago.  Back then the berries looked like they were still very unripe.  Today some were getting closer, some tasted pretty good yet, they were just right for making necklaces next week. So, harvest we did. The children were less interested in that though and more with becoming IMMERSED in playing on the trees, climbing, gathering wood for future fires and making a pile of the sticks and then stomping on their pile. Well, this was actually mostly Theo’s joy. And we all simply enjoyed the shade and the gifts of these wonder-filled trees.  All of the children played, mostly, together with overlapping games, in this area.

It was very fun to see this play with them. Oh well, of course they had disagreements that had to be worked out now and again and, they did it! Or so it seemed.  They chose to sit in a spot that they all agreed was the best so we set up the lunch area and had a fine time of it in the midst of the crunchy Madrone leaves that covered the ground.

After lunch it seemed time to take leave of this place and explore a bit more to find our way back to the bus.  As we wandered some of them wanted to find the bones that we discovered last time we were there.  They all searched about in the area we thought they were.  The boys abandoned the journey after a bit and went down to the water that we discovered was there, and, the girls and Ruby found them!!  We all noticed that the skull was no longer there and the grass was taller and more concealing of these bones.  We then all went down to the water’s edge.  It took quite a bit to keep Eamon, in particular, out of the mud monsters. The children, particularly the boys, find this so hilarious to play in. However, the day was coming to a close, no place to tend to the aftermath so, only to the side of the drier Lake we did go.  I did tell Eamon however that if we had a water source for him to splash in to get cleaned up afterwards and he got all naked he could get COVERED in this mud world. 🙂  He just looked at me. Again, 🙂

The meander back was fun as we found smells and delights along the way and then, in the bus Ruby drew pictures of what warmed their hearts throughout the day and then, off we went.