Tender Tracks Tues. Day 25

Dec. 12, 2017
Waning Moon
Sorich Ranch

All were here. Devin and Austen were just getting better from being sick yet still had some coughs.  Vita was a bit tired, Puma seemed like he was on the verge of getting sick and Avaline was just fine.  A bit of a limping along group yet, overall, they did pretty well.  We had a story about how Robin Got Its Redbreast. There were birds feeding all around as birds do. It was nice to bring notice our friends of the air more too!

They had a grand time playing on top of their Great Big Rock and trying to find figs from the two fig trees we have discovered this year.  Two prize purple figs were found and shared amongst us all. YUM!!!!!

After circle I wanted to take them to a place that other Tender Trackers have gone before and had a great time.  We needed to walk up and around a trail that on both sides had a good amount of Poison Oak so awareness was truly needed as we sauntered along.  We finally got to where I wanted us; a slippy slidey hill.  Seeing them scramble up and down and up and down this hill was fun. They finally went along the trail to get to its top to then slid down instead of trying to climb up.  Doing that was very slipppy!

There were a lot of rocks to be mindful of sliding down and rolling with the potential of bonking heads. With fine caution none of that took place!  Devin was a bit scared and the whole group, yet particularly Vita and Avaline helped him.  He finally went along the trail to the top and sat up there. Avaline was coaxing him along quite nicely yet he still wasn’t sure. Vita came up and gave him a big stronger verbal support:), yet, in the end, he still was not confident with this adventure so he happily came down the trail to Ruby and me.

They were all getting hungry and sitting along the edge of the trail where people and dogs walk by was not a good choice for lunch so, we walked back down and then went up a trail that was sited when we were walking up. Up that hill we went. I found somewhat of a flat and sunny spot to settle in to and that is what we did.  We ate with delight enjoying the view, the sun, the birds and woodpeckers all around us.  After eating it seemed like a grand idea to make it to the top of the hill but NOOOOOOOO!  They gave it a go but they just flopped down on the trail. We turned back around and went back to our beginning spot. Only this time I guided them underneath a beautiful Oak tree and gave them a challenge: see if they could climb on it. The lower branches were just a bit too high so at first, they pilled up their backpacks but alas, that wasn’t working. Then I suggested that they pull over a big two by four type of log nearby. They ALL worked together to bring this thing over. They got sidetracked, however, put it down, began to play on it and abandoned the whole climbing up the tree. Until later Puma was able to throw his longer legs up on a branch and, WALAA, he was up.

After that, they got very involved in playing together, exploring this tree and tree area until someone found a millipede and ran over to urge Ruby and me to come over.  They didn’t know what it was so we came over, looked at it, all its sides, made some guesses and finally the word came out, Millipede!  I had them look to see if they could figure out how many legs were coming out of one segment.  I have a way to remember the difference between a millipede and a centipede:  Milli means many and centi is one cent. The millipede has two legs per segment and centipede has one leg per segment.

I did not go into that depth.  What they did do however is sit on the log they dragged over, all in a line, and put their hands out. The Millipede started with Avaline and it walked across all of their hands until it got to the end of them all.  They worked together so well letting that Millipede crawl all over them.  The rest went to play on the chains that were between posts but Devin, he stayed with that Millipede and he so wanted to take it home too!!!!!! But alas, the Millipedes home was right where we found him so there he stayed.

The day was a gentle flow with strong hikes, fun of flying down hills on their bottoms, playing intently together, helping one another, taking in the different kinds of birds around us, feeling the temperature changes, and a million more things that all happen in each nano second of each day.