Tender Tracks Tues. Day 43

March 6, 2018
Sorich Open Space
Waning Crescent Moon

Everyone was here, the sun was up with warmth yet half the children were tired and seeming to be on the verge of being under the weather. The week will soon tell all. 🙂

Other than that, the day was so very, very easy, flowing, engaging, fun, funny and showed signs of such maturity of the group as a whole.  The maturity in terms of their play.  It is clear that they have gone well passed parallel play, and past the first stage of: “you be this and you be that….” They now have full-blown characters that they stay in for pretty much the entire day. For the last three weeks this type of play has been taking place. And today: Avaline was the mother Mt. Lion, Devin was often the Father and the rest were the baby Mt. Lions and siblings one to the other.  Some of the things Avaline said as the Mom were, well, PRICELESS!  The favorite for Ruby and I was when Ruby asked her, “How are you able to feed all these children?”  ” Oh,” she said, “One at a time.” Pure, wisdom!  🙂

Now, back to the beginning, when we got there they went straight to the big rock and Devin went straight to “Can I help you??”  Yes to all. When Devin was finished helping out with circle he REALLY wanted to dig up some “fire rocks”.  He said his Dad taught him about rocks that you can get fire from.  I loaned him my shovel and off he went to dig, dig dig.  I was inspired by that and later, asked for help getting some dry grasses.  All the children helped and then we made a little fire with my Ferro Rod and knife.  They were excited!!!  And so was I as I love to work with that tool.

We finally came in for circle and had such a delightful time.  We were warm in the sun and took off a layer or two and that was fun to be able to do so.  We learned a couple new songs that were very fun. We often learn the songs through the hand movements first and then the words.  It was delightful to see them fully, fully enjoy and partake in that,
We had a snack that again Owen said “This is the best ever Tender Tracks Snack!”  And he did eat it right up.  Then, came a story that I read every year that is perfect for their developmental stage. And, the pictures are just precious and priceless.  It is called The Rabbits Wedding  by Garth Williams.   The children had so much fun as we all engaged actively in the reading of it and imitating the pictures at times.

Then, Puma rang the singing bowl to send us out, Vita and Avaline helped clear up the snack dishes, Owen and Devin put the first aid kits on their packs and Austen carried around, for a while, the Earth Keeper Bag.  All was well.  And here the play went into full gear as well as, Vita eating a lot of fennel, and everyone else looking for Sour Grass. Austen ate a lot of that throughout the day and thought that we should gather some for snacks. 🙂

We built rock houses, stood tall on the Big Rock, explored the creek down below and discovered that a brand new tire swing was up the hill from us.  “After lunch, we can go see it when those people up there are finished having their turn.”  And off to lunch we all went.

Lunchtime was a peaceful and easy social gathering of eating, gently talking and sharing one with the other.  After lunch, we made our way up the hill. Avaline stayed to go poop with Ruby as she cleaned up all of our belongings and Devin stayed to help her.

Vita, Puma, Austen, Owen and I scampered up the hill. Austen needed to come back down and put his lunch things away and then he quickly came back up. Owen and Puma figured out some very fun ways to be on the swing, Vita took a turn but then took my shovel and discovered that last years crop of Soap Root was so wet in the ground that they could easily dig/pull them out.  Avaline came up and swang a bit but then joined Vita in this endeavor. There was fun frolicking with this swing. I got on it for a bit, they swang me until I began to feel ill from the twirling and swirling. They thought this was very funny too!!! 🙂

We played a bit and then came down to get our wool out from a week or two ago, and rewash it with the soap root.  Ruby, Avaline and I mostly did the washing while the others were FULLY engaged in being Mt. Lion Babies.  Avaline was working hard washing the wool and shouting out now and again for them to take a nap or eat their food. She had a very kind voice mind you and calm clarity!!!

They had some falls and some tussles yet, in the end, all was well as they helped each other out most often.

Back on the bus with hanging wool above us, I showed them what the wool looks like when it is dyed with boiled Sour Grass. We want to dye more wool when we can/soon.