Tender Tracks Tues. Day 45

March 14, 2017
Waning Crescent  Moon
Sorich Ranch

Ruby still on holiday adventures.

Jake, Kuba and Isabella still with varying degrees of diminishing colds  and such yet present for the days adventuring.

New Jobs came this week and Edie & Jesse were the Lovie Helper’s and today it was Edie’s turn.  She had a great deal of fun passing out the stuffed animals and when she had to pull out all of the animals to find one Isabella laughed remembering when she had to do the same.  Archer came in with liquid bandaid’s for me and it turned out that he became the Guardian of Safety!   He really liked that.  Isabella is now the Thank you Plate for snack person, Kuba and Jake were the Circle Angels that helped set up and clean up the circle. They both really were into helping set out the mats and Kuba was quite skilled at folding them up.

When we first got there we set up everything for making stick bread and making butter.
I shared with them about finding saplings and why we needed them and not old and dried out sticks.  The saplings, when the dough is wrapped around them for the stick bread, will not burn up if fresh/wet saplings.

In order to make butter for our bread the children were given a jar filled with fresh white whipping cream. They took the jars and began to  shake, shake shake. The jars with the whipping cream had two marbles in them. They all took lot’s of turns and loved shaking them up and then, the white  of the cream turned into golden yellow!

We then came to circle where we sang and heard a story about Shawn O’Houghlahan, Mrs. O’Mally and how he found Gold all around Him.  There were some gold rocks and for almost the rest of the day Jake REALLY wanted to make gold!  And, he tried to break open the gold rocks we had by rolling a big log over them, throwing them at other rocks and trying to hammering them open with smaller rocks. Nothing worked. He tried to take yellow flowers and paint the rocks gold and that didn’t work for him either.  He was tenacious as well as creative but alas, no golden rock  broke open!

Archer liked wearing the lid of the  little barbecue pit we were using for our fire. Kuba LOVED making and being around the fire and Isabella and Edie really liked playing with each other.  Jesse was quiet a lot yet was seen often either holding hands and playing with Archer, being around the fire or playing with the other children.

After circle we all made the fire, made the dough, got it on their sticks, sat on the ground and cooked their bread. Then they got to have their home made butter on them along with honey. It was good!!!  And by this time it was lunch so they ate that too.

There was clean up and exploring the area we were in and then “when are we going to go on an adventure?”  I find it so fun that by this time of year they are so used to traveling upon the earth to explore and adventure that it is very, very comfortable and expected for them.  I did share how we had been adventuring all morning and rhymed and sang it out as I often do. They laughed and then we did finally get it all together to go on a wonderful walk to a new area.

Edie wondered if we were in a rain forest as we walked into the Eucalyptus forest.  We wound up at a place that Edie’s sister had gone to once when she was a Tender Tracker. We went to a great hill that is grand for climbing up on all fours and then slipping down.  I took a movie of it that I hope I can send you!!

We had a delightful walk back down and oh yes, as we were walking up we came upon the wonderful and spring growing plant Mugwort.

Tall and slender I do grow
With spiky fingers to and fro
With silver fur upon my back
With a fragrance I shall not lack
I am MUGWORT!

Mugwort has many uses that you can easily look up. It is said to aid ones dreams and makes a very nice tea plus many more uses.

When we all got back we had some beautiful thank you’s and made our way back home.