Tender Tracks Tues. Day 47 Spring Equinox

March 20, 2018
Waxing Moon
Lake Lagunitas

Well, I was a bit embarrassed when Devin’s mother informed me that TODAY was the Equinox, NOT the 21st.  Oh dear, how did I ever miss that???!!!No matter, as our intention was to celebrate spring over the next three days all worked out well with this information and, we didn’t miss much of a beat. 🙂

On the bus we welcomed our friend Vita back from her Hawaii adventures. Devin and Owen REALLY wanted to sit next to her and she was just fine with that. Austen, however, wound up to be the only child on the other side and he was a bit saddened by that. We made it a bit more palatable and he was able to relax into that.  They all had so much to say that, for the first time of the year, I brought out a very special talking stick.  It has a turtle shell on top, rabbit fur in the middle and all held up by a deer leg and hoof with feathers attached.  The shell rattled and they were quite pleased.  They wanted to pass it around sharing this and that a lot, however, we just did 2 rounds, passed out stuffed animals and made our way. We were actually in the bus in the morning for a very long time. It was easy and peaceful however and the Talking Stick settled them all down.

When there the usual took place and Devin, Ruby and I set up the circle and all that we needed in order to make felt balls later in the day.

At circle time we celebrated Spring, had two more new songs, snack and then a story about What Rabbits USED to look like and why they have short front legs, Bent back legs, small puff for a tail and a cracked top lip.  And, why there are white puffs in spring on the Willow Trees.

We sat under the overhang as the gentle rain was playing with us on and off and we were content, mostly, at the table. It is hard for them at the table because, truly, they are just too short to sit at it in any comfortable way. They persevered however and then, off to play.  All but Avaline and Devin went to play with the Newts and make their homes. Devin and Avaline played in another area and then all of them were playing up in the trees in the Big Redwood Tree.

We got everything ready to make the felted balls, they came in and to it we went.  I told a little tale to bring them into it and then, rolling a wet soapy wool thing, getting hot water on it, cold water, rolling, having it work, having it not work so well went on and on.  When their balls were mostly done, we needed to boil more water so off to play they went. We basically finished them and some came back to do more. Austen wanted to make another one so he did.

Before this, I forgot to say, that I took out a big bubble wand and made lot’s of bubbles with lot’s of opportunities to see if they could actually hold on, in their hand, a bubble they might be able to catch or pick up, without it breaking. The question is “Is that even possible???”  Well, not today it seemed but running after them and playing with them did truly happen. THEN making felt balls.

After felt balls, they played some more. We packed up and went on a great run about to get warm.  And oh yes, they got cold and we passed around a hot pan of water and then put warm mittens on afterwards.

On our walk, we found some beautiful mushrooms, new sprouting plants, ate some fresh green Doug Fir sprouts and discovered what road the MWD trucks use to up to the Lakes. We had fun tracking the trucks tracks as well as finding bicycle tracks near them.  When we got back we had a Porta Pottie Party and then off to get our backpacks and come into the bus.  We got in the bus in a very comfortable time.  I shared a story for them, we sang and off we went.

A lot of the days now we have quite a few games or singing that go on in the bus such as 20 questions.  Today it was Pass the Story Along.  One person starts the story and then passes it to someone else. We went around twice with that until we came back.

It was a fine mist of a drizzly day with aliveness and a great deal of joy to have Vita back!