Tender Tracks Wed. Day 28

April 19, 2017
Waning Half Moon
Lake Lagunitas

Susie still on holiday.

Today we celebrated OLIVER who was no longer three but FOUR YEARS OLD!  He brought snack for us all for circle too!

They were so delightful as they entered into the bus and as we passed out stuffed animals and shared stories of our holiday this past weekend.

They are all growing so much, maturing so much. I just love being able to share more and more with them about the natural world via certain story like games.  They are open and engaged and it is very fun.  The way they care for each other is and has always been beautiful.  As they have grown it is just more and more.

When we got to the lakes they rushed out as usual and went straight to the pond that is near by.

I brought a lot of things over to our sunny spot. The day started out briefly sunny but it didn’t take long to get a bit dark and cold. Was it going to actually rain??? No it never did but it did get colder then expected for a time.

Oliver and everyone else found this larvae? Caterpillar? and ran to bring it to me. At first he couldn’t find me and I heard him crying. I came straight over to him. He was crying because he didn’t see me and he so wanted me to see this new treasure.

At first I thought it was a caterpillar but then I saw that it had no legs nor segments like a caterpillar. It was about one inch in length, brown and moved a bit like a worm and was rather soft.  They found two of them in or near the water and the Redwood trees.  I have yet to identify it so, that is the mystery question of the day?  Do you know what kind of larvae it is with this bit of information?????

After finds like this and exploration we made it to circle to sing our songs and celebrate our friend Oliver! Which we did and, I read a sweet book about a girl wanting help find a present for her Mother for her birthday from a wonderful Rabbit.  Oliver passed out the snack he brought and all gobbled, gobbled, gobbled up the nice homemade cookies. 🙂

After circle the sky was dark and the children were getting a little cold so, I asked Oliver if he would like a walking adventure or an adventure with fire and popcorn. He chose the later.  That meant there was much to bring out and get for the fire.  They actually all went with Linda, I got the fire stuff, set it up and then, they came back to the fire.  We lit it together as they learned a new fire song and…the fire with one match took to a blaze.

The rest of our time with the fire we had much to learn about safety, smoke, tall fire, short fire, how to put sticks in and how not to, how hot it really can get and how beautiful it really is.

I didn’t have a spoon so I carved a stick to use to get the coconut oil out of the jar for the oil part.  They all took turns breaking up the oil with the stick and then I put the oil in the pan. We watched the oil melt then I took it off and put the popcorn in.  Most sat for about a minute waiting for it to pop but then ran off to the water faucet.  Saving water is still deeply in me so a little redirecting of the desire to play with water went towards the creek and other spots but then, the popcorn began to pop!!!! and pop and pop and pop until the top of the pot got pushed open with the popcorn!!!

It seemed best to eat a bit of lunch first and then go for the popcorn so that is what we did. We all sat around the fire with our lunches to eat as we watched the fire die down. Putting wood on the low fire was so much easier and safer now too. We watched some of the popcorn melt and that was fun as well.

It then came time, after lunch, to put the fire completely out.  There was a lot of going back and forth to the water spicket and taking turns pouring the water over the fire. First it was to hear the sound that was made when water and fire meet. Then it was feeling where it was still hot, still glowing read, and still needing water to put it out. They felt with their hands over it where the heat still was and then there was stirring it with sticks to get it good, wet and put out.  The fire pourers were mainly Avaline, Puma and Oliver and the stirrers were Vita and Jasper mainly.  Ruthie was in and out with quiet interest.

After all of that was done the rest of our day was spent by the water in the creek trying to get over a little damn that was built.  Vita and Puma made it over. Oliver did not and he was very unhappy about that.  Avaline tried but got into a bit of a pickle as Puma was brilliantly aiding her in getting over. But she was stretched out like a bridge and it wasn’t actually working. 🙂
I spent a lot of my time helping Ruthie figure out some pooping needs.

We also during the day were gathering some gifts for Oliver from the earth  for him.
In the bus we all shared, those who found him things, what we got him and why.

It was a sweet and lovely day….