Tender Tracks Wed. Day 29

May 1, 2019
Waning Moon
Lake Lagunitas: the Sunny Hill/Horse Trough Hill

Nathan was absent and a friend of mine named Terry came to visit and play with us.

Well, another glorious and beautiful day!  I want to share first off some beautiful highlights.
Beau had run up a hill fairly far ahead of Rohin. Rohin said “Beau, I’m coming. I’m your friend.” Beau turned around and ran back to him. They both opened their arms to each other and gave the biggest and warmest hug one to the other. They pulled back, said ‘we’re friends.’ and hugged again.

From a bridge down below, Nelly and Addie held hands the ENTIRE long walk up the hill. After lunch, when they were getting their backpacks on to go back to the bus Addie looked at Nelly and said, ‘We’re together again!”

Ellery and Sienna were their typical closeness only this time so very different as they were so involved in utilizing the natural world in their play WITH nature.  It is hard to describe how it was different other than to say more mature, more emotionally stable and expanded.

Gideon, though no Nathan, he was with the boys throughout the day and so very happy either in his own joyful explorations of nature, which he has a lot of, or being with his friends.  He always offers so much to the children with regard to an understanding and connection to the natural world.

Now, back to the beginning.  Getting on the bus was easy and ever so fun.  We had a grand time getting stuffed animals and then driving and having Terry share her ease and playfulness with them.  When we got to our spot, that they haven’t been to in quite some time, they went straight away to the Horse trough to put rocks and wood in it.  We however, spent a lot of time yesterday cleaning it out and making it nice for the horses to drink from. So, they were invited to get sticks and do some fine stirring instead of filling. They did so and were fine. From there so many different children configurations moved in and out and Terry was sweetly with many of them.  The boys were very involved in picking up big logs and carrying them and throwing them down and carrying them and moving them about.

We came in to circle and heard a story all about  How Doug Fir’s cones got Micey Tails in Them.
From there we showed them how to gather the fresh spring green tips of the Doug Fir trees around them and then put those gatherings into the thermos we had to make tea for our “Tea Party” for the end of the day.   They sweetly gathered and we put it in the thermos.

After some more play we packed up and made a long route to the creek, over the bridge and up the big hill. But, a man with a very wonderful young dog was at the water. Ellery and Sienna wanted to take their hats off because they were too hot. I shared with them a way that they could keep their hats on and stay cool; dunk the hats in the creek and then put them back on their heads. So they went to the creek to do that while the other children went down to see the dog. This happy little dog was delighted when the children were given snacks from it’s owner to feed it. Rohin was with giggly delight over his hand getting slobbery from the dog!  We finally moved on and made it all the way up the hill.

We tried to find some frogs up there and in the end we saw some Large Bull Frog Tadpoles below.  Some of the children were showing signs of needing food so we set up lunch and there they ate. Alas though, we had so much fun at lunch that the time swept away. We packed up, again, and made our way down the stone stairs and down to the creek to see if there were any more tadpoles. And, THERE WERE!! plus, Sienna spied a Crawdad crawling out of a rock and then back into one. The Big Tadpoles were sitting under the water on rocks and little fishies were all about. They could have sat there for quite sometime but, in order to have a tea party we had to go.  And, the plans had to change a bit so, into our seats, sharing our thank you’s and then down to the park just in time to make a circle outside, smell our tea and drink a bit of it before getting picked up.

As said, another wonderful day!!