Coyote Hills

"the" monarch

 I spent a lovely Sunday noontime up at Coyote Hills Regional Park. I hadn't been up there, I think, since Jeffrey's fourth grade field trip! It was the day after the first big rain of the season.
Noelle, Matt, Channah, Nathan and I went to the Visitor Center (a spot of great significance in Noelle's family history), the Butterfly Garden (where Nathan reunited with a butterfly he swore was the caterpillar he'd seen on his last visit) and we also watched swarming winged ants lose their wings and run around in little tandem pairs.

a monarch caterpillar

I've forgotten the name of this plant already -- it's a relative of milkweed, the monarchs' favorite.

Then we participated in the Stone Age Olympics: fire starting by twirling a stick (no success) flint-knapping (just watched) spearing targets and mammoth using an atlatl, flinging a bola, and playing throw the spear through the hoop -- all skills that early Native tribes needed to survive. 

The only one of us who wouldn't have starved to death was Noelle -- her 1/8? native blood and years of experience helped her! 

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Matt retrieves spears from mammoth hunt

Channah lets loose the spear!

Noelle poses next to her spear through the mammoth's heart (Matt hit its hoof)

Meanwhile, back in the twenty-first century, I'm getting ready for my trip to the ancient pueblo ruins in Arizona and New Mexico -- so all this Indian lore is very a propos.