a poem for saturday and easter preparations

the rainbow

love is a rainbow that appears

when heaven's sunshine lights earth's tears.

all varied colors of the light

within its beauteous arch unite:

there passion's glowing crimson hue

burns near truth's rich and deathless blue;

and jealousy's green lights unfold

'mid pleasure's tints of flame and gold.

o dark life's stormy sky would seem,

if love's clear rainbow did not gleam!

by effie waller smith (1879 - 1960)

----

 morning breakfast (toasted banana bread) . . before cleaning around the apartment and preparing hot cross buns.

 hot cross bun dough rising . .

 and a few eggs in with onion skins . .

saturday morning

the stars wailed when the reed was born

and heaven wept at the birth of the thorn;

joy was plucked like a flower and torn,

for time pre-shadowed good friday morn.

but the stars laughed like children free

and heaven was hung with the rainbow's glee

when on easter sunday, so fair to see,

time bowed before eternity.

(by fiona macleod)

good friday

 breakfast . . 

 i almost dyed only brown eggs this year, as our local store didn't have white eggs, but chanda insisted and greg found a dozen at whole foods.

 adding eggs to the tumeric bath .  .

 and eggs all wrapped up in their red cabbage leaves . . 

 simmer for about twenty minutes,

and when unwrapped, the white eggs have turned a beautiful blue (we also did onion skins, which turn a warm brown).

thursday: post easter activities

 

blogger has made several changes to their design format and i'm having trouble working as quickly as i would like. things just aren't typing out where they should be! i'm also writing thursday's post on monday morning. i like posting every day and don't like falling behind!! above is a picture of our beet, onion-skin and tumeric dyed white eggs. the last batch we did, right before easter, were brown eggs and we wanted to do some white ones. finally, today, we managed it. i also began an easter bread and set it to rise. i have pictures of the result which i'll post for friday.

 

morgana and chanda putting the eggs in . . 

korrina worked all day on her script analysis papers. she had to break down a scene from a movie to it's initial beats and analyze it's through-line. she worked quickly because she wanted to visit with friends before going to class.

 

chanda measured angles today . . and worked on math, greek, handwriting, and practiced her dance and violin.

 

we also read hesiod's "when to plow" from his the works and days. it's in hexameter, but rather than being epic in theme, like homer's odyssey, it explores everyday working themes: the backbreaking, non-ending tasks of plowing, sowing, reaping, threshing, winnowing, grinding. we also read a passage from henry wadsworth longfellows evangeline, as an example of a more present-day hexameter poem. i found the works and days in the norton book of classical literature which we got out of the library, and i found evangeline in our waldorf book of literature which we got for christmas.

i combined two bread recipes for the easter bread: emeril lagasse's portuguese 5-egg easter bread (found online on the foodnetwork) and a challah bread recipe from  my la leche league cookbook. i added some lemon rind this year, which i don't think i'll do again. i think i like it better without.

 the finished easter eggs . .

twig studies, going home, and egg dyeing

 today we studied and sketched the buds and twigs we gathered yesterday.

after working on our sketches in the morning, it was time to go home. sunday would be easter, and we needed to drive to connecticut.

 we stopped at the cemetary to lay forsythia on aunt evie's gravestone.

 and we stopped at the beach one last time . . 

 before getting on the road.

 at home, at night, we dyed easter eggs!!

 i had told aunt kathy that we would bring them for easter.

 pouring the vinegar into the red cabbage pot.

it made for a late night, but it was fun.

egg dyeing

we began dyeing our easter eggs yesterday. i had been saving onion skins for a month or so. here chanda is stirring them into the boiling water.

dipping them in quickly creates a pretty yellow color. we usually leave them in longer for a brown tone.

in the middle of the day i took morgana to the doctor to check a rash she's had on her face for several days. afterwards, we met chanda who had gone to dance class with a friend, and checked out the new italian market called eataly on 23rd street and fifth avenue. it was very nice! and they had good focaccia.

in the evening chanda began working on making pysanky eggs using the natural vegetable dyes.

and she was up bright and early this morning to begin working again!

pysanky egg with an onion skin dye.

the yellow one was dipped in the onion skin dye for only a few seconds.

we also went to the grocery store today to get a cabbage. we wrapped the eggs in a leaf and tied them up.

we left them to boil for about twenty minutes. they usually come out a pretty grey blue color.

you can see them here mixed with the tumeric, onion skin, and beet eggs.

korrina joined her this evening for some more pysanky work.

we've been busy packing for an easter celebration at nana's. i was very relieved to finally get supper on the table. we had kale and beet (of course!) salad, and brown rice sauteed with bokchoy and ginger and scallions.

i finally have the cat instructions written out for camille, our cat sitter, and now it's time to say good night!