We discovered last week that Lily had a new litter of babies that are cute and furry in time for Easter! I didn't notice them in the nest at first and thought she wasn't bred after all, and they were pretty big before I could see them. Lily is such a neurotic animal I didn't want to upset her more than necessary, so I didn't poke around or anything.
The pictures don't really do them justice for how incredibly cute they are. There are six of them this time (six!!!). Their eyes have just opened and they have been moving around the nest box. There is one bold one in the first picture who was peeking at me.
As we primarily celebrate the pagan side of Easter, there was much egg-dyeing on Saturday. We've been saving our little white pullet eggs for weeks. We did the natural dyes again this year. We used blueberries and red cabbage for the blue this year, and a good thing it was, because the red cabbage was a failure for some reason. I can't remember how I got it to work so well last year, and I didn't have time to look it up again. We used beets and turmeric again for red and yellow.
They were particularly pretty when we added some crayon designs before putting them in the dye. I couldn't find our lovely beeswax crayons, so we used the regular ones.
We had so much fun trying different color combinations. The natural dyes don't mix the same way that the regular food colors do.
The turmeric was such an intense color. It stained my pot that I used to cook it in. The next morning, after giving the pot several good scrubbings, I warmed up some milk for breakfast that turned out to be yellow! The blueberries were also very potent.
They turned out so lovely again this year!
I love the soft springy colors you get with the natural dyes.
On Easter morning I woke up early and set out plates for everyone of home made treats. The photo isn't very good (I'm still trying to figure out my new camera and my house is very poorly lit). My friend and I had gotten together on Wednesday to
make marshmallows that I cut into bunny shapes with a cookie cutter. We made the Nourishing Traditions macaroons, and later I baked the Czechoslovakian Easter bread my grandmother always made for us for holidays. I made the walnut and the poppy seed version.
There was also a cloth basket of strawberries and a hand-sewn felt chick. To be extra silly, I scattered raisins on the table, and told the kids they were rabbit droppings from the Easter Bunny. They laughed and started eating them.
We did the traditional egg hunt later that morning.
We found all but one!
It is lurking in the yard somewhere still.
