Rainy Day Colors

Easter brightened up the end of a rather dismal week - with illness and rainy weather, everyone was grouchy and cramped.  It felt like I spent the week with both of Cinderella's obnoxious step-sisters, and The Little Engine That Could - And Did, even though you told it not to several times.

Clothilde managed to break a favorite dish of mine and make some spectacular messes.  We had so many eggs and so much cream, and everyone had such sore throats, I made the mistake of making an ice cream-like treat for everyone in individual cups so there would be no reason to fight about it. 

This, of course, sparked off some intense rivalry between the Ugly Step-Sisters, and The Little Engine that Could left hers out on the table so long it melted.... And then, unsupervised momentarily while dinner was frantically being made, she put it in the freezer for two minutes, decided it was frozen, and carried it sideways to the table.  The treats looked lovely in individual cups, but strewn all over the kitchen the floor it unpleasantly resembled cat puke.

I kept escaping into painting blown eggs for the Easter tree.  We were so busy on Saturday, we didn't get to dye eggs until Sunday morning.  I made dyes as usual, and everyone was disappointed how faint they were on the brown eggs.  There was talk of getting a small flock of white egg layers just for Easter, but Ethan made the comment that he wasn't going to deal with stupid chickens for 365 days a year just so we could dye the eggs for Easter.  It's true that the white egg layers we have had are all very stupid.  The Barred Rocks are such good, hearty chickens, and very intelligent, but the brown eggs didn't take the dye as well.

Sunday was so dismal and grey, it must have disappointed all the "Son-Rise" church events advertised around town.  We joked (sacrilegiously) that if the pope doesn't see his shadow on Easter for the sun rise service, it means Jesus stays in the cave for six more weeks.

While rain is perhaps not good for egg hunts and sun-rise services, it is doing very well for the garden and the pastures.  We put the weaned calves out on their own line, and they were all so happy and kicking up their heels.  They even refused to go say hello to their mothers at milking time, which was very upsetting for Matilda and Geranium.