Pysanky Easter

Caribou Harvest Egg on Left, Traditional Ukranian
Windmills design on right

Friday night, I spent a few hours happily sitting at the table, and drawing in wax on raw eggs.  This traditional wax resist dye method was used for centuries in Eastern Europe, both pre and post Chrisitanity, to celebrate this time of year.  Some of the traditional designs are very Easter specific, referencing the life of Christ, and some of the designs are more universal, representing hopes for happiness, good weather, and abundant harvests.  The one on the right above is a traditional design.  The one on the left, I designed using traditional motifs.  There are two variations on sun motifs on the top and bottom of the egg.

Set up: candle, kistky, wax, dye

My caribou harvest egg

This one uses a traditional 'deer' design that I decided was actually a caribou, a crossed branches motif, and a duck's foot motif.  I made it out of deep respect for the cycles of life in this northern land where we still have feet of un-melted snow.  It is in honor of the continuity of the seasons, and my hopes for a hunt in the coming year.

Ram, sun, seed sprouting, apple tree

Rooster

This was the final egg I dyed.  It is divided into eight sections, and each holds a symbol representing my hopes for this homestead and this life we are beginning to build.  There is a red ram for vigor and fertility, a rooster for abundance, sunshine, sheaves of wheat, and an apple tree! 

Easter Egg Starts

We didn't do much to celebrate Easter.  Somehow this year, marking the solar equilibrium and the shift from the dark of winter to the sunlight of summer - whether the pagan Eostre or the Christian Easter - on a specific date with grand celebration has not felt truly appropriate to my heart.  Instead, it has felt like a slow and incremental process with lengthening days and slow trend towards warmth.  

My mother gave us Lindt chocolate bunnies, and there were some wilting tulips in a vase from the bouquet my mother in law gave me a couple weeks ago.  But that was about it.  Instead I planted seeds of Calendula and Echinacea.  In honor of Easter, and because they make frugal and ecological sense, I planted some of them in eggshells.  Planting starts in eggshells is an idea I saw on Pinterest, so I'm dedicating this post to Julochka's "pinspiration" series.  I can't find the original idea inspiring pin, but here's another that I have enacted in my kitchen but haven't taken a photo of.  Its remarkably effective.

Anywho.  About the eggshell seed starters.  I'm pretty excited about the idea because it seems to me that when planting them, it will be really easy to crack/crumble the shell around the seedling root ball without damaging the little tender rootlets.  The problem with the "bio-degradable" kind of seed starter trays where you can supposedly just plant the cardboard little pot directly into the soil is that, well, you can't.  Because unless maybe if we're talking about corn starts, the roots just aren't vigorous enough to bore through the industrial compacted paper product.  So you either resign yourself to suffocating your starts' roots inside a tiny cardboard package, or you break and peel open the casing when you go to plant out.  Which traumatizes the roots that are stuck to it, and adds to the shock the plant experiences going into the ground.  I have high hopes for egg shells.

But.  I hadn't stared saving them soon enough.

And I found one of those industrial style ones for free.

As you can see, its the kind that has its own little plastic greenhouse deal.  I was grocery shopping a couple weeks ago, and as I was driving along the sort of little access road to the store, I saw, sitting right in the middle of the road, this brand new in-packaging seed start kit.  So I quick put on my flashers, hit the brakes, jumped out, and fished it out from under the truck.  It must have blown off of someone's neglected car roof, or out of the back of someone's truck.  Thanks to them, whoever they are.  I sure appreciate it.

I'm not doing 'much' of a garden this summer, what with being gone for June and having lots of projects and all.  But, I do have a basket of seed packets from last year as well as some that are dated for 2010 which I think we found at the Transfer Site.  We'll see how they do for germination.  Can't hurt to put them in some soil.  And I'd hate to waste seeds!  I'll keep you updated with what I plant as I do so....

In other news.  I saw my first spot of bare ground at home today!