While I try to refrain from complaining here most of the time, I also know that I appreciate a little reality check once in a while. As a blog reader, I like to see writers reveal a human face. I like to see that people—even blogland-perfect-seeming people—make mistakes, struggle with decisions, have a messy house or a scattered mind. Truth. I like it.

Truth is, things are kind of a shambles around here these days. Asher got the flu last Thursday. Ian got it on Saturday. Both were quite ill through Easter. While Asher has recovered some of his bounce, both he and Ian are still a wreck, with terrible coughing. Asher is emotionally all over the place. I got the sick yesterday, complete with 101 degree fever and chills. When I woke up this morning, it was clear that Lucas finally had the flu, too.

We’ve been stuck at home now for the better part of the last five days. I got out for a bit last Saturday to see friends at a garden birthday party, which was fun. Easter Sunday was subdued. I met with some colleagues on Monday night.

Yesterday I somehow edited a 4,400 word chapter with a fever. I have no idea how well I did that work. But a rush editing job is rush, whether I am sick or not.

It’s not all rotten. Just mostly rotten. We have watched more videos in the last four days than in the last several months put together. Today we finally managed to get the dishwasher and the clothes washer going. Together, like a shamble of zombies, we folded four loads of clean laundry that were stacked up and beginning to topple over, so that it was getting hard to tell clean from dirty on the floor. We are keeping the chickens and the dogs and ourselves fed. Last night’s rain meant that I didn’t have to try to water today, which is something I doubt I could have done. Lucas has practiced his piano.

I missed painting class. I have taken no photos since Easter. We’re eating ramen and egg salad sandwiches and fish sticks.

Ian plucked up his courage yesterday and did a couple of errands. He went out to buy me a new nebulizer because mine is broken, in anticipation of some bad wheezing brought on by this illness. That’s true love, man.

Did I mention this is Ian’s and the kids’ spring vacation? Yeah. Sucks. In the midst all of this, we’re wrestling with a pretty big decision. Tempers are short. And yet, we carry on.

Well, it’s Friday evening. Good Friday, in fact. It has been a good Friday, if I look at it from the right sort of angle. Life doesn’t always (read: almost never) follow according to plan, you see. So when it doesn’t go just how I expect and I manage to roll with it, I consider that a win.

We had some dear friends over for a sleepover. Alas, poor Asher fell ill right at dinnertime. The party went on around him, and he tried his best to stay cheerful throughout. A touchy tummy and a mild fever can weigh a boy down, though.

And while I don’t like exposing other people’s children to our germs, and tend toward feeling really guilty about this sort of thing when it happens, their sweet mama said, “I’m not worried. It’s too late to save them from germs, so they might as well have some fun.” So, although Asher had a couched and run-down kind of day today, Lucas was able to carry on playing and enjoying himself and his friends.

We visited and made some Easter cookies—at least, we got some baked before our friends had to go home. The boys and Ian and I carried on decorating them ourselves. As you can see, we pulled out all the stops.

We have plans for the holiday weekend, but we’ll just have to see what happens. Poor Asher has just been sick all over.

     —Tasha Tudor

We have a wide library of Easter and Ostara-themed children’s books around here. It might be because the Easter Bunny usually brings one for my boys. These are our favorites. We go for the non-religious, nature-oriented titles, so if you’re looking for the resurrection story, you’ll need to find a different list. The age recommendations listed here are my own suggestions.

Our newest favorite is Eggs for the Hunting, by Reg Down. We have several of Down’s books and their familiar woodland characters and sweet simplicity make them so charming. Comforting, everyday rhythms of nature and the seasons are mixed in with just the right amount of magic and wonder of the spirit in all things. Featuring darling Tiptoes Lightly (a fairy) and two plucky gnomes (Pine Cone and Pepper Pot), these books never fail to leave us giggling. Eggs for the Hunting is what we’re reading at bedtime now, and even my almost-10-year-old is captivated by it.

The Golden Egg Book is a classic that every kid should get to read at least once. The simple story is by Margaret Wise Brown and the luscious illustrations are by Leondard Weisgard. It was originally published in 1947. This book is wonderful for the 0 to 6 set.

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Du Bose Heyward (pictures by Margorie Flack) is widely considered to be one of the first feminist children’s books. It was published in 1939. I had this book as a child and I loved it. (The picture below was captivating to small me.) The little brown girl bunny wants to grow up to be an Easter Bunny, but before long she’s a mother. They say a mommy bunny can’t possibly do the job of the Easter Bunny, but in fact, she is amply qualified: for she is kind, clever, wise, swift—she has to be to raise her 21 bunny children! (I would say ages 4 to 10; this one is fairly long.)

The Bunny Who Found Easter is by Charlotte Zolotow and was originally published in 1959. In this story, a bunny wants to be with other bunnies. An owl tells him that there are always lots of rabbits at Easter, so the bunny goes looking for Easter. He searches through summer, fall, and winter without finding any other bunnies. But in spring, he finds a sweet friend and he’s so happy to know her, he forgets about Easter. Soon enough, by Easter, there are lots of rabbits! He learns that Easter is not a place after all, but a time when everything lovely begins once again. (Ages 0 to 6.)

The Egg Tree (Katherine Milhous, 1950) is a story about a family celebrating Easter with an egg hunt. In the attic, a girl finds a box with gorgeous decorated eggs inside. Grandma had forgotten they were there. They are eggs she decorated when she was a girl and she shows the grandchildren how to decorated them in traditional designs. Then she introduces them to the Egg Tree, which is trimmed with beautifully decorated eggs and so lovely that people come from far and wide to see it. It becomes their Easter tradition. (Ages 4 to 8.)

The Easter Egg by Jan Brett is the newest title on my list of rather classic Easter stories. Brett’s illustrations never fail to amaze. They are complex, intricate, and beautiful. There is a competition among the rabbits to create the most beautiful Easter egg. The winner of the competition has the honor of helping the Easter Rabbit hide the eggs for the children. Little Hoppi is participating in the competition for the first time. He finds deciding how to decorate his egg is harder than he thought. When Mother Robin’s egg accidentally falls from the nest, Hoppi takes care of it until it hatches. (Ages 4 to 8.)

A Tale for Easter by Tasha Tudor was published in 1941 and begins, “You can never tell what might happen on Easter.” It describes how you know that Easter is coming: a new dress from mama and hot cross buns on Good Friday. Then you ask the chickens to lay lots of eggs. The night before Easter, good children will dream the loveliest dreams, such as riding on the back of a fawn who gallops through the woodlands and shows you rabbits, lambs, and Easter ducklings swimming among the lily pads. Tudor’s illustrations are endlessly charming and this is the perfect Easter book for very young children.

By Sybille Olfers, The Story of the Root Children (1906) is a favorite. Gentle watercolor paintings grace this sweet tale of how Mother Earth must wake the Root Children so they may perform their care-taking duties, such as washing the beetles and bumble bees. Then they can dress in fine clothes and go to the surface, to play in the woods and meadows until autumn comes again. (Ages 0 to 6.)

While the spring equinox was last month, this book, The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth by Ellen Jackson, is worth a look. It tells of spring celebrations in many cultures and throughout history, reminding us that the many symbols and traditions we still follow have roots in the past. The book ends with a retelling of the myth of the goddess Ostara and how the Easter hare came to be associated with eggs. (Ages 4 to 10.)

And here are two others that we’ve checked out from our library, but don’t own. I fully recommend these as well.

Rachenka’s Eggs is the story of old Babushka who saves a goose and nurses her back to health. The goose accidentally knocks over the old woman’s paint pots, which she uses to create beautiful Ukrainian Easter eggs. The eggs throughout Patricia Paola’s book are gorgeous and feature traditional designs. The goose begins to lay beautiful, decorated eggs, and eventually returns to the wild, but not before leaving behind an egg that hatches into a gosling to be Babushka’s companion. (Ages 4 to 10.)

The Birds’ Gift: A Ukrainian Easter Story is another delight. This folktale retold by Eric Kimmel is lovely. A young girl inspires a whole village to save a flock of golden birds trapped by a sudden, fierce snowstorm. The birds shelter in the church over the winter and are released in the spring, even though the villagers have come to love them dearly. At Easter time, the birds return, leaving hundreds of gloriously decorated Easter eggs in the grasses. This book features pysanky-inspired illustrations by Katya Krenina. (Ages 4 to 10.)

This year I decided to try a product called Eco-Eggs. I bought it from A Toy Garden, which is my favorite place to buy Waldorf and sustainably made, fair trade gifts and art supplies. Eco-Eggs is a egg dye kit made from natural pigments. The dyes are made using natural plant, fruit, and vegetable extracts from annatto seed, curcumin, purple sweet potato and red cabbage.  This kit includes three natural dyes (orange, blue, and purple).

We simply followed the instructions. It was that easy.

Pour the dye powder into a half cup of water and mix thoroughly until it is all dissolved.

Gently add your eggs so they don’t crack on the bottom of your glass. This time we used all white eggs. But I’ve saved our dye baths and plan to try them on our brown eggs as well.

The kit comes with three colors of natural dye and this handy chart tells you how to get other colors, including how long to leave your eggs in the dye to achieve your desired result. Some colors are made by just dipping the egg in for a second and then removing it, as in the case of yellow. Others are achieved by leaving the egg in as long as 15 minutes.

My kids rarely have the patience to leave one egg in a dye bath for 15 minutes, as is recommended on some of the color formulas. But we’re really happy with our colors. Lucas enjoyed dipping eggs into two colors to make three-toned eggs. Asher really liked using his rainbow crayons on the eggs before dyeing them.

It always seems like 18 eggs is plenty to dye before we get started. But dyeing Easter eggs is so fun that it seems like we run out of eggs way too quickly. If you’re short on time this year, this Eco-Eggs product will work well for you, without using a lot of commercial chemicals in the process.

Aren’t they pretty? We get to hunt for these beauties tomorrow, as we’re celebrating Easter with one side of the family a week early. xo

No words are needed, I think.

It was a big time, of course. St. Patrick’s Day was fun for all of us, I think. We crafted. We decorated.

In between epic puddle splashing and a during jolly good time in the heavy rain, we set up a Leprechaun party complete with shamrocks in a vase of water, table with acorn cap cups, hyacinth flowers and bird berries.

The path we lined with white stones was very inviting to the wee folk.

I had made some secret presents: wooden clothespin Leprechauns. A boy and girl for each of my sons.

Even though we made that lovely party space and put out brownie treats for them, the Leprechauns couldn’t help themselves. They pulled a small trick on us anyway and piled all of our shoes in the entry, blocking the front door. It’s in their nature, you know. They’re tricky!

They did, however, leave the boys some treasures. A set of rainbow gems for each and a note.

“Thanks for the goodies, and thanks for the laughs!

On your way outside today, did you trip over our gaffes?

We’ve enjoyed your hospitality, and so we’d like to say,

We’ve left a little gift or two to brighten up your day!

We know you like bright jewels, so shiny and so fine,

Nearly as much as we do. So, we’ll share a few this time:

A rainbow for your pockets, to keep and hold and share.

Our gold we’ll keep for now! Try to catch us if you dare!”

Apparently, Leprechauns think they are very clever.

I didn’t snap any photos of our green shamrock pancakes or piles of golden eggs. I was too busy tucking in with and enjoying my fellas. It turns out that clothespin Leprechauns are great for homemade zip-lines. Then we readied our home for a  fun party with our friends. We enjoyed a yummy lamb stew, kale salad, and soda bread (from a mix). Today, Asher is talking about his Leprechaun friends.

Hope you had a festive holiday, too!

There is a deliciously long list of fantastic things in my life lately. And because I have a moment or two, I’m savoring them. What’s not to feel grateful for?

~ Hosting friends for a kid-friendly St. Patrick’s Day party, complete with my first from-scratch lamb stew. Yum!

~ Cleaning our home for this party. A party is the best reason to clean.

~ Reveling in a surprisingly work-free weekend, when I expected to have to buckle down.

~ Watching my boys play with total concentration with their “cousins,” who are so very dear to us all. They are so comfortable with each other.

~ Observing how these children are all growing, growing, growing in myriad beautiful ways.

~ Brunching with friends most of Sunday, complete with a skip out to a nail salon with my girlfriends for a pedicure and pink/purple iridescent polish. First one in … years. So luxurious and fun.

~ Inquiring into the health of parents, backs, workouts and …

~ Listening, witnessing, offering friendship and support.

~ Having enough home-raised eggs to give some away.

~ Choosing the prudent path of getting home before it was too late to ready ourselves for a busy, exciting week. It’s a little sad when the fun ends, but letting go feels good, too.

~ Studying spelling words (Norse god names) with my son, who it going to nail them, I think.

~ Preparing for Lucas’s special week of one-on-one time with the Waldorf school’s farmer. Five extra-early mornings to greet and care for the animals of the school farm—a rare opportunity for any child.

~ Realizing that it’s OK that all the rain boots are still wet on the insides from Friday’s splashing and galloping in rain puddles. It was worth it.

~ Painting for an hour or so in my home until the daylight fled and I could no longer see the colors well enough to continue.

~ Eating a simple, delicious, fulfilling dinner with my tired, happy family.

~ Getting everyone in bed early to rest up for Monday and the early alarm.

~ Signing up for my first plein air painting workshop next month—at an iris farm, no less. SQUEE!

~ Thinking—hard—about getting more exercise. Yes, I’m slowly warming up to the idea. Mustn’t rush these things.

~ Noticing buds on my lilac, tons of new growth on my clematis vine, morning glory seedlings popping up, and growth on my new-this-year irises.

~ Balancing our many social opportunities with our need for downtime, hopefully in the right proportions, for the next few weeks.

~ Feeling excited and grateful that Lucas got the part he wanted in the fourth-grade play. It’s so wonderful to see him reach for something and catch it!

~ Rejoicing to see my little guy’s imagination blossom with Leprechauns and sweet mischief. “Shhh! Mama, do you hear the Leprechaun laughing? I think he’s over there, under the couch.”

~ Loving my husband more and more every day.

Oh, Saturday. How I love you! I swoon with love for you!

Any day that starts with an extra hour of delicious morning sleep is tops. Why does morning sleep feel better than any other sleep?

My day started with coffee and some new window stars. Both of these are first attempts at new patterns.  The red flower was tough because I had to trim my small 6 1/4 inch square kite paper into teeny-tiny rectangles with a particular height-to-width proportion. Like, with MATH.

It would have been easier with bigger paper, as the instructions call for. But I’m happy with the result. See the little red star in the middle?

The pink one with the open center is kind of a showstopper, I think.

This little darling accidentally flew into our window today. She stunned herself pretty badly, and allowed Ian to pick her up and place her into this tree. At first her eyes were closed and her eyelids were kind of twitchy. Later on, she was like this, eyes open but not ready to fly away. Then, she was gone. I hope she’s OK now. She might be a goldfinch, but I’m not sure.

We have four two-day-old chicks in our home again. Here they are at one day old. We got two Black Sex-Link chicks (who are certain to be female because the male chicks look different at hatching) and two Silver Laced Wyandotts. At first I was sure I’d play it safe and get four Black Sex-Link chicks to guarantee we were getting females, but then the Silver Laced Wyandotts wooed me with their gorgeous adult plumage and I succumbed to temptation. Let’s all hope together that they’ll turn out to be hens, OK?

The chicks are much more sturdy on their pins now. Lucas is enjoying them a lot. We are debating about their names. Ian wants to name them after sci-fi space princesses. Lucas is in favor of Norse goddess names, although he also likes the idea of calling them Bear, Raven, Duck, and Chipmunk because, well,  that’s funny. Asher seems to want to keep with the theme of nature oriented names like our other hens. He has thoughtfully suggested Moon, Star, Rain, and Tornado.

My garden is coming alive again in small ways.

This new forsythia was allegedly a flowering quince when I bought it and planted it late last spring. I’m not sad because it’s gorgeous.

Asher received his first lessons in chess today. My heart skipped a beat when I saw this. Is he really old enough to start learning chess?

Lucas practiced piano and cleaned his room today. We also went to the library and got him his own library card.

And although I don’t yet have a photo, I spent some time today painting my kitchen door turquoise. I’ve been wanting to paint this door for twelve years now. Ridiculous, but true. And why turquoise? Well, why ever not?

We had yummy French onion soup and steak and asparagus for dinner. We read leprechaun stories at bedtime.

Life is good. I love Saturdays.

Yesterday we said good-bye to a favorite hen. Midnight passed away in the afternoon. She was a great hen with a lovely disposition and gentleness, and she laid gorgeous, huge brown eggs steadily for us for a year and a half. She was two or more years old when we rescued her. She seemed to have a steadying influence on the other hens. She was large and fluffy and her black feathers were soft and iridescent in the sunlight. She was Ian’s favorite of all of the girls.

Last fall, we noticed her belly was distended and so we researched online to find out what might be up with her. We found evidence to suggest that she was perhaps egg-bound, and although we did the things that were recommended to remedy it—ridiculous things like giving her a bath in warm water—nothing changed for the better. Yet, she didn’t die like the Internet said she surely would do within a few days. In fact, she lived another three months, ate heartily, grew her bottom feathers back in,  and …. then lost them again. Our theory is that she overwintered OK because she wasn’t laying, but now that spring has ramped up the hens’ egg-laying, she was egg-bound and it did her in.

Or we could be totally wrong about all of that. We’re just guessing.

Anyway, although I thought there might be great grief when I told my children about losing Midnight, they surprised me by taking it in stride. Lucas wanted to see her dead body, and then seemed to accept that she was gone. Asher was mildly interested but not upset. I’m grateful for Emily Mouse (our deceased pet), who paved the way for our experience of losing an animal. I also think that the addition of Solstice Dog to our family has given my children an understanding of what is a “proper” pet, and so the chicken seemed less important.

And while it’s quite silly to be very sad about losing our Midnight when we are a family who eats chicken three times a week, she was, nonetheless kind of a pet.

Rest in peace, Midnight. You were a great chicken.