I get it now. Although I’ve always loved Easter and the springtime, I think I really get it now. I’ve studied Christianity and the goddesses of world religions and I’ve done my share of pagan festivals. The rites of spring have always been glorious and inspiring.

But I really get it now. The miracle of eggs.

I keep hens, and I currently have 15 beauties in my backyard. They range in age from 5+ to 1 year old. All are mature enough to lay and their eggs are delicious.

In the wintertime, the hens stop laying, or slow down to an unbearable trickle. They slow down so much that it’s frustrating to be feeding them all winter long and getting so little—especially when the chicken run gets cold and sloppy with mud and manure and I have to tromp out there daily to make sure they get fed and watered, and to collect my rare, occasional egg. In the wintertime, I buy eggs at the supermarket and I buy feed for my chickens.

As February arrives, the hens start laying a little more. Some days I get two or three eggs. Some days it’s back to one.

It’s March now. It’s the Spring Equinox and the girls have fully ramped up. In the last 24 hours I’ve collected 15 rainbow-hued eggs. Just in time for Ostara. Just in time for Easter egg rituals and children’s hunts. Just in time for the eggs to take their exalted place in our cultural observances for one day.

So let’s look at that a moment. All winter long, if we were subsistence farmers, we would be eating mostly last year’s food—stored or preserved food. When it comes to protein, that means either a winter slaughter or dehydrated, salted, or frozen protein. What if we, like previous generations, didn’t have freezer technology? That leaves us with the risky expenditure of energy on hunting for fresh meat, dehydrated or salted protein, or the sacrifice of a valuable animal.

But with the coming of the springtime, the eggs return. The flow of fresh, nutritious protein begins again. Bellies get full. Muscles get stronger. People can return to the hard work of living because they’ve got the fuel to do so, and it comes in safety-sealed, perfectly portion-controled little packages— boxes without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.

And so the egg is naturally the symbol of renewal, of hope, of plenty. Chicks hatch from some, and that’s delightful because they are cute and fluffy (and because when they fall asleep they instantly flop over and doze, awkwardly and ridiculously, however and wherever they fall). But really, baby chicks mean more eggs will come.

Eggs aren’t the only symbol of springtime renewal, of course. And we honor them all: workable earth, seeds for planting, tender sprouts, fresh edible greens growing where there had been snow. Flowers mean bees and bees mean fruits. Pregnant livestock give birth. Milk and honey flow.

All of these are longed-for signs that life will continue, that mothers and fathers can feed their babes.

Happy Ostara!

Are you poring over seed and flower catalogs, itching to get your fingers dirty by planting your garden? Are you still stuck inside, or unable to plant because of cold temperatures? Here’s a little project to help you while away the time until you can get out there and start growing: Make wood-burned garden markers. We made these as a Christmas gift for grandparents and they were a hit. They are simple, inexpensive, and sweet.

Materials

• wide craft sticks (tongue depressor size)
• wood sun shapes
• wood glue
• watercolor paints or craft acrylics
• wood-burner tool and tip
• wood varnish

Tutorial

These materials can all be found at a craft store such as Michael’s. We liked the sun shapes; we thought garden markers with sun shapes would be most appropriate for making garden plants grow big and strong and bountiful.

Start by deciding what plants you want markers for. Summer veggies or herbs are great. Practice drawing the fruits on paper a time or two, so you know how you want your wood-burned markers to look. Keep your drawings very simple because the wood-burner tool is more difficult to draw with than a pencil. We decided it was OK to abbreviate some of the longer vegetable names.

My 10-year-old son did a couple of these, so I know a careful, older child can successfully use a wood-burner. Just stay nearby and encourage safe habits. The wood-burner gets very hot! (Be sure to protect your work surface, especially if it’s wood!) While using a wood-burner, you have to draw slowly, allowing the tool to make a mark on your pale wood. Be patient and go slow.

We decided that the marker stakes should also have words of inspiration for gardeners. We wrote “trust,” “patience,” “hope,” “peace,” and “love.” These are some of the qualities people need to make a garden grow, of course. Other virtues might be “caring,” “tenderness,” “gratitude,” “faith,” “prosperity,” “sufficiency,” “serenity,” and “tenacity.” Or maybe “sweetness,” “juiciness,” or “plenty.”

Glue your sun shapes to the craft sticks. Now you can choose to paint them with your watercolors or other paint, or you can leave them plain. We wanted ours to be colorful. If you’re using watercolors, be careful and put only a little moisture in your paint to color the vegetables. Too much water can make it run (like on our tomatoes). After you paint your veggies, paint the rest of the sun gold.

When all parts of your garden markers are dry, give them a good coat of varnish. This will protect the wood a bit from the elements. Now you just need to plant!

I’ve been watching carefully for signs of the coming spring. Perhaps you have been too?

I collected these for you, in case your eyes are aching for some color and you’re tired of being cold.

Or even if you just enjoy the promise of it, knowing that it’s coming.

The trees are waking up, putting on their pale dresses and stretching in the sunshine.

Our eyes can get caught in the showers of petals, or in the shimmering, sunstreaked clouds.

But looking down is rewarding too. The earth is dark and moist. Grasses are singing. It’s a good time for tromping, in shirtsleeves if you can get away with it.

Sometimes you have to look closely. There among the decayed leaf litter …

are some lovely signs. Fortunately, they’re designed to catch the eye.

Do you feel the earth waking? Are you seeing signs of spring?

Spring is coming! I see signs of it everywhere. Bud are swelling on trees, the earliest magnolia in my neighborhood is starting to flower, my bulbs are coming up, there’s baby peeps for sale at the feed store, jonquils are blooming, and my Leghorn hen (who is positively elderly) has started laying again.

When

In February there are days,
Blue, and nearly warm,
When horses switch their tails and ducks
Go quacking through the farm.
When everything turns round to feel
The sun upon its back—
When winter lifts a little bit
And spring peeks through the crack.
—Dorothy Aldis

Alms in Autumn
Spindle-wood, spindle-wood, will you lend me, pray,
A little flaming lantern to guide me on my way?
The fairies all have vanished from the meadow and the glen,
And I would fain go seeking till I find them once again.
Lend me now a lantern that I may bear a light
To find the hidden pathway in the darkness of the night.
Ash-tree, ash-tree, throw me, if you please,
Throw me down a slender branch of russet-gold keys.
I fear the gates of Fairyland may all be shut so fast
That nothing but your magic keys will ever take me past.
I’ll tie them to my girdle, and as I go along
My heart will find a comfort in the tinkle of their song.
Holly-bush, holly-bush, help me in my task,
A pocketful of berries is all the alms I ask:
A pocketful of berries to thread in golden strands
(I would not go a-visiting with nothing in my hands).
So fine will be the rosy chains, so gay, so glossy bright,
They’ll set the realms of Fairyland all dancing with delight.

—Rose Fyleman

Today is the first day of autumn and I’m feeling happy and energized. The temperatures here in Northern California are still warm, but not dreadfully hot. The garden is looking weary, but still hasn’t given up—flowers bloom, seeds are forming and scattering, plants are looking thirsty. I spent a little time in my “bower” this morning. I have an old futon out in my backyard underneath a cleverly bowed tree covered in wisteria vines. The foliage combined makes a shady spot to sit and read, and I love it. I drank my coffee, and listened to the tiny sounds of just a few first leaves falling and the hens’ clucks and the rattle of their food container. I’m starting today slowly, even though there are a million things to do and a million more I want to do. But I am content. Slow, gentle starts are just right sometimes.

My garden, as I mentioned, is tired. I’m a little discouraged by it this year. We’ve had watering troubles that I’ve failed to solve. Along one of our drip lines is a long row of dead plants. I got some lovely tomatoes this year (cherries are my favorites), but little else. I’ve decided I’m not going another year without a raised bed. Our soil is just too clayey, and when the summer comes and the water is scarce, it becomes like concrete. Only the most determined vegetables produce. I had hopes for pumpkins and peppers and squash, yet I never mustered the energy to get them going. I tell myself that it’s OK because I can’t do everything. Right? And I do enough. Right?

Still, I’ve enjoyed the hummingbirds who visit my salvia and cannas, and the many other birds who visit my birth bath for drinks and bathing. It delights me to see a bird actually bathing in it.

Our hens are all healthy. Most of them are laying and the four young hens we raised from chicks this year are laying now. They’ve grown into very pretty young ladies. My special-needs chicken, Firefly, (in the photo) is finally completely rehabilitated. She spends her days on the ground now, like all the other hens. For more than a year she stayed on top of the chicken coop day and night because she was so bitterly harassed by the others. I don’t know how she finally integrated into the flock, but I’m glad she has. She is still the smallest hen we have, even smaller than our youngest hens from this season. She lays eggs though, so I feel she’s finally living a normal chicken life.

So I’m wishing all of you a happy, blessed autumn. We’re heading up to Apple Hill today for a small adventure and some apples. Seems like a great way to spend the first day of autumn.

I whipped up this salad last night and it was so delicious. This is a great way to sneak fresh zucchini into a meal. Everybody has extra zucchini at this time of year! We served it with popcorn and it was a perfect supper for a scorching-hot day.

1 whole cucumber, chopped

1 whole red tomato, chopped

1/2 c yellow or sungold cherry tomatoes, halved

1 small zucchini, shredded

1-2 T fresh parsley

1 avocado, cubed

1/2 to 1 c chopped carrots

1/2 gypsy pepper

1/2 c kalamata olives

2 T shredded horseradish cheese

a few dashes of Tajin fruit seasoning (a mix of chili peppers, salt, and dehydrated lime juice)

Dressing

1/4 c kalamata olive brine from jar

2 T olive oil

2 T rice wine vinegar

Chop veggies and parsley, add shredded zucchini and shredded cheese and then toss. Mix olive brine, oil, and vinegar in a jar, shake and pour over salad. Toss well.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Happy Midsummer! It’s been a perfectly lovely weekend for our family. It looked like this:

(Asher’s writing, 5 and a 1/2)

We had friends over for two spectacular meals—friends whom I adore and crave constantly.

Lucas went to a fantastic birthday party. He gave his friend a copy of Fellowship of the Ring, a thoughtful gift, as Lucas and Asher are thoroughly enjoying the Tolkien trilogy. Ian is reading The Two Towers to them now.

Ian got a spiffy new phone f0r work. The Star Walk app is awesome!

Friends from school rode their bikes over to play here with us on Saturday. They get along so beautifully with my kids.

I painted a tiny bit.

We did some shopping for home improvement stuff.

Ian shortened the chicken run a tad, as the first step to solving one part of our drainage problems. He built a new wall with tree stakes we already had laying about!

We worked on our drip system, fixing problems and adding drippers. The weather was so cool, we had to take advantage of the opportunity to work in the yard.

Lucas played in a piano recital, which was altogether wonderful. So many talented kids!

We grown-ups have been watching the Lord of the Rings films. All the boys’ talk of orcs and elves and dwarves made me want to see them again.

Our Midsummer days have been happy and full of food, friendship, love, useful work, and celebration! I hope yours have been, too!

Back in April I got to spend a half a day doing something amazing. I attended a plein air painting workshop taught by Randy Blasquez at the Horton Farm Iris Garden in Loomis, California. The view above was my chosen landscape and I attempted to crop it down to a 12 x 8 canvas and just show the middle part. The day was warm and gorgeous, and I prudently parked my easel, Anaïs, in the shade. Something about that chartreuse tree, the lavender in the back, the dark right side, and the red-orange irises in the foreground was very attractive to me.

Maybe it’s because these were named “My Friend Jonathan.” Jonathan is my brother’s name.

We spent about an hour or so watching our teacher Randy do a demonstration after we arrived that morning. Then we all fanned out and found our spots. I found myself struggling with wanting to paint, but also wanting to walk around and admire the irises and take photographs. I buckled down and painted for about two hours. Then I allowed myself to wander just a bit before rushing back to work on an editing project at home.

My painting from that day isn’t good, isn’t finished, and I don’t care much for it—except that I learned a lot in painting it. I learned that simpler is better, when it comes to landscapes—at least for a beginner like me. I learned that the point of painting outside is to capture colors and shapes. That the light will change while you’re painting, and your painting won’t look much like the landscape does at the time you stop. Also, I learned that my eyes worked really hard at adjusting between seeing the landscape in sunlight and seeing the painting in the shade. By the end of the day I was a trifle sunburned and my eyes were sore.

No matter, though. It was a glorious day. And maybe someday I’ll work on that painting some more. Bring in more light, darken the bare ground with a warmer brown, etc. Maybe.

Light-and-dark blue “Mariposa Skies” was so lovely.

The farm is gorgeous in every way. Rows upon rows upon rows. I bought three irises in gallon pots that day to add to my garden: “Widdershins,” “Smoke Rings,” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi”—how could I resist? All of these are rather unusual colors for irises, which suits my garden just fine. I didn’t really have to be too choosy anyway; so many were gorgeous.

I liked this place so much I took my mom there the following weekend. No painting that time, although they were having an event for painters that weekend.

Mom and I just enjoyed wandering and admiring and iris shopping.

Surprisingly, Mom was attracted to all the purple irises that day, instead of the yellow ones. Yellow is her favorite color.

Oh, and there were super-cute goats. And a lizard. And a bunch of rusty old farm equipment! And a rundown barn. Truly a delightful place.

I am thoroughly enjoying my garden this year. Everywhere I turn I see successes in the form of bright flowers. Not everything I’ve planted has done well, but so much has and I am finding that going even a few days without some time working in the garden is too long. (It helps when the weather is so completely perfect like it is now.)

Of course, there are spots of ugliness that I have plans to change, but I’ll give a little tour of the good stuff. My foxgloves (above) are off the hook this year. In fact, since this photo was taken, more tall spires have bloomed out and they’re bending down to the ground. I’ve got to stake them up with something.

These sunny fellows are called Sun Roses (Helianthemum nummularium, according to the Interwebz). It’s a low-growing ground cover with orange flowers that drift up above.

April is the month for Azaleas and mine are doing great. I’ve actually been feeding them this year. I’ve turned over a new leaf and vowed to support the plants I already have with loving attention and fertilizer.

This vine is new this spring. It’s a form of rudbekia called Black-eyed Susan vine. I’ve had it for about three weeks and it’s still blooming like this. My hope is that it will grow up onto my fence near my patio. My concern is that my soil isn’t all that great in that spot. It was such an arresting flower that I decided to take the chance. I think I paid $12 for this. It stands about 4 feet tall.

My nemesia from last year is blooming beautifully.

I think this rose is called “Peace” but I’m not sure. I think it’s heavenly.

My clematis vine survived the winter and bloomed like crazy all through April. Then it had a few quiet days before a new batch of flowers opened up. These are about six inches across. I bought a pretty trellis for them to climb and need to paint it and get it into its permanent spot soon for the vine to grow on.

Peppermint candy rose—it was called something like that, but I forget. This rose was new last year and it seems very happy.

I bought a Mandevilla vine at Costco. My mother says she has killed several of these over the years. I figured I’d give it a try. It’s flowers look like ballerinas.

And this baby is Ian’s favorite rose “Hot Cocoa.” We like it so much we have two of them.

Let’s see … the delphinium is looking good and getting ready to bloom. I have seven new irises that I recently bought at the nearby Horton Iris Farm. One called “Obi-Wan Kenobi” is blooming and another called “Tomorrow’s Child” will bloom soon. Today I planted a scarlet dianthus and three purple verbena ground cover plants. The rock roses I put in last year are blooming and I’m looking forward to them getting bigger; they should get at least three feet tall. My evening primrose has spread and is now sporting baby-pink poppy-like flowers. I’m hoping it will spread out more in the front yard too. All the purple iris rhizomes I bought from the Waldorf school farm are doing fine but aren’t yet ready to bloom. I think I’ll have to wait until next spring for them to be well enough established to flower.

Oh—and the mint is trying to take over the world.

My next project, apart from putting in tomatoes and peppers and pumpkins from seed, is to get some rooting hormone and try my hand at propagating from cuttings.