Happy Father’s Day to all the great dads out there. Here’s mine, and I love him completely.

Good Morning, Mistress and Master,

I wish you a happy day;

Please to smell my garland

‘Cause it’s the First of May.

A branch of May I have brought you,

And at your door I stand;

It is but a sprout, but it’s well budded out,

The work of Nature’s hand.

—from A Child’s Seasonal Treasury

Happy May Day! Today is one of my favorite days of the year because May Day celebrations are so beautiful and full of flowers and because it is my older son’s birthday. This year feels extra special because Lucas is turning 10. A decade of our lives has been spent loving and raising this beautiful boy.

He is magnificent and I love him so!

“We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can’t speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees.”

~ Qwatsinas (Hereditary Chief Edward Moody), Nuxalk Nation

Mother Earth, Mother Earth.

Take our seed and give it birth.

Father Sun, Gleam and glow,

Until the root begins to grow.

Sister Rain, Sister Rain.

Shed thy tear to swell the grain.

Brother Wind, breathe and blow,

Then the blade all green will grow.

Earth and Sun and Wind and Rain,

Turn to gold the living grain.

—Eileen Hutchins

Happy Earth Day everyone!

I hope this little list will inspire you to do something good for Mother Earth and all her children. Start small, start anywhere, just start.

1. Release ladybugs in your garden.

2. Start an herb garden and maintain it organically.

3. Go for a bike ride and picnic in a green space.

4. Write a poem. What does the earth mean to you? Show it to teachers, at church, or send it in to the local newspaper.

5. Make a birdbath so our feathered friends have a source of clean water.

6. Participate in a community cleanup; or just walk through your neighborhood with a trash bag and pick up (safe) trash you see along the walk.

7. Make natural soap or shampoo without chemicals. It’s good for your body and good for our waters.

8. Buy something you need at a garage sale or a thrift store, instead of buying a new item at a department store.

9. Symbolically adopt an animal at your local zoo or favorite wildlife conservation organization.

10. Teach your children well. Teach them about stewardship and never be afraid to express your love of nature. Let them see your love of the earth in action.

Blessed be.

Easter was a little different this year in that we celebrated on two different days: One Sunday at Grandma and Grandpa’s house with family and one Sunday at our home.

We had a family meal and hunted for eggs on this glorious spring day.

It’s kind of tough to find eggs in Grandma’s big backyard. Sometimes little guys need some help. Thanks, Daddy!

Big guys can take this sort of thing pretty seriously. If they do, they find the lion’s share.

It was a gorgeous day and my children enjoyed themselves. The older cousins seem to be doing well and that’s a pleasure to see. It was especially fun having three dogs there. Grandma and Grandpa have a dog, Tolly, and Ian’s sister and her husband have a dog name George. We brought Solstice along, too. This makes for a Big Dog Party.

A week later, on Easter morning, we enjoyed our own peaceful family ritual. As usual, the kids were up bright and early.

The Easter Bunny brought traditional goodies: fruits, flowers, eggs to find, and Easter baskets.

There was much cavorting, despite Asher being ill with flu. There are some things a boy simply must do, no matter how he feels, and hunting for goodies at 7 a.m. on Easter morning is one of them.

But this sort of thing isn’t just for little boys. No. Bigger boys still love it, too.

(Our Easter basket grasses were just grown in enough.)

Easter Bunny brought a book for each of my sons,

a sweet bunny (matchy-matchy rainbow bunnies!), and a special new hat.

The boys were also given gorgeous new painting boards and painting jar holders for their watercolors. These are going to come in handy, I tell you!

There’s nothing quite like early morning chocolate and strawberries to make for a special day.

And, while we probably shouldn’t have risked it, we hosted my parents and brother for a little Easter luncheon outside. (They were brave to come.) We enjoyed simple croissant sandwiches, fruit salad, and pie. Ian and Asher were really not feeling well, so we kept it short. Thank goodness none of our guests fell ill afterward. All things considered, it was pretty ideal to host since we got to have a low-key celebration and didn’t have to miss out on a party happening elsewhere. That would have been so disappointing.

I mentioned before that this flu ultimately wiped us all out for more than a week. Ian is finally back to work today, thanks to the antibiotics he’s taking to treat a bronchial infection. I’ve limped through a rush editing job all week with flu. Things got a little grim around here, but I think we’re on the mend. I’m glad I’m finally able to share our Easter.  I think I had to slog through the muck before I could think happy thoughts again.

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.

We have been reading Eggs for the Hunting, by Reg Down, which we got from A Toy Garden. I was inspired by Reg’s drawings in the book and I wondered if I could emulate them on some wooden eggs (also from A Toy Garden) to make my own story eggs. I had seen story eggs made by Mama West Wind who writes at Chocolate Eyes, and they were so beautiful I had to try to make some myself. (You can find a full tutorial by Chris Willow how to do this here at Rhythm of the Home.)

This seemed the perfect time to try the wood-burner for the first time. Plus, I had this nifty, super-dandy lathe thingy that Ian bought me for Christmas to try out, so a little project was born.

My first wood-burning attempt. I dig it! I used the pointiest tip and was pleased with the results.

I painted the flowers with some watercolor paints. I liked being able to see the wooden egg, so I left the natural wood.

Emboldened by my first success, I tried one of Reg’s designs on this large wooden egg.  This was trickier. It felt important not to mess it up. I just worked slowly and took lots of deep breaths while using the wood-burner.

Then I painted it with Stockmar watercolors. The illustration I was emulating is in black and white, so the colors here are my interpretation.

I finished it with a nice coat of beeswax furniture polish.

My Tiptoes Lightly isn’t perfect, but I think she’s a fine first attempt. I hope to make more of these story eggs before Easter comes. My kids haven’t seen this egg yet and I’d love to have two finished for their Easter baskets.

Since we had some smaller wooden eggs, too, I let the boys paint them.

What fun things are you doing to enjoy Easter?

     —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

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.