I Like It When

I dye eggs.

Fringe tree before a storm.

I thought I’d tell you about some eggs I made Easter Sunday.

To be honest, I didn’t want to mess with Easter at all. It has always been a happy time in my family. My two kids really loved the baskets and the new dresses, the chocolates and the jelly beans, even when the Easter Bunny obviously shopped at a health food store.

Most of all the children liked egg hunts.

(I should say that one child was grown before the other arrived, so it was one child at a time enjoying these elaborate spring rituals.)

Have you seen recent egg hunts? Like a town hunt? Look at this photo advertising an annual hunt for a nearby town, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce.

That is not a Hunt. That is a Grab.

Those are not eggs, either. Those are plastic balls.

Hunts

At our house, whoever hid the eggs had to make a list of hiding places, because there was no way to remember where they all went. Forgetting didn’t matter, of course, because some wild crow would eat the lost eggs.

We made things easier by circumscribing a square within which the eggs could be hidden and found.

It was crazy fun. Eggs would be in trees, on fenceposts, behind rocks, under bushes, in woodpiles, in laundry hanging on the line, inside cabbage leaves in the garden, in flowers.

Those were real hunts.

More Than One

And the best part? When all the eggs were found, the child would go inside, hide his or her eyes, and the adult would hide all the eggs all over again.

We have hidden Easter eggs five times in one day, then awoken on Monday morning to the child wanting to find them again.

But both kids are grown. Raven and I are off sugar for the 500th time. Neither of us felt like baking a ham or hot cross buns.

This Year

However, I decided not to spend the entire day working, as my work-addiction solicits me to do. I decided to decorate eggs. Heaven knows we have plenty right now.

Let me say this: I decorated eggs for you. Yes, for you, reading this. With no children in the house and with no plans to spend Easter with friends, I decided to do it for you.

And a little bit for me.

I started with our multi-colored farm eggs, choosing the lightest ones.

Then I gathered a fistful of flowers and herbs.

Natural Dye

I went into the onion bin under the butcher block and pulled out all the onion skins I could find, and I put them in a pot of water to boil.

You’ve probably done this before.

Now I pressed vegetation close against each egg, then knotted an old stocking around the egg to hold the leaves and flowers in place. Sometimes I used a nontoxic glue stick to adhere the plant material to the eggs, so I could get the hosiery knotted tightly. Involving glue was not going to matter, eating-wise, since the glue boils away.

I hard-boiled the eggs in the onionskin broth. Here they are.

At 11 o’clock is a yarrow, a violet at 12:30, a wild azalea at 3:30 and 10. The nice leaf in the middle is from cranesbill. 5 pm is a lemon blossom with two bluets.

Present Easter

Life’s different now. I still am in love with it—all of it except the hard parts—but it’s very different than any other life I’ve ever lived. Things are quiet way out here in the country. Most days have no people in them. Last week a Carolina wren landed on me as I stood outside on the back deck in early morning. It figured out quickly that I was alive. Two days later I saw a little wren laying in bare dirt just off the deck. I thought it was dead because—and I’ve never seen this—it was resting its entire body on the ground. Even its head was laying against the dirt.

I called Raven to look. “A dust-bath,” he said.

“That bird’s not dust-bathing,” I said. “It’s laying in the dirt.”

When I stepped away to get my camera, to prove to you this really happened, the bird flew away.

Question

Because I’d like this to be a conversation, I want to ask you: What did you do for Easter? (I’ll try not to feel jealous if you made hot cross buns.)

Natural Calendar

The first hummingbird showed up. She’s sucking from the blooming coral honeysuckle and from tubes of red buckeye. The Grancy graybeard is in full bloom. The yard remains unmowed, and the spring ephemerals are peaking—sheep sorrel, toadflax, clovers. I helped two small turtles—one an alligator snapper with a 4-inch shell—across the road this week. I haven’t seen a snake yet. The chucks-wills-widows keep moving through. I’m sure one or two will stay, but so far they rest for a night and move on. Purple martins are here and building nests in the gourds. The stinging nettle is at its peak. The American holly by the front door, enemy of bare feet, is blooming. Actually it’s raining down tiny stars of blooms. The tree is alive with the buzzing of bees.

Grancy greybeard or fringe tree.

Farm Report

One morning this week Raven found a mother chicken with seven baby chicks. How these hens are able to hide their nests for 21 days is a mystery. In this case, the mother was under a table in the tractor bay. She left at least another seven eggs unhatched in the nest. They had pipped but, as far as we can tell, the already hatched chicks wandered away from the nest, and in order to protect them, the hen followed. She had to make a choice between protecting living chicks or hatching chicks. Because she wasn’t there to incubate, the unhatched chicks didn’t survive.

Raven picked the first mulberries yesterday. Pecans have leaf buds. I was supposed to get the last of the vegetable seeds planted on Sunday. Instead, we finished up our taxes and then I made some pretty eggs for you.

A front passed through this morning, with a line of storms and a number of emergency alerts from the weather radio. It dropped a wonderful hour of rain. I feel extremely grateful about this, because I’m hearing reports of drouth elsewhere.

My friend Mark Loyacano, who lives in Kansas, wrote to me:

The Kansas ‘Wetlands’ region is now very dry. A prolonged extreme drought has taken a serious toll on it. During 2023’s summer, "extraordinary drouth" conditions prevailed. While recently visiting Quivira Nat’l Wildlife Refuge, an ancient bird migratory stop, sadly, there were very few birds and Not. Much. Water. 

The Kangal pup is growing. Here he is this morning watching the storm roll in.

What I’m Reading

I just finished Fall Back Down When I Die by Joe Wilkins. It is killer, very beautifully written, and sad. Plus I ordered three books of Joe’s poetry, and that has been pleasing me as well. I feel as if I’m starting to become his friend, just from reading his work.

My friend Teri Sopp sent me a copy of Trish O’Kane’s Birding to Change the World, and I’ve just begun. I have my hopes.

I’ve been waking early, ready to get my work-hit. I make myself rest. So I slip quietly, so as not to wake Raven, up to a guest bedroom where I keep a copy of Mary Oliver’s Collected Poems. I’ve been reading them all again. AGAIN. I keep finding poems that seem absolutely new. By the way, does anybody know the inside scoop on her publishing? Mary Oliver was always published by Beacon, but her later and posthumous work is coming from Penguin.

Writing Prompt (if you like)

I like it when

(Thank my friend Betsy Harris for that wonderful prompt.)

#Radical Sustainability

Please feel free to share this image on your socials.

If you are looking for a place to order organic, shade-grown, small-farmer coffee, I recommend Cafe Campesino. Under “Specials” is a coupon for 20% off Guatemala Full City Roast through April.

Save the songbirds. Save the trees. Save yourself.

Calendar

April 10-11—Reinhardt University, Waleska, Georgia

April 12—Canopy Studio’s “Sense of Place” show, Athens, Georgia

April 15—3rd Annual Heritage Conservation Lecture, Missouri S&T, Rolla, MO

May 9—Ford Plantation, Richmond Hill, Georgia

May 16-19—Green Fire Symposium, sponsored by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, in Jacksonville, Florida. The big event Thursday evening is free and open to the public. Kendra Hamilton and Heidi C.M. Scott will be speaking as well.

June 4—Meet the Author event, Georgia Writers Museum, Eatonton, Georgia

Aug. 22—National Sea Grant Conference, Savannah, Georgia

Sept. 21—Slow Exposures Photography Exhibit, Zebulon, Georgia

Sept 22—Emory at Oxford Book Festival, Oxford, Georgia

Housekeeping

Last week I got a note from a reader and friend. She was a paying subscriber of this newsletter, and her subscription had auto-renewed. She subscribed a year ago, before the “Journey in Place” course started.

I didn’t realize that Substack auto-renewed.

My friend said that her financial situation has changed, and right now she can’t afford the $99/year that a subscription requires. She couldn’t find a way to reverse the charges from her side of Substack.

I went into the back door of my Substack newsletter and refunded her latest payment, which I was very happy to do. I want all of us to have what we need.

Therefore, heads up! If you wish to choose whether or not to continue with your yearly subscription, go into your settings and turn off auto-renew.

And thank you, thank you, thank you to all who pay me to do the work I love the most, which is write about nature and my hope for a better world.

To everybody, thank you for being here. And I’d be grateful if you felt like sharing this with a friend.