[ transplog ]

A wild hair asserted itself on Good Friday: the unaccountable and sudden interest in dyeing eggs with natural dyes. Usually the joy of fussing with Paas tablets and the hexagonal copper egg sling is enough fun.

But the Interwebs revealed many possibilities for an earthy-toned rainbow: beets, turmeric, onion skins, spinach, blue berries, coffee, and more.

Natural dyes require less activity but also more time to leave their mark on the eggs. After boiling the eggs as normal, they bobbed gently in their respective dyes overnight. A more responsible egg master might have turned or rotated them: we did not. The onion skins produced a brilliant, marbleized tone that was the winner of this experiment.

And the overall result is indeed a lovely one, you might agree:

A plate of naturally dyed eggs, starting from the green egg at left: spinach/green bean, beet stalks, onion skin, and turmeric.

Seven eggs dyed naturally

After a night spent bobbing in boiled beet stalks with vinegar, each egg has a subtle but very pleasant toning.

Grandmothers know best: eggs dyed with onion skins proved the surprising power of an oft-discarded scrap.

Although the commercial holiday hawkers would argue otherwise, my festive spirit has arrived just in the nick of time. Who can drum up visions of sugarplums in early November, when the first crop of plastic snowflakes and silver garland appears on shelves? To each their own timetable for finding the festive spirit.

At last a festive spirit arrives at the homestead.

Apologies to the lovely egg, which becomes a (possibly unwilling) canvas every year in the spring. This year's effort involved incidents of chemistry gone awry as well as drying eggs rolling far far away. Soot and clear nailpolish make for valuable decorative aides. The result: a hodge-podge of otherwise good eggs, tricked out in some version of Easter finery.

A group portrait with bounced flash and white boards.

Egg trio reflected in a vase.

Egg trio appears in another group portrait

Next this tarted-up group of eggs meets the mixing bowl. Egg salad, here we come!

And it passed, thusly:

Candlelight reading for the hour of the Earth.

If the Earth gets one hour from us humans, let it be a good hour. (I forgot until 8:38 local and so atoned an extra bit with my candlelit reading assignment.)

I also view this hour as Stick-It-to-My-Treacherous-Local-Utility hour.