Our Robin's Nest: Three Little Birdlings on our Windowsill

       This year, a robin kindly built her nest on a low outside windowsill.  First the nest appeared, all cleverly made with thin twigs and even some of our purple Easter grass that migrated from one of the girls' Easter baskets.  It seemed a long wait, but sometime in April (after peaking into the nest a thousand times!) I spied four gorgeously bold jade-colored eggs.  Magnificent. 

        Tragedy of some kind met one of the eggs because I found a partially broken and very empty egg in the grass below the nest. Then, on May Day, two little baby robins hatched from their eggs! Liliana and Vera Rose shrieked with delight when I held them up to see the fascinatingly bald, ugly/beautiful birds with their tiny necks, their huge closed eyes and their spindly wings as the birdlings peacefully slept. When the birds move, their heads bobble and collapse quickly. 

May 1st:  Day 1: two robins hatch from eggs and huddle next to the remaining egg.



May 1st:  Day 1 with two birds hatching.

       By Day 2, the remaining egg had hatched overnight and all three birds periodically stopped their rest to raise their heads and open their beaks to swallow the entire sky.  Tiny chirping sounds can now be heard, not even drowned out by the noise of the worried mother chirping at me from the nearby lilac bush.  These hatchlings are so tufty and grotesque yet so meticulously detailed and lovely.  I feel so privileged to watch them grow and so delighted to share such a wonder of Creation with Liliana and Vera Rose. 

May 2nd: Day 2 of life

 

Easter Eggs made with Onion Skin Dye & Flowers

Easter Eggs Wrapped in Flowers

and Cooked in Onion Skin Dye

Top left: Carnation wrapped; Top right: Fern; Bottom left: Baby's Breath; Bottom right: Daisy



Egg wrapped in Baby's Breath

       After wrapping cut flowers (carnation, daisy, baby's breath, and fern) around a raw egg (using quilting thread), I placed the wrapped eggs in a pan and covered them with the onions skin dye (the outside skin of two onions that had been boiled about 20 minutes) that I had previously used for dying eggs with leaves yesterday (click here for that post).  I then boiled them for at least forty minutes (and I'm surprised that my eggs didn't crack because they were only supposed to cook for twenty minutes but yes, I forgot about them!)  The result was much darker than the eggs from yesterday.  This is such fun!

 

 

Onion Skin Egg Dye with Leaf Patterns

Onion Skin Easter Egg Dye with Leaf Patterns

 

Center egg was dyed with onion skin dye.

 

       This week, while dying Easter eggs at my Mom's house, I decided to try a dye technique that I read about in one of Liliana's Easter books: Onion Skin Dye. Liliana helped me peel the skin off of two onions and place them in a saucepan. Then I added water and boiled it for a while. (The original directions called for boiling the eggs in the dye combo for 20 minutes but our eggs were happily already pre-boiled by Grandma before we arrived so I simply let the onion skins simmer for about 20 minutes with no eggs in it). 

       Since there were no live leafy plants anywhere in the snowy outdoors (at least that weren't frozen and crunchy!), I used some branches from my Mom's houseplants, wet them, wrapped them around the eggs, tied them to the egg with some string, then set them in the onion skin dye.  The eggs soaked for about 3-4 hours, then Liliana and I removed the leaves to find some fun textures.  Such a pretty hue, reminiscent of freshly-laid Barred rock chicken eggs and with such an interesting yet subtle texture because of the leaves. 
       This technique would be fun to use some year when we have a later Easter with some green plants outside so that the girls would have the fun of scavenging for leaves as part of the process.  This was so simple to do, that I'd love to try some other natural dyes while making Easter eggs!

Paper Egg Hunts

Paper Egg Hunts

       When I was little, one of my favorite activities was creating my very own Easter egg hunts, made with pencils, crayons, and paper.  I would draw an outdoor scene and add lots of little Easter eggs.  Next, I would use an additional piece of paper to draw extra bushes, flowers, and animals which I would then cut out and tape over the egg drawings so that the eggs were hidden until you lifted the flap of paper.  I usually made lots of flaps with no eggs under it, too.  I had such fun "searching" for the Easter eggs and letting my siblings use them, too.  This year, Liliana and I watercolored one, but she was super into using black watercolor at the moment we made it, so I mostly painted it.  Liliana is having such fun lifting the flaps and I look forward to when she'll be old enough to make her own.