Sunday, April 20, 2014

Granny's Pantry # 16 Easter at High Rock




Easter at High Rock was about dying and hunting Easter eggs. Thanks to Granny’s chickens, there were plenty of eggs to color. The process involved boiled eggs, hot water, dye pellets, vinegar, little cups, wire egg holders, plastic grass and Easter baskets. (There are likely still old Easter baskets hanging in the attic of the High Rock house.)








 
  

 





 

 


                                   
               





Traditional colors were good (as long as you didn’t dump all of the colors together), but Granny’s onion skin eggs were by far the most creative.       

Her experiments inspired me to dry some poke berries (pokeweed) one summer and save it for dying eggs the next spring. Surely the eggs would be the beautiful purple of the berries.     
(Do not try this...the outcome was no better than mixing all of the dyes together!)



Hiding eggs in Granny’s yard at High Rock was The Best—walking in the side yard still reminds me of looking for eggs hidden by The Aunts in the spring grass. When we can, we try to keep the tradition going wherever the family gathers.



 









 




















 















 








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I don’t remember having trouble separating the fun of egg hunting, chocolate bunnies, fuzzy yellow chicks and a new coloring book from what Easter means at the heart of the holiday (just as my parents let me enjoy both the coming of Santa and the coming of the Christ Child at Christmas). One was fantasy and fun…the other was the heart of who we were and are as Believers.         
I love the message of the real Easter told using a carton of colored plastic Easter eggs…Resurrection Eggs. Each egg, when opened, holds a small symbol of some part of the Easter story.  There are many versions…here’s one:


The Easter Story Using Resurrection Eggs  (by Jannah Walton)
 
The Tomb is Empty!

Jesus said …, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live  (John 11:25)