Easter and the Unfound Egg

Between the Easter dinner main course and the concluding and much appreciated multitude of desserts course, the older kids hide Easter eggs for the younger kids to find. This has always been the kids' idea, and the older ones spend a good deal of time secretly plotting the perfect in-plain-sight hiding places. At the end, they always solemnly swear that all the eggs have been found and accounted for.

A few years ago, in the dark and cold of winter, I found an old Easter egg down amongst the bath towels; a subsequent year I went to pour coffee into a mug and only to spot pinkish, quite well preserved, pink fossil egg bits lurking. A few days ago my eye fell on a spotted specimen, clearly not left over from this year's hunt, nestled on top of some texts in the computer room. Curiously, these forgotten eggs have never advertised themselves with the signature rotten egg smell, known to chemists as hydrogen sulfide. [In the department of miscellaneous information, hydrogen sulfide is more toxic than carbon monoxide, but it isn't the stealth killer that carbon monoxide is because of its stench.]

Meanwhile, I have left the spotted egg in place, to see if anyone else finds it and wants to put it in their Easter basket. Dover probably would be quite eager to lay claim to it, but it is on a top shelf, above his sniffing level.

Dandelions

Yesterday morning provided the first moments of spring perfection this year. After days of cold, raw, yet sunny weather that didn't invite one into the garden or to leave the yard without a sweatshirt, Monday dawned bright, and crisp, with daffodils at their peak and tulips just making their appearance. Dover and I walked out for our three-mile stroll around the fresh and renewed neighborhood byways just as the sun was coming up.

In addition to the usual spring pale yellows and pinks, the blues and the new greens, the dandelions in particular caught my eye that morning, each one more gorgeous than the previous; fearful that I would miss the most beautiful examples and displays of dandelions opening business for the day, I took dandelion picture after picture. Why these gorgeous, unassuming spring flowers are so resolutely dug out of yards totally escapes me.

By mid-afternoon, the temperature had climbed to 90, and this morning is chilly and breezy, but Dover and I will step out again to see what new sights (for me) and scents (for him) we will find. There is no holding back spring!

Easter!

Mollie's cake,

Sherry's flowers,

and a meal shared with 26 family and friends. 

Twenty-six people, fifty-two hands lugging tables 

and chairs and other eating necessities, 

and twenty-six contributions to the table. 

If one item went missing, it wouldn't be Easter dinner!

Dover, Cisco and Dottie dyed eggs.  

 Dover snatched one,

 but it was resnatched in the nick of time!