Monday 8 April 2013

Spring Equinox 2013

Spring Equinox celebrates the renewed life of the Earth that comes with the Spring. It is a solar festival, celebrated when the length of the day and the night are equal (this happens twice a year, at Spring and Autumn Equinox).

The spring equinox is a  time to mark the coming of Spring and the fertility of the land. By watching agricultural changes -- such as the ground becoming warmer, and the emergence of plants from the ground





Fun things to do with children, there are loads of fun things to do with eggs! we are lucky to have pet chickens! so we are abundant in the egg department. Eggs are symbolic at this time of year to celebrate the new beginnings of the greening of the earth!

Dyeing eggs are great fun to do with children (and adults!)

http://www.frontiercoop.com/learn/hs_naturaleggdyeing.php

We had great fun, we visited a community farm (lawrence weston community farm) that was running a free event in their woods dyeing free range eggs!
It was brilliant and we had a fab time......the fire was needed due to the freezing weather and falling snow (spring is trying,iam sure)




Turmeric eggs on the stove, carrot tops and spinach, beetroot and red onion skins.

And a huge basket of eggs! chicken,duck and quail.....

you can make patterns on the eggs with white crayons before dyeing or tying elastic bands around the eggs before dyeing.

This is what we did at home.......



we used amongst other things beetroot and turmeric.......

we then put our decorated eggs into a basket that little one decorated, we added gifts, which included a colouring page of the goddess ostara (easily found on google images,along with other ostara colouring pages). We put the basket outside for the goddess ostara and her hares.........

and look what the goddess changed them into by morning!


When the weather warms up , and seeds and shoots are protected by the frost!

A nice thing to do is plant some seeds, children are often fascinated by the seedlings growing.

Last year we planted some seeds in egg shells, these can be planted directly into the earth as the egg shells contain nutrients for the seeds.

 
Cooking
using anything that's in season or egg orientated! chocolate nests are always fun to do

http://www.ehow.com/how_2001078_eggs-toast-eggs-nest.html
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10484/easter-nests

Crafts
anything egg or spring orientated, spring pictures, paper daffodils, egg shaped garlands

http://www.momsandkids.co.uk/crepepaperdaffodil.tpl