Easter Egg Books: Old, New, Borrowed, Blue {Book Hounds}

Lil reading Kiki easter egg book Our family doesn't celebrate the religious holiday but boy do we love Easter eggs, egg decorating and egg hunts. Lil and I like to prepare for holidays by reading legends and picture books. The four Easter books we found at our local library weave egg stories in a delightful way that would brighten any child's Easter basket.

The oldest Easter egg book we discovered this year was The Easter Rabbit's Parade by Lois Lenski. An Ohio writer who lived from 1893-1974, Lenski wrote lengthy, straight forward stories tied to a specific time and place. The Easter Rabbit's Parade tells of the farm animals kept by a young girl named Eliza. The livestock work together to make an Easter celebration for Eliza including eggs laid by Little Brown Hen and painted by Easter Rabbit and family.

Something new is the picture book Kiki. Author Christoph Schuler and illustrator Rahel Nicole Eisenring give life to a chick who is wise beyond her day-old age. Kiki observes that fighting hens are allowing thieves to steal their eggs. They will not stop arguing, so Kiki comes up with a clever solution to save and better the eggs.

For borrowed, Lil picked up Peter Rabbit's Happy Easter. I'm not sure how author Grace Maccarone and illustrator David McPhail got away with using the beloved character Peter Rabbit, but their book is charming. Peter characteristically makes a bad decision to steal eggs but ends up returning them, painted in bright and beautiful colors.

The odd blue-green cover of The Egg Tree caught my eye on the library shelf. A Caldecott Medal winner, Katherine Milhous' story sheds light on the Pennsylvania Dutch egg tree tradition illustrated with authentic drawing motifs and colors. A lengthy tale, The Egg Tree might inspire a new way to display decorated eggs at our house.

Do you have any favorite Easter egg books? Share in the comments!

PS. If you're searching for Easter gifts in Columbus this weekend, I have some suggestions on the City Folk's Farm Shop blog.

Easter Weekend Workout

We weren't in a gym, but Alex, Lil and I exercised our bodies this weekend!  We were outside almost all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  We're exhausted and exhilarated.  Here's what happened:

The deck was torn down.  Lucky for us, the builders were poor at concrete setting and posts came out fairly easily.  They also used subpar techniques for covering the crawl space and we got to replace wood on the sides of the house; not so lucky.

hounds in the kitchenAlex built new stairs.

hounds in the kitchen, raised bedI built a raised bed from some reclaimed deck wood.  And I took a crummy picture. The sun was setting and I was TIRED.

backyard chickens, farm fresh eggsOur hens gave us three eggs yesterday. It's fascinating to me that each breed has a different egg shape and color. From top to bottom, these eggs are from the Sussex, Australorp, and Orpington breeds.

hounds in the kitchen, free range kidsLil played in a post hole.  Why not?

Lil and the dogs hunted for Easter eggs this morning.

We planted one potato tower, two potato buckets, and one straw bale potato bed.  We have even more seed potatoes to plant in our rented plot.

I dug furrows and planted three asparagus crowns in the new raised bed.  I also tucked three crowns into the strawberry bed.  I'll write more about asparagus later because it's a fascinating plant.

We hiked, slowly and with many stops, around Highbanks Park today, studying wildflowers, birds, and the sound rocks make when thrown in streams.

hounds in the kitchenWe shared dinner with my parents and sisters, Alex's parents and brother, and two of my grandparents.  Lil was showered with more gifts including the bunny above, hand sewn by my grandmother.

Our faces are sun kissed and the floor inside is muddy.  Dirt and seeds have new homes as we have new stairs to walk upon.  It was a great weekend.  How was yours?