Day Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight: Wildflowers, Cinnamon Rolls, and Easter!

An overcast but not cold day on Saturday. A day of no work-work. I tucked my laptop away, put it in it's bag, and stowed it under the stairs. 

Taiya and William and I went for a walk down the creek, all the way to the bridge. They each loaded up their backpacks with "essentials" like stuffed animals, a blanket, snacks, water, and umbrellas in case it rained, and we headed off, Daisy on her leash. We found tadpoles along the creek, and interesting rocks, and good sticks, and squishy mud. When we got to the bridge they thought we needed to stop for a snack, so Taiya ate an orange and William had a few bites of apple before dropping it in the dirt. Daisy didn't understand all this standing still stuff, so I was wandering with her letting her sniff everything. On the way back to the house we went through the woods. We saw may apples, ferns, wild violets, fire pinks, wild comfrey, and lots of other flowers I don't know yet. It was a beautiful spring walk.

     

My afternoon was spent tending to my sourdough cinnamon roll dough. I mixed everything according to the instructions (and learned a new word: autolyse), then every hour pulled and stretched it. It wasn't rising in any noticeable way after two hours, so I put the dough on a seed starting mat, and that gave it a boost. In between each of these dough-stretches, I made a dinner of fried potatoes, chickpeas, and green peas. We ate on the porch, but it wasn't so pleasant. Daisy had found something dead to roll in (why do dogs do this??), and was stinking up the place.

Because I got a late start on the cinnamon roll project, I was up late in the night rolling the dough out and forming the cinnamon rolls. It was so peaceful. I cleaned the living room and decorated it for Easter, hanging streamers and some of the kids' recent paintings. Jeremy helped me fill the plastic eggs we saved from last year with jelly beans and Reese's eggs. I hid them all over the living room so it would be all be ready in the morning.

Bright and early, I got up and popped the beautifully risen rolls, which I'd left on the cold counter overnight, into the oven. It only took 18 minutes and my instant thermometer read 190 in the middle, just like the recipe said. I've never used a meat thermometer for bread, but I'm a convert. The rolls were lighter brown than I would have thought done, so I probably would have cooked them longer than necessary and dried them out. I then made the sickly sweet confectioner's sugar icing that the kids had insisted I include, and spread it on the warm rolls. Sourdough cinnamon roll mission accomplished.

 

I was downstairs reading when I heard Taiya loud-whisper, "William! William! It's Easter!!! Yesterday was Saturday, so today is EASTER!!!" He said a groggy, "Yayyyyy!" They ran downstairs and were so excited to finally see the candy awaiting them. They have been pestering me about Easter candy for days, Taiya even going so far as to discover a poorly-hidden bag of Lindt chocolates, climbing on the counter to get them while I was outside working, and demanding to have them for dessert. Jeremy was in charge of Easter candy purchasing, and only got the Lindt chocolates, jelly beans, and Reese's eggs. With the Lindt chocolates out of the picture, just two kinds of candy was disappointing to Taiya, and she actually shed a few tears Easter morning. I told her it was okay to be disappointed, but hopefully she could still have fun hunting eggs. That turned things around right away, remembering the hidden eggs. She and William climbed all over everything to find them. She was so sweet, helping him find eggs so it would be more fair. I also had found some fifty-cent pieces that I put in their baskets, so between that and the pile of eggs they found, they were quite giddy. And the cinnamon rolls! They said they were even better than the ones they get at school! (They better be... the ones they get at school are the cheap packaged ones).

  


After the hunt was over, Jeremy went and did chores and we played. The day was full of different games. It was a day I wished for some kind of counting device to keep track of how often they say the word "pretend." They will get into a game and say, "Okay, and pretend..." and then the other will agree, and respond, "Okay, and then pretend..." on and on. It's amazing, and also makes me glad they have each other, because anytime I've tried to keep up I just can't. Some games we played were: the Horsie game (I was the horse) and the Dead Fish game (I was the fisherwoman, I caught them and cooked them up, except then William wanted to be a baby whale, so then it turned into the Whale Talent Show game). We had more Lego time, and Jeremy and I tried to build William a mailbox, but it was difficult to decipher the size and type he wanted. He violently rejected two versions before I gave up, but Jeremy persevered and built a tiny working mailbox that suited William's exacting taste. We also played Candy and Tea Restaurant, where the candy was a dollar, but the tea was free. Taiya explained that it was in case there were any poor people who were thirsty, they could always have tea. Oh, my heart, she is so kind.

Daisy photobombed my allium photo. She
makes photography a little more challenging. 

The kids decided we needed to make some Easter decorations, so we covered some of the plastic eggs in tissue paper and hung them from strings in their room. Since this was a just-have-fun day, we watched an afternoon movie, the new live action Aladdin. It wasn't bad. I liked Will Smith as the Genie. After the movie, the sun was out. I went and sat in the sun for a bit, enjoying the warmth. Daisy came and sat on my lap. She was much less stinky now since William and I gave her a dunk in some leftover bath water. The alliums I planted around my sitting spot are emerging. The leaves are browning, and I don't know what that's about (maybe the soil's too wet? not enough nutrients?) but they're blooming! As I was sitting there, a small butterfly visited the four alliums that were opening up, and I felt such happiness that the flowers I planted last year were already doing their job of feeding the insects. That feels like success.

More rain was coming. Jeremy did afternoon chores as quickly as he could and made sure the baby chicks were all taken care of. I puttered, up-potting my parsley. William decided he needed a sail boat, so I made him a sailboat of newspaper, a stick, and a tissue paper sail. Then I threw dinner in the oven - chicken thighs and red cabbage on the same sheet pan. That and the last of the sourdough loaves and the maple walnut loaf made dinner. While that was roasting, the heavens broke loose and a rain and hail storm pummeled us. I had to rescue my delicate parsley plants that I'd left unprotected, and we just watched it all come down. Thankfully the hail was small, so we didn't have to worry about our cars or windows. I'm sure some plants were annoyed, but hopefully not badly damaged.

At dinner we were all exhausted. Celebrating is hard work. Eating too much sugar makes you feel gross. Taiya realized as we ate that we didn't color eggs! I had skipped the egg dying because I didn't want to make an extra run to the store for the eggs, and neither kid had mentioned it so I didn't think they cared. I told her we could get white eggs on our next grocery run and do it whenever we wanted, and she was fine with that.

After dinner, the kids watched some Scooby Doo episodes while I drank a cup of tea and read a book, ignoring the kitchen mess to get some down time. At story time, Taiya and I read chapter two of Anne of Green Gables, where Matthew picks up Anne at the train station. William and I read The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes. An unusual Easter was over. It was a happy day, and a good weekend.