A thing about Easter eggs by KimB

I remember the fun of making colored eggs. Mom would get all the paraphernalia out and would hard boil a dozen eggs. There was a wire egg holder and different glasses to hold the various colors. A mysterious wax colorless crayon was often employed to make interesting designs on the eggs. I remember the smell of vinegar too. I think it was used to activate the colors but it may have had another use .. like making deviled eggs at the same time.

My brother and I would crowd around Mom as she supervised the dunking and re-dunking of eggs. My brother was able to put the eggs in the wire dipper and dunk them himself but Mom did the dunking for me. She would dunk as I directed into each color, rotating the eggs so the colors overlapped.

I never associated the colored eggs with anything other than a mysterious milk chocolate bunny in a pretty carton showed up around the same time.

Sometimes we would go to the Museum of Science to watch the baby chicks hatch in their giant display incubator. It was always near the front lobby and was always a first stop whenever we went to that museum.

Other times we would have a picnic in the gardens there. We would find a shady spot and Mom would lay out a blanket on the grass and we would have a grand time eating the surprises she packed for us. When my brother got a bit older, he started playing musical instruments and he would bring a banjo or guitar to the park and we spent the warm spring afternoon singing folks songs. We had no problems singing the same song over and over until we got it "just right".

As I got older sometimes our picnic would be at Griffith Park. There were huge trees and the 3 of us would fan out to sketch them. We each had a sketch book and selection of pencils and off we would go, but not too far, to sketch the trees and limbs. While we were sketching Mom would get the briquette hibachi grill heating up. ¹

When the grill was hot, Mom would cook pancakes with warm syrup and scrambled eggs with toast on the grill. Then we would show off our drawings. Full of food we would all take a nap on the blankets she brought and spread out on the grass under the trees.

One of my friends is making colored eggs with her grandchildren. I remarked about all the different styles of colored eggs that mark this part of the year: Easter.

When I lived in Silicon Valley, friend would to bring me one of the special eggs from the Eastern Orthodox Church in San Francisco. She explained that no one really had time to make the intricate designs and so special decorated wrappers were placed around the egg instead.

There are the fabulous Fabergé eggs. ² 50 Imperial Easter Eggs were commissioned for the Tsar and his family of which 43 still exist. Another 15 sets of eggs were commissioned from Fabergé workshop. In all 65 eggs were created and 57 survive.


The Gatchina Palace Imperial Easter Egg ³

The Gatchina Palace Imperial Egg Opened ³

I remember making a papier-mâché Easter egg. It those ancient times, we had Art Class in school. I remember we all got a balloon and the teacher puffed all of them up for us. Then we layered news print strips dredged in a flour and water paste over the balloon. Once the paper wrapper had dried, the teacher popped the balloon, leaving an empty shell that resembled an egg. The remaining weeks were devoted to painting the interior and exterior of the shell. Lastly, we made colored grass by shredding colored paper and placed this inside the painted egg. I don't really remember what it was we put inside but I remember we put something inside on the colored grass and then the teacher sealed the opening with clear cellophane as a window.

Thinking of all the different ways egg shells get decorated, I checked in at my favorite deli and asked if they had the "decals" for the eggs. They explained they don't use decals but have pre-printed sleeves with various images that you separate and put over the egg. Then you immerse the egg in hot water. Modern meets Ancient.



Shrink Wrapped Easter Eggs⁴

References

1. The traditional Japanese hibachi is a heating device and not usually used for cooking. In English, however, "hibachi" often refers to small cooking grills typically made of aluminum or cast iron, with the latter generally being of a higher quality. Owing to their small size, hibachi grills are popular as a form of portable barbecue. They resemble traditional, Japanese, charcoal-heated cooking utensils called shichirin.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibachi
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shichirin
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazier
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briquette
   
   
2. The House of Fabergé made 65 easter eggs. 50 of these were Imperial Eggs created for the Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II. Virtually all were manufactured under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé between 1885 and 1917.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabergé egg
   
   
3. The Gatchina Palace egg is a jewelled, enameled Easter egg made under the supervision of the Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé in 1901, for Nicholas II of Russia. Nicholas II presented it to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, at Easter in 1901. The egg opens to reveal a surprise miniature gold replica of the palace at Gatchina.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatchina Palace (Fabergé egg)
   
   
4. Cut out one of the selections from the Easter Egg Decoration Sleeve. Slip this over the hard boiled egg. Dip in very hot water. The plastic sleeve will shrink wrap about the egg in a few seconds.

Project Updates

Knitting:
The afghan with a Saxon Braid is looking good. I have to pay close attention to each of the 24 stitch sequences of each of the 16 row repeats, but as I progress, its getting easier. I had to backtrack so many times due to errors, that now I just take a deep breath and concentrate on counting. I have everyone trained not to chat with me while I'm working on this blue afghan. Usually I can chat and gossip when knitting, but this project requires my full attention.

Gardening:
The Kentucky Wonder beans and cucumber plantlets are now big enough to start climbing the strings attached to the top of the wooden fence. The hibiscus plant called Confederate Rose is still in the planter pot from the garden center. We haven't decided just where to plant it. It will be a focal point with its showy flowers and we don't know if we want it in the front of the house so those passing on the street can enjoy seeing it, or if we want it in the back yard to admire while we sit poolside.

Current Reading:
I'm reading a copy of the 9th printing of ISBN 0-8165-0401-6 LC#73-101103 Recollection of a Warm Springs Apache. James Kaywaykla, a Warm Spring Apache, tells the history of the Mescalero Apaches during his childhood and the warpath years of 1800s to 1886 when they were shipped to Florida. The story is about the lives of the women and children and the great chiefs as they fought to keep their freedom from confines of reservations.

What DO Facebook and Google know?

[Editor's Post]

The HOT news of the moment is the "surprise!" discovery of what "private" corporations store about us. It's not "new news" its just that someone "woke up" and looked.

Such "looking" has been done in the past but has been swept away quickly. This time there is a bit of momentum and more people are "looking". It's a bit like discovering your Credit Score and checking in to make sure nothing is too horribly wrong.

The following 2 articles are pretty good and one has an excellent description of how to check what's out there. What is worth remembering is that this is just a portion of the data held by Facebook and Google. Similar data is held by every company you have ever dealt with on-line or who has a computerized interface. Corporations used to purge old information but these days, they rarely purge because even after you're dead, the data helps them target people around you and your surviving family and friends. This goes forever.

There is an aspect of the data that is "stagnant" and another that is "active". Letting "active data" become "stagnant" is about all you can hope for. The way to do this is:

• Remove unused or unnecessary stuff from your computer and phones
• Don't use or download stuff you don't need
• Drop all links to "cloud" storage or apps that "auto sync" to multiple devices
• Take a few hours to be bored and click on every option in your phone from Top to Bottom and verify the setting is what you want or are willing to tolerate. This exercise has to be repeated on every device and every time there is an update.
• Learn to turn on/off the DATA option on the phone/device
• Learn to turn on/off the WIFI option on the phone/device
• Clean out and delete old information

If you have a device that is already setup in good order with a reduced footprint, know that every time you use it it is logging data by the nano second. It isn't that you should not use such a device but rather that you be in control of the device and mindful of what is actually happening.

Beyond the settings, there is an enormous industry in the background that accumulates data from all sorts of other "public" or "permitted" or "open" systems. Anything that is Public Record is harvested. There is little or nothing you can do about these sources.

Control what you can.

Reveal what you want.

Protect those around you.

KimB Editor


References

1. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/28/beware-the-smart-toaster-18-tips-for-surviving-the-surveillance-age
2. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/28/all-the-data-facebook-google-has-on-you-privacy

Fine Time Art 57 by Marion 2018

Fine Time Art 57 by Marion 2018

Fine Time Art 56 by Marion 2018

Fine Time Art 56 by Marion 2018

Danny Boy

Danny Boy ¹

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summers gone, and all the flowers are dying
'tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summers in the meadow
Or when the valleys hushed and white with snow
'tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me

And I shall hear tho' soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me

References

1. "Danny Boy" is a ballad set to an ancient Irish melody. The words were written by English lawyer, songwriter and entertainer Frederic Edward Weatherly (1848-1929) in 1910 and usually set to the Irish tune of the "Londonderry Air".

Gardening update

I'm just amazed at how  quickly the Kentucky Bean seeds sprouted!  We just planted them 4 or 5 days ago.  We have a long row of beans sprouts at the bottom of the fence and soon the plants will start to climb the strings we've attached to the top of the fence railing. 

We have strings on the fence for cucumber seeds which have sprouted too.  I'm looking forward to picking fresh green beans and cucumbers while standing up- no stoop labor here!  The flower seeds have also sprouted and we've used blooming bed plants in the same planter circles so we have color long before summer gets here. 

I hope my son is able to get a Confederate Rose plant at the garden center.  It isn't a rose, but a type of Hibiscus with beautiful flowers that are white in the morning, pink at noon and red in the late evening, changing color all in one day.  The plant is from China and was brought to this country in the 1600's. 

We still have seed packets to plant.  I'll post updates on our gardening projects, but I think some packets may be put aside for 'another time'.....We are getting a good workout with all this labor.  we're not used to it.  Sooner or later, someone is going to say, "enough is enough!"

Fine Time Art 55 by Marion 2018

Fine Time Art 55 by Marion 2018

Gardens

There must be something in our genes that coax us to plant something when the winter days of ice and snow leave and March winds announce that Spring is on its way. Today my son went shopping for garden supplies. I suggested we try growing Kentucky Wonder Beans along a portion of the wooden fence that encloses the back yard. I had been successful in growing some many years ago when we lived in one of the student apartments in Stanford Village.

Our apartment was the only one that had a large, screened in porch. I strung string from the ground to the top of the porch and planted Kentucky Wonder Beans, which vine. It wasn't long before I could pick fresh green beans to cook for dinner. Not only did we have fresh garden produce, the vines shaded the porch so that we had another room when the weather was nice.

We have seed packets of cucumbers and flowers. If all the packets get planted, we will have a long row of sunflowers along the back yard fence and sprinklings of marigolds and other colorful flowers in the various planters in the patio.

At this point, all we are doing is looking at the pictures on the front of the seed packets. Perhaps our greedy imaginations of thriving colors will come to naught. Its a lot of hard work to accomplish what we have in mind and who knows---as some famous people have been heard to say, "We'll see".

I'll post updates.

Fine Time Art 54 by Marion 2018

Fine Time Art 54 by Marion 2018

a poem

A Foggy Morning


A cloud came down
and touched the earth,
surrounding all with a
misty shroud- a
foggy shield of vapors
hugged the ground.
Warming rays of
sun came piercing thru
to let the fleeting haze
reveal, a thousand
sparkling gems of
glistening dew.

Marion
March 2018



The Far Horizon

[Editor's Post]

Our first featured article reprint for February 2018, was originally published Tuesday, October 19, 2010. A wonderful story about living in the mountains above Redwood City, California.

You can re-read and enjoy this article again here:

At The Sky Ranch by Esther
[Editor's note: This story was written by Esther]
Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Our March 2018 reprint is a terrific story originally published May 31, 2005. It still rings with the warmth of family, love and laughter!

Telephone Chat with Elizabeth
[Editor's note: This story was written by MrsB]
Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Fine Time Art 53 by Marion 2018

Fine Time Art 53 by Marion 2018

Painting Rocks by KimB

Recently, a friend invited me to come "Paint Rocks" at her home. She explained it was a "new thing" her whole family had started to do and was a very popular past time.

She explained that you find a nice rock or cobble stone and paint it however you like, then you "hide" it for others to find. People put some sort of identifier on the rocks so the finder can post a message on line that a particular rock was found. The finder can keep the rock or re-hide it in the same spot or another location.

How could I possibly resist?

So I spent an enjoyable afternoon painting my rock and chatting with my friend and learned about painting rocks. It's easy but then not so easy.

First thing: You gotta pick a rock.

A rock is a rock is a rock. ¹

It sounds simple but you know when you are about to become a Leonardo, all of sudden the shape, size, texture and color of the rock becomes a Big Deal. My friend had a large selection of rocks to pick from that had already been washed and dried. I must of looked over a dozen before I selected "My Rock".

Next up: What are you going to paint.

What do you paint, when you paint on a wall? ²

You can paint anything you like on the rock but some rocks "hint" at an idea, sort of like the adage that the sculptor's marble block tells them what's inside, rocks can hint at images that would fit their configuration. My friend had a lot of samples of rocks her family had painted. Sunshine rays, geometric decorations, complex geometries, free form drawings and cartoon images created from transfer paper.

Then the hardest part: What colors.

What are the colors you use when you paint? ²

Like any work of art, the colors make a difference. My friend had about a hundred different colors and paint media to chose from. The basic paint is an acrylic poster type paint but there are painting marker-style pens for fine details and you can finish the job with an overlay of clear acrylic for a high-sheen look to your rock. She said they pick up a load of paints when the craft stores have sales and she had a dozen or more small brushes to select from.

Since the main object is for someone to find it, I selected some bright colors. It was surprising that some colors worked better than others and I had to re-do-over a few spots when my selected color turned out to be a dud on my particular rock.

The last item is: Paint the Rock.

I paint what I paint. ²

Magdalenian Horse
c. 15,000 BCE ⁵

While concentrating on my rock, I considered how "not new" this activity really is. Humans have been painting rocks for a very very long time. ³ One of the prime indicators of "human-ness" is art.

There are the major cave works like Lascaux and Pech Merle ⁴ in France where the wild life and spotted horses of prehistoric times are recorded. There are myriad images painted in caves, on cliffs and overhangs all over the world. There are carvings and etchings of great intricacies that are some humanity's earliest expressions of the universe.

There are portable artworks too, rocks etched and carved in great detail; their purpose is not known but they were carried far from the location of the rock's origin. Deer horns, bones, ivory and just about anything portable served the same purpose. ⁵

We've been creating and carting around a lot of stuff for a long time.


Bison Licking Insect Bite
c. 15,000 BCE ⁵




Mani Stone⁶

The Mani Stone ⁶ is an example of portable art. The stones are marked with a Buddhist mantra and placed in a variety of locations, generally locations of Buddhist significance but they can also be found along rivers and roadsides.


Perhaps many many years from now, some future person will come across our current expressions of universal connection. They will ponder the meanings of the designs and images. They will analyze all the colors and paint types and consider individual brush strokes under powerful microscopes. They will consider the origin of the rocks and maybe extract DNA captured during painting. They will wonder at the variety and styles and no doubt completely lose their way in ascribing some massive, theoretical meaning to each rock.

Then again, maybe they will be correct, because there is some ancestral need to say "I was here". A need that transcends our current status, arising from our collective humanity. A need to match the universe against our most enduring weapon: our imagination.

I left my completed masterpiece in the care of my friend.

...after all,
It's my wall . . . ²

It is just a rock with some paint on it....

But it's "My Rock".



Fire Pit painted rock
KimB 02/2018

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_is_a_rose_is_a_rose_is_a_rose
2. I Paint What I See by E.B. White
   First printed in The New Yorker of May 20, 1933.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._B._White
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_art
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stone_Age_art
   
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pech_Merle
5. Magdalenian Horse, c. 15,000 BCE
   Bison Licking Insect Bite c. 15,000 BCE
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_stone

Fine Time Art 52 by Marion 2018

Fine Time Art 52 by Marion 2018

Warming days and seed catalogs

Our days of freezing weather is over and today it was warm enough to sit by the pool and watch the breezes blow the pool toys around. One can get fixated on the toys escaping traps as they float on the current of circulating circles of water across the length of the pool. A breeze will often nudge a toy out of the lanes of water circles and cause a log jam, then eventually another breeze will blow it out of the trap into the water circles again.

While I ate lunch by the pool, spotty rain clouds began to out number the few spotty white clouds indicating our days of spring rains are due. This is the time of year I begin thinking of seed catalogs and imaging bountiful harvests of tomatoes and cucumbers. These imaginary harvests never develop into what I call bountiful. Considering the amount of labor and the cost of watering the plants, the effort is hardly worth it considering one can buy beautiful tomatoes grown in a professional greenhouse for pennies. I'll wait until after the rains to decide if its worth the effort.

update on knitting project

Things are not going smoothly. I researched stitch patterns and knitted swatches of the patterns I liked best. I spent days learning how to knit a Saxon Braid; after knitting a swatch without errors, I was ready to start the main body of the afghan. I had already knitted the border, so all I had to do was select the number of stitches for each pattern across the width of the afghan.

I placed the Saxon Braid in the middle of the width with special stitches on each side to show it off. The patterns on each side were complex requiring counting and concentration. Even though I used pencil and paper to keep track, I often lost count and had to start over. I had started over numerous times by the time I got to row 5.

My son could tell I was getting stressed and reminded me that I had planned on making a church, not a cathedral. When the cathedral crashed for the umpteenth time, I decided to change some of the patterns, choosing simpler, but traditional ones.

I'm too far into this knitting project to give up, but keep tuned It might even turn out to be an Aran afghan that I will be proud of.

Fine Time Art 51 by Marion 2018

Fine Time Art 51 by Marion 2018

A birthday

Today I'm celebrating my sister, Adeline's birthday by having a frosted cupcake. She is no longer with us, but I continue to celebrate the birthdays of family members even when they are no longer with us. Yesterday, when unpacking things that had been in storage, I found a swim suit I had forgotten about and remembered when Adeline and I went shopping for swim suits. We had been invited to spend a week in an apartment in Carmel, Calif. owned by my daughter and her husband, but they only used it on weekends, so Adeline and I had the apartment all to ourselves.

The apartment was only a few steps away from the ocean, but there was also a swimming pool and we anticipated doing a lot of swimming. We took long walks up and down the beach but I was the only one to use the pool, Adeline never went swimming although I coaxed and coaxed. She never used her suit. which was the prettiest. I had had to settle for a plain, ordinary one because it was the only one in the store that was my size.

We went to fancy restaurants, visited all the wonderful shops in Carmel and found a wonderful store for kitchen ware. We browsed there and even bought a couple of the cheaper items. Back in the apartment, we had tournaments of Spite and Malice and worked a jigsaw puzzle. The prize of the card tournament was something from the kitchen store. Unfortunately when we went to the store to buy the prize, the shop had closed and went out of business so the winner of the tournament went without a prize.

We finished the puzzle in time to leave it constructed for my daughter and her husband to see, but instead of leaving it on the table, we carefully moved it in one piece and put it on the floor in a corner of the living room. A few days later, my daughter wanted to know how we had been able to put it there.

There is a special place in my heard for memories of Adeline. She was truly a gift from the heavens when she joined out family. Happy Birthday, dear Sister.

Shift by KimB

Shift

Shift the day to the night
Shift the left to the right

Shift the up to the down
Shift the spin of the world-go-round

Shift the light to dark
Shift the fire from the spark

Shift the high to the low
Shift the path of the way to go

Shift the door to a bar
Shift the welcome from afar

Shift the young to old
Shift the wary to the bold

Shift the way the story's told
Shift the way to know what's sold

Shift the mind to find the place
Shift the body to match the state

Shift the race to match the pace
Shift the end of starter's gate

Shift time from the start
Shift until the last depart

KimB 01/2018