Celebrating Egg Day at the Village

04-11-17 |

Tales from the Village

In the springtime when the moon was high in the sky, the animals got ready for Egg Day. “First things first,” said Flora, “We can’t have Egg Day without eggs!” So Nicholas helped her fill the wagon with the animal’s best and shiniest work, and they trundled to the farm to trade with the chickens.

Hazel Village animals Nicholas Bear Cub and Flora Fox gather eggs in the wagon outside in front of a stone wall

Chickens love shiny things, you see, and they have more eggs than they know what to do with. Flora and Nicholas pushed the wagon back very carefully, their new eggs nestled in wood shavings.

Overhead look at Emma Rabbit Boiling the eggs in preparation for decorating

In the Lodge kitchen, Gracie boiled the eggs in a big pot of water. It took seven minutes. So she sang the Minute Song seven times.

The animals mixed up food coloring, water, and vinegar to make different dye vats for their eggs:

Catalina Mouse and Jeremy Owl are in front of 3 glasses full of water and food coloring so they can dye their hard-boiled eggs.

Blue, red, and yellow.

Juliette used a white crayon on her egg which is resting in a bunch of hay in a wagon.

They used waxy crayons to draw areas they wanted to stay natural-colored on their eggs.

Jeremy Owl is painting masking fluid onto his egg for the design. He is sitting in front of a wagon.

Jeremy had something he said was even better than crayons: watercolor masking fluid. He painted designs onto the eggs, and then let the masking fluid dry into a rubbery coating. The other animals weren’t so sure about this though, because the masking fluid smelled bad and they didn’t want to eat those eggs later. Jeremy said the masking fluid eggs could be for him. “That is questionable judgment,” said Lucy.

Jeremy Owl wanted you to know that the masking fluid might not be good to eat! His foot is shown next to the egg he is working on.

The animals dipped their eggs into different dye vats. Sometimes they dipped the eggs into more than one to make splendid murky colors.

Juliette Rabbit is seating with a glass full of blue dye. She is dyeing her egg blue!

Here are some of the eggs they made.

nice eggs decorated with teal crayon on a white ground

This egg has a hand-drawn portrait of Emma Rabbit made with crayon and graphite

When each animal had decorated an egg, Oliver Mouse said, “Other Animals, may I have your attention, please? We will now each pick a card to see who will be the Egg Roller. That friend gets to wear this sash.”

Oliver Mouse has a special gift for the animals. He is holding out his arms and draped on top of them is a hand-embroidered sash that says "Eggs" in cursive

Each animal picked a card.

The animals sit in a circle with all of their cards face down

Emma got the Egg Card! She was the Egg Roller!

Oliver told her what to do. “Emma, you must wake up very early tomorrow morning, which is Egg Day, and hide all the eggs. Then you must blow a whistle and the other animals will run outside and find all the eggs!!!! As I’m sure you are aware, whoever finds the most is the King or Queen of Eggs. They get a crown naturally. And then we will make the eggs into deviled eggs and have a feast!”