a warm and busy spring

The children dyed eggs yesterday in celebration of spring equinox. They made a lovely phoenix egg in oranges and reds, as well as a dragon egg all speckled green. I didn't take any pictures because we ran right out to different places afterwards. I took the Hero to T-ball while the Scientist went to work on cycles at Albany Bike Rescue, an all-volunteer organization where folks trade hours learning/doing bike repair in order to earn their own fixer-upper bikes. On the way back I dropped the Hero off at Food Not Bombs where he helped make wonderful vegan food, then all four of us met there to eat.

While I was there I spoke with a teacher at the Albany Free School, a native of Spain, about running a Spanish class for homeschoolers, just a drop-in kind of thing, once a week. It looks like that's a go! Very exciting!

Since it was super warm and we had eggs to sacrifice to the goddess, after dinner we rode our bicycles to the Hudson River. There's a weekly "spin jam" down there, where folks come out with their hula hoops, drums, unicycles, and most excitingly, fire, throwing it and spinning it, practicing with flaming Chinese rope dart and poi. We saw a man repeatedly breathing fire.

It was fun to toss our eggs into the Hudson, reflecting on the ancient practice of leaving sacrifices in bodies of water. The goddess must have appreciated it, because this morning the children all found pastel baskets stuffed full of jelly beans and chocolate bunnies. The Scientist also got a pulley in his and was on the back porch rigging it up before seven o'clock this morning. The Storyteller got a harmonica and is trying to figure out a song he knows. The Hero found a cross stitch kit and is by my side saying, "now here? then under?" for each step. Everyone had Lego grass plates instead of plastic grass. Those I am sure will see much use.

The boys have book club this afternoon, and had Dungeons & Dragons on Monday. This whole past month has been full of events: Dungeons & Dragons, Irish step dancing classes, Family Dance, a Lego challenge, donating things to the state museum and being interviewed by a historian there, and the kids have starting working at our health food cooperative, too, sorting produce side-by-side with the grown-ups. I've hardly taken a single photo. We've been too busy living life to document it. The next month will be just as busy, I think. But for today, jelly beans.