Crazy Crayon Easter Eggs

I was shopping for Easter for my four year old and looking through the usual selection of overpriced egg decorating kits. One particular one stood out to me as looking unusual and fun but I definitely didn't want to pay nearly $6 for what appeared to be a cheap plastic pencil sharpener and 4 crayons. The idea is to decorate eggs with crayon shavings while still hot, the principle being, the shavings melt and you have a fun, funky decorated egg.

So I went home and improvised my own methods. Using a Crayola crayon sharpener that came with a crayon tower I bought recently I used old and broken crayons that we have been saving over the last year or two for use in a crayon maker we have. Any crayons will work but ideally you can use scraps and save your whole crayons for coloring. I made up five different color combinations. I had a cardboard egg crate that came with my last purchase of eggs.

Here's the set up with our crayon shavings, cardboard egg crate, tongs for handling hot eggs, and trivet for hot pan. The eggs have to be hot when you start or the crayons won't melt. Boil the eggs by any method you prefer. Leave the eggs in the hot water and carry the pan to the table, preferably with a lid to keep the heat in. Using tongs remove 2-3 eggs at a time. I found that if you lay the eggs on their side you get better melting patterns (see pictures below). Sprinkle the tops of the eggs with crayon shavings.

As you can see, even fairly young children can join in on the fun. A little extra caution is required, since obviously there is a pot of hot water nearby and the eggs are still VERY hot! Once you have the desired melt pattern and crayon is at least minimally set (about 10 minutes), using tongs carefully dip the eggs into a bowl of ice water or under cold running water in the sink. You can leave the eggs in ice water to disperse remaining heat and then put them in an egg carton in the refrigerator.

Anyway, here's what a finished product looks like. The closeup is one I used metallic crayon shavings for. It gave a really interesting effect.

The backs of the eggs also come out pretty cool too!

Have fun and Happy Easter!

This Year's Garden: Off to a (shaky) Start

Today I went out in the garden for the first time this season. It is a late start. The weather is partially to blame but it is mostly me. I have been struggling with severe depression, worse than my usual and it has put a severe damper on my usual springtime activities. I haven't even gotten any seeds started in my greenhouse, an activity that usually would have been complete a month ago. It doesn't help that last years garden season was abysmal due to unusual heat and drought. I finally gave up on the garden around the beginning of August, no longer willing or able to water twice a day to keep plants barely alive in suffocating heat and dry conditions.

I got two small garden beds cleared of last year's plants. It was only about ten minutes of work but I still feel tired. Just a sign I need to get in better shape. Last night I drew a plan of what I would like to do in between a couple of garden beds. I have a small area for herbs in between two vegetable gardens. It is, at present, poorly laid out and a mess of weeds and plants such that I can't even weed without risking pulling up a desired plant. I recently started a Pinterest account and got a few ideas for this particular garden bed. What I drew up is an ideal plan, what will happen if I can accomplish everything I hope to do. My ideas are modifications and adaptations of things seen on Pinterest, so while not exactly original ideas they do have an original twist to them.

Tentative Garden Plan for Summer 2013

Forgive the drawing, I am not the best artist and when I couldn't find my colored pencils I finally resorted to using my son's crayons. The bed to the left is usually occupied by tomatoes, onions, peppers, and sometimes carrots. I didn't draw out a row plan because I don't have one for this year yet. The bed to the right is an established bed of asparagus. It started with one row of asparagus. I added a little more each year until now the bed is completely full of asparagus. This year should be the most productive yet and with a little luck we will have multiple meals of asparagus. In the middle is the aforementioned, current, mess. My plan is to put a concrete walk to the right hand side of the area. I have a TON of bamboo stakes that I bought on clearance for 10 cents a bag a few years ago. I am planning on cutting the stakes to length and pressing them into the top of the wet concrete, leaving them in the concrete to dry. I may put a sealant over the top when done, haven't decided that part yet. On the left hand side I am planning a mosaic of stones and the little glass pebbles you can get at most craft stores.The blank circular areas are where I will be putting my herbs. I will most likely put a pot in the ground for the mint to prevent its semi-invasive spread.

This is an idea representation of my plans. As usual it depends on many factors, ranging from my motivation level to available funding. I will post pictures here if and as the plan progresses. Wish me luck?

Adventures in blogging...begins

Why Wolf in the Garden? I have identified myself with wolves from as long as I can remember. When I first thought about starting a business I wanted to call it the Stone Wolf. It was named mostly after a poem I wrote in high school, Stone Fox. Why fox, instead of wolf? Because I had seen a statue of a fox in a garden and the thought tumbled around my mind, what does he do when no one is looking? It seemed a novel concept to me, this being around 1990 or so and the Toy Story movies still years away, so I wrote a poem about it. Maybe if my little meanderings of the mind catch on and anyone reads this I will post the poem. Years later the poem came back to me as I was struggling to find a name for a jewelry making business I was trying to launch. The business failed, the name stuck. I was the stone wolf. I suppose stone fit me at the time. I didn't want to open up to people and was scared to invest my emotions in anyone or anything. During my first marriage I spent a considerable amount of money and frustration in finding a sculptor who would make me a statue of a pair of wolves. The wolves never made it into my garden. The sculpture got damaged during shipping. The marriage was already damaged. By the time I got around to working with the sculptor to get a replacement shipped things had gone badly, mostly my fault and the dream of my perfect garden with its guardian wolves faded away.

Stone is something I am trying to leave behind. I eventually married again and have a four year old son. He needs me to open up and be emotionally available. Stone is not something I can afford anymore. The wolf in the garden now is me. I garden to chase away my doubts and fears about my failures in life, both real and imaginary. I garden to chase away the pain of so many dreams that I dashed on stone through a number of bad decisions and sometimes just bad luck. I wanted to be a botanist, traveling to faraway locales chasing a cure for cancer or something else similarly grand. Somewhere in my mind I figured that by nearly 40 I would have done something substantial with my life and I don't really feel I have. I'm currently in college, training to be a teacher. I hope to become a high school science teacher and hopefully with a little luck inspire some kids to love science and nature the way I do.

I remember a song my mother used to sing to me when I was very little, before things went badly in our lives. The song was the Circle Game and the lines that stand out to me now:

The child who dreamed, tomorrow now is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
(apologies for any errors, this is just how I remember it going)

I'm a lot older than 20 now but I like to think this is still true, that there can be new, better dreams to follow.