And now you know the rest of the tail: Easter Chocolate & Stuff...
Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 11:22:27 PM PDT
I'm posting this as the fluffy bunny tale end of the diary I posted several hours ago but didn't have room for to include all I wanted so cut short. Please consider this a complementary companion diary to my earlier one:
Uncage the Chocolate Easter Bunny: Modern Child Slavery
by CSI Bentonville
Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 02:27:04 PM EDT
Bonus is that it's a non-can-did-ate diary to occupy those with insomnia overnight. :)
The Green Guide has a Color Me Organic article about dying eggs naturally. Turns out not only are the commercial dyes artificial and chemical but riddled with petroleum too.
Pink/red: Pomegranate juice, red onion skins, beets or the juice from pickled beets, pickled red cabbage juice, chopped rhubarb stalks, cranberries or cranberry juice, raspberries, red grape juice
Orange: Yellow onion skins, paprika
Dark orange: Chili powder
Yellow: Orange or lemon peels, carrot tops or shredded carrots, celery seed, ground cumin, ground turmeric
Green: Spinach
Greenish yellow: Yellow Delicious apple peels
Blue: Red cabbage, canned blueberries or blueberry juice, blackberries, purple grape juice
Lavender: Small quantity of purple grape juice, violet blossoms plus two teaspoons of lemon juice, small quantity of red onion skins
Brown/tan: Dill seeds, black walnut shells, strong or instant coffee, tea
And about those eggs... well, likely if you'll be dying you'll want white ones. Thing is, the industrial chicken goes through a literal hell with near constant artificial light (to keep her from dropping off in production during the winter) and forced molts which get her tossed in a dark space with no food or water until she drops her feathers because this forces her to lay bigger eggs more often but also makes her very susceptible to salmonella. All so there will be a mass of eggs available for the holiday and you can bet to be able to have so many available there's been quite a stockpile so they're not the freshest (however for boiling one doesn't really want the freshest as they are hard to peel). Farm fresh (our very own kossok farmerchuck sells in the NE, No Snivilin Farms) or even better backyard chickens are one way to assure the chickens are treated well and therefore the eggs are good for you and your children. Bonus if you can find eggs from an Easter Egg chicken as they come pre-dyed.
Mad Madam Mim, the Feather Eater. An Ameraucauna hen. Owned and photographed by Jes Dennett
However, here is a guide to industrial eggs to help understand a bit about their labelling though if you go to the link understand that the picture they have of battery hens in cages appears to be one of the better operations and not one of those that has 5 to 7 girls in each tiny wire box (but I'm not going to include a pic here of some of the more common operations as they are just so sad).
Miscellaneous Nifty!
Egg Cups
Eiko is the solution for the perfect breakfast egg.
With Eiko you can cook your egg, time it, cool it and serve it to the table.
Simply hang the Eiko over the edge of the pan of boiling water.
Individual cooking times can be separated and remembered using the different colours.
Then the eiko is simply removed from the pan using the external handle, held under cold water and brought to the table to eat, where it functions as an egg cup!
Egg and hands remain unscathed!
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BUNNIES
E Magazine is asking us not to buy live bunnies (and I would add chicks here) for the holiday unless you understand fully what you are getting into:
COMMENTARY: Choose Chocolate, Not Fur: A Rabbit Reality Check
Giving chocolate bunnies is great—giving real ones is usually not
By Marie Mead & Nancy LaRoche
As Easter approaches, hearts and minds naturally turn toward springtime and all that it entails. During this enchanting season, many of us feel the impulse to give colorful Easter baskets brimming with surprises for children. Too often, one such “surprise” is a velvet-eared, live baby bunny, adorably nestled among green plastic grass and pastel chocolate eggs. While it is often tempting to give those cuddly little creatures as pets at Easter, Marie Mead cautions that people must educate themselves about the nature and needs of rabbits before taking the bunny plunge.
Bunnies bought as Easter gifts are often abandoned, mistreated or handed to a shelter within the first year.
“Rabbits are very misunderstood animals,” says Marie Mead, creator of celebratingrabbits.com and author of the upcoming book Rabbits: Gentle Hearts, Valiant Spirits—Inspirational Stories of Rescue, Triumph, and Joy (Nova Maris Press, Spring 2007, $18.95). “They are extremely sensitive, intuitive, and gentle creatures who require extensive attention and mature guardianship—something many people don’t realize when they purchase a baby bunny. It’s a very sad fact that most rabbits don’t even enjoy a year of happiness with their new caretakers. Instead of living out their normal lifespan¬¬––eight to 12 years––they often die within the first year of life.
“Many rabbits are injured or become ill due to improper handling and care and, as a result, either die painful deaths or are euthanized,” says Mead. “Discarded bunnies overrun the animal shelters after Easter, resulting in many rabbits being euthanized due to space constraints and other factors.
“Equally discouraging, some people who decide their rabbits require too much attention simply abandon them in the wild,” Mead continues. “This means certain death for domesticated rabbits as they don’t have the skills necessary to survive on their own. Many other rabbits are relegated to cramped outdoor hutches, where they languish alone and forgotten, their eyes losing all signs of joy and life.”
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The rest of the article goes into what to expect and how to prepare better if you do choose to get one.
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WHERE TO BUY SOME OF THIS STUFF
One of our kossok peers has a nice site Kate's Caring Gifts selling many of these organic and fair trade chocolates (and many other thoughtful items).
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Co-op America has lots of great pages to explore with one of them being 12 ways to shop Fair Trade
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Global Exchange has several Easter treats to choose from including the Easter Basket shown above, an Easter Action Trio, and a bundle of bunnies that zip up into a plush carrot (they really are rather cute especially for stuff and it has a story; handmade toy line designed by a Thai artisan named Kung).
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Speaking of Stuff. I'm at the point in my life where I can see the value of those things that don't need dusting including those things that don't need the hassle of replacing and all that entails. Gifts of food, meals, services, memberships, etc., are thoughtful and useful as well as often delightful. Devilstower did a diary a short time ago about Annie Leonard and her terrific site, The Story of Stuff. Well worth the 20 minutes or so to view the video though there is much else there to explore for those on dial-up (the video doesn't load automatically as YT or Google does).
Here's the 2:37 introduction from YouTube which seems to have the entire piece in... well, pieces:
Hope everyone has a happy, hoppy, low-stress holiday. :)
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