It seems as if we dyed Easter eggs every year that I can remember. Fortunately, on the farm, eggs were usually to be had in abundance. Mother would hard boil the eggs in her big aluminum kettle, and we would drop the little colored pills into a variety of cups, along with a little vinegar and water, count out the eggs, and then the fun would begin. I suppose we were not always in harmony in our activities, but I just remember the fun of it all. There were little transfers that you could put on the egg before coloring it, or use the little holder that came with the kit for dyeing eggs to dip one end in one color and the other end with another color. Then, when the eggs were all completed, we would have Easter egg hunts, where one person would hide the eggs, and the rest would hunt for them. We never needed a prize for the most eggs - it was just the fun of the whole thing. The picture of Judy and Ann, intently at work, is one of the few Easter-egg dyeing pictures that I have. You can see the old kettle at the edge of the picture. But the important thing is that Ann is patiently waiting her turn as Judy contemplates how to do the egg. Where was Steve? I do look at the old kitchen table, which had such a hard life. Mother was confronted with the question of the best finish to resist the depredations of eight people sitting down together to each meal. One time, she glued down vinyl place mats, and then varnished the whole thing so that we could wash the table easily.
