Here are just a few tidbits of info I’ve picked up as I’ve been around the houses.
By Day 3 all of the homes had all the stuff cleared out of them, the carpet ripped up and the sheet rock cut out or taken down. An insurance adjuster who had come to one of the homes said he had never seen anything like it. Usually he pulls up and people are sitting in their yard waiting for someone to come and do something about it and get the professionals to come and clean it up. He said, “you are definitely a special breed here.” Bahahaha….he has NO idea! =)
Another insurance adjuster that I believe looked at Ernie and LeAnn’s home said that if they had have paid professionals to come in and clean up what was done there, it would have cost them $50,000 just for the clean up. So if you don’t think these volunteers have made a difference, you’re wrong! But I think that more than saving money, they have lifted hearts and given hope! That right there is PRICELESS!
The Bostwick’s house has been officially condemned. These two pictures below are their house. They are directly behind the business complex and took a direct hit from the beginning.
Tires from the automotive store on the main road were found in Shelby Frei’s field down below the Anderson’s house. It’s also got an extra foot or two of dirt/mud. Kent and Shelby had just planted and put new piping in a few days before. Robbin is planning on taking a metal detector through the field. She figures there’s a bunch of buried treasure in there now. She’s probably right. As I was handing out ice and water to a guy in the Johnson’s yard, he uncovered a PEZ dispenser. And based on all the food I saw in Dunkley’s yard, there’s bound to be a few more good things buried in that field. Someone may just geocache that, huh?
Many of the homes with basements had them filled to the top of their stairs (basement ceiling). Here’s some pictures of the Westbrook’s basement. She is Ernie and LeAnn’s daughter. Double whammy in this family. (Thanks to Martsi Strong for these pictures.)
Ernie and LeAnn’s house does not have a basement. The water line on their main level was at 5 feet.
Day 3
Day 4– Looking better
LeAnn and Ernie also have a daughter who lives on Arrowhead Circle that got hit hard. So sad that they couldn’t even help each other because there were both buried in water and mud. Here’s her daughter’s house. She teaches preschool so a lot of her preschool families have been coming and helping clean and dry off school stuff.
It’s Swiss Days at the end of this month and all through Santa Clara are cute wooden cows. They are symbolic of all the cattle in Switzerland. Different families and businesses put their cows out for the whole month of September. The streets look so cute with all the cows lining them. This cow stands in the Lang’s yard. Lois made sure I took a picture of it because with all the water and all the damage, this cow did not move. I think it’s rather symbolic of the stubborn Dutchman’s. Sometimes, you just can’t get them to move on an idea– especially if it comes to parting with their money. ;o)
One last tidbit to support the cow theory…..As I drove past LeAnn and Ernie’s on Monday, things were almost all tidied up and here stood this:
Maybe these cows really are representative of our little town. Just a tad of comfort and normalacy among all the tragedy and discouragement. It almost says, “you can knock us down, but you can’t take us out.”
Ironically, my missionary son sent this quote in a letter to my mom this week:
“We cannot expect to learn endurance if we have developed the habit of quitting when things get difficult.” –Robert D. Hales
I think Santa Clara is winning the “endurance” prize. From pioneers to current day, enduring to the end seems to be what they do best.
On day 3, I ventured down to help out. At this point, I had mostly been taking pictures on my way to or home from work. Feeling guilty, I knew I needed to help out. I signed in at the City Office and headed down the road. I was stopped by Robbin Frei who said she could use some help. I jumped in her little electric cart and we were off on Laundry Duty.
For the last several days, Robbin had been picking up people’s muddy laundry, taking it to her house, power spraying the mud off, then having those who wanted to wash come and get the laundry, wash it, give it back to Robbin, and then she would deliver it back to the home owner. [There were many people who were power washing to get the bulk of the mud off and also a bunch of people actually washing the clothes. Robbin was mainly the pick up, drop off and delivery gal. Someone had to keep track of who’s laundry was who’s and she had a great system going.]
We were on a pick up and delivery cycle. We stopped at Tori’s house. Her house was still being cleaned out and there was a bunch of laundry in her driveway. Tori had recently moved into the home and most of the bags were clothes from her kids over the years that were in her garage and had not been gone through or unloaded yet. Some of the clothes were in bags and didn’t get muddy, but were stinky/musty smelling. A lot of them had mud on them, but had also been sitting wet for a few days. Not pretty. So we loaded up her clothes and headed to Robbin’s house. I was going to power wash them after we delivered the clean ones. We dropped off Tori’s stuff at Robbin’s, grabbed the clean items from her garage and took off for delivery because we had more clothes to get from Tori’s. (The little electric cars can only hold so much.)
As we were driving to drop off the clean clothes, Robbin told me about the laundry angels. As one who struggles to keep up with laundry, let alone get it all the whites to actually remain white, I figured ANYONE who was washing their clothes were laundry angels. I was absolutely correct. But I learned that there was a little more to the story.
Robbin told me that years ago Debi Frei told her that when she would add sleeves to prom dresses for young women so they would have a modest dress for the dance, she would say a little prayer before she began sewing so that the dress would be lovely and acceptable to the young woman. Debi happened to be one of the “laundry angels” that was taking all the muddy clothes and washing and folding them for others. Robbin had dropped off some of the Schmutz’s clothes to her, among which were her little boy’s white Sunday shirts. I don’t have a picture of their actual laundry, but here is a picture of the Schmutz’s backyard as people were unloading stuff out of their basement that was filled with mud. I remember looking at the pile of muddy stuff and seeing games, backpacks, sleeping bags– stuff I figured her kids used and that based on all the kids stuff I was seeing that her kids stayed downstairs. Looking at all that muddy stuff just nearly broke my heart.
I’m pretty sure that those white Sunday shirts and kids clothes were among this pile that came out of the downstairs. Robbin said that when she picked up the clothes from Debi, she was stunned. She said, as she began to tear up, that those white shirts looked like they had just come out of the JC Penney’s package. Their clothes looked as bright as if they were brand new. Robbin remembered Debi’s story of praying over prom dresses from years ago and asked Debi if she had said a prayer over this laundry. Her answer was, “yes.” Robbin tearfully said, “you have no idea…the laundry angels are REALLY helping us. You just can’t believe what is happening.”
Well, I could. There has been a tangible spirit as I have been driving through the valley. There is no despair, no anger, just a spirit of work, unity, kindness, and friendliness. But I had NO idea that laundry angels existed! I’ve needed them for YEARS!!
As we pulled in to drop off some clean laundry to the Grant’s, there were several angels in her front yard cleaning off items from her house. We told her we had her clean clothes and where could we put them. She said, “inside the front door.” As I traipsed across her muddy front lawn, I stood on the porch and opened the door. Her entry way had a crystal clean floor with a few clean items on it. I looked down at my feet and realized that I was NOT going to touch ANYTHING that was clean with my dirty feet. This woman deserved some CLEAN space. So I piled the laundry just inside the front door, blocking her stairway to upstairs. As I turned, she hugged me and thanked me. I had done NOTHING….felt a little dumb. She was SO grateful….and who wouldn’t be??!! I’m sure that knowing your kids have some clean clothes to wear to school meant so much when you were standing in mud trying to wash off every muddy item you were attempting to save or that have significance.
We left the Grant’s to drop off stuff to Sue Gubler. She also thanked us and said, “you have to come and see this! These clothes we are getting back are so CLEAN!” We went into Sue’s front living room where she showed us this:
The dresses on the far left, Sue told us, were some dresses her mother had made. They were treasured keepsakes. We were looking at these piles admiring how really clean they were and Sue said, “you don’t understand! These were COVERED in mud! RED MUD! It is a miracle!” Robbin and I were trying not to cry and Robbin said, “it’s the laundry angels!”
I had to run and grab my phone and take a picture because I realized that there were many miracles taking place. Miracles in the smallest things, like laundry. I knew it was important for me to document them because I knew there were a lot more miracles taking place. But I marveled at how the Lord had His hand in helping those who where trying to do something kind for others. He has taken what they are doing and expanding their abilities.
Robbin and I then grabbed another bunch of laundry from Tori’s and headed back to Robbin’s house. When we got there, Aubrey and Amber Ence were there taking the clothes to wash. The women of their ward had volunteered to do some laundry, too. They had their own powerwashers, so I ended up not having to powerwash, but they took a literal truck bed load of clothes to distribute for washing. And I knew a little secret. I knew the Laundry Angels on the other side would be assisting all the Laundry Angels on THIS side with their task.
*NOTE: If you have never experienced Southern Utah Red Dirt/Mud it is something that once it gets in, it never gets out. White socks are always a light shade of pink. It’s also been said that “when you get Dixie Red Sand between your toes, it never comes out.” Meaning, once you’ve lived here, the spirit always carries with you.
*Another NOTE: Home Depot donated every bottle of “Iron Out” which is a laundry product that supposedly gets the Red Dirt out. By all reports I’ve heard, it works great! The store is empty though. People have tried to go down and buy it. I think they have either donated or sold it all. Can’t wait to get my own bottle!! PLEASE support Home Depot! They have been SOO generous and giving!
And if you’re like me, now that you know Laundry Angels exist, you’ll be praying for their assistance, too!
There have been so many amazing stories during this flood. These are just some that I have experienced or heard told to me. I know there are MANY more. I hope I can collect a few of them. It is just amazing to see how people respond under the most difficult of circumstances. Here are some great stories:
When Your Basement Fills Up
The night the flood hit, I headed down to where my family was working. I was taking pictures all along the way. As I neared the Dunkley’s house, one of my friends said, “you need to go see inside.” So I walked in with their daughter-in-law. It was getting dark outside, kind of dusky. But in the house it was dark. The power was off because the ceiling of their basement had collapsed. Water had filled to the top of their stairs and soaked the drywall. The basement ceiling collapsed, pulling the wires out of the walls and ceiling, too. As I came in, Lisa was inside her kitchen doing the dishes. Someone came in with a spot light and headed downstairs to light the room in the basement so they could keep working. A candle was lit in the kitchen, giving off very little light.
Lisa said to me. “I know it seems crazy doing your dishes in the middle of a mess like this, but I am just overwhelmed and don’t know what to do, so I’m doing what I know how.” I found it interesting and profound somewhat. She was just calm and was doing what came instinctively when tragedy struck– Just clean something and do something. Then she said, “a reporter interviewed me today. He asked how I could be so calm. Well, what do you do? You can’t change anything. Crying won’t solve it. So we’re just going to calmly go about it. And besides, look at all these people that are here to help.”
As I went down the stairs, they were covered in mud and insulation. It was hard to even walk down them.
I peered into the basement and found insulation and what I assume was drywall underneath it in a pile.
They were trying to light up the room and take some 5 gallon buckets and begin scooping out the insulation and handing it out the window to someone. But because it was getting so dark, I think they may have waited until the next day to do it. At least I saw them dumping buckets of insulation into the dumpster the next day.
On Saturday, I stopped by the Dunkley’s delivering ice and water. It was a hot day and the wet mud made things even more humid. But the worst part was the smell. For some reason everywhere we went on Saturday, things were really smelly. I don’t know if it was manure from the fields or if the stuff buried in the mud was starting to mildew or decay, but it smelt like manure or something. And here were all these people in the yards working, shoveling dirt. Lisa was on the side of the yard, re-aligning the stepping stones between her yard and the Smith’s. She had a smile on her face, was grateful for cold ice, and more than that, kept saying how appreciative she was of all these people helping out. Two young girls had been shoveling and doing some hard labor. She gave them permission to stop that and asked them if they could just clean out around her bushes. She pointed to the pile they had cleaned out and how grateful she was for these girls. I was in awe. There was still a bunch of mud in her yard and it is going to take a while to get it all out. She said her house was all gutted and cleaned out and drying. A cheerful disposition among the muck. How I admire her!
The visit to the Dunkley’s house was powerful for me. I learned that when things go bad, we do what we can do instinctively as women….our dishes or our simple daily, motherly routines that can bring us some peace. I learned that LOTS of people in your neighborhood show up and some of them have a clue where to start and where to begin, which is nice for those of us so overwhelmed that we are frozen.
And I learned that the Dunkley’s are just strong, good people who handle adversity with a sense of humor and good old fashioned work. Lisa’s great-great grandfather was Andrew Gibbons. It just so happens that he was one of the first missionaries called to Santa Clara, and I am guessing could have been around when the first big flood came through here. He had a tough life. I’ve read his stories. He and his wife were amazing….and so is their great great granddaughter. She has been blessed with that same spirit. It shows in her face!
Sometimes, you just gotta do your dishes. Even if it doesn’t make sense. It brings peace to a weary soul.
Flooding is not new to Santa Clara. We’ve had them as a part of our history dating back to the first settlers. I’d like to give you a little perspective so you can see and understand the people, the spirit, the courage that exists here in this little town.
The first settlers to Santa Clara were missionaries that were called to teach the Native American people of this area. Jacob Hamblin and several other men were called and came here in 1854. They built a fort along the Santa Clara Creek where they stayed in.
In November 1861, Brigham Young called several Swiss families to settle in the valley of Santa Clara. They came with mostly nothing. They didn’t even have their own wagons. They were taken to one town. Then the people of that town would take them to the next, until they arrived in Santa Clara from Salt Lake City. They built dugouts in the sides of the hills so they would have somewhere to live. Sophie Staheli was 8 months pregnant and so the Staheli family was one of the only ones that got to live in the fort. On Christmas Day, Sophie delivered a baby girl they named Barbara. She was my great great grandmother.
Two weeks after her birth, the Santa Clara creek flooded. It washed out the corners of the fort. Sophie and baby Barbara were rescued from the flood waters before the fort went crashing into the torrent. This poor group of immigrants lost their fort and some food. In the middle of a cold wet winter, they stayed and carried on.
They planted crops the following spring. Yet it took years before they really had enough food to live on. Between the insects eating their crops and the lack of water, things were difficult in Santa Clara. They were starving. Several left because of the difficulty and lack of food. Some died because of the lack of food. Many a journal tells of the only food available to eat being “pigweed.”
But somehow, someway, those stubborn, hearty pioneers made it and turned this valley into a beautiful, fruitful and plentiful place.
I’ve grown up hearing those stories and wondered how in the world that little trickle of water in the creek bed could ever amount to anything that could take out a fort.
In 2005, I had my answer. With snow pack and rains pouring heavily on Pine Valley and here in Santa Clara, the waters came crashing through and we saw first hand exactly what the pioneers must have went through. I stood on the hill overlooking the old fort site with my Grandmother. She was 89 at the time. I felt as if I was touching history in both directions. She and I stood there and could finally understand what HER grandmother was in. It was a moment I’ll never forget. Over 27 homes were lost in that flood. I marveled then at the destruction and the resilience of the people in this valley– in Southern Utah. The stories were amazing.
Last year (2011), I wrote a song for Swiss Days as a tribute to my pioneer family that was in that first big flood and to those neighbors whose home I watched fall into the rushing waters. I marveled at their strength and faith.
As I sat here in the evening of 9/11/12 and pondered another moment in history, I remembered this song that I wrote last year. I’m posting it now as I think it is appropriate to share the message. The people of this valley are strong. They just go to work. No time to sit and mope. Things can only be fixed by getting up and doing. It’s one of the many reasons I love this little valley so much.
To all my friends and loved ones who have been hit by the latest destruction:
There is one thing I new as I watched those waters batter Dutchman’s market and head straight for the homes of the families that I knew: This would not defeat them! I knew they would roll up their sleeves and go to work. I knew hundreds would join them. I knew that with the mess and the discouragement and the sadness, there would be help, hope, and happiness. I knew there would be laughter amid the strife, humor amongst the piles of rubble.
I have not been disappointed. People have arrived. Help and Love have been shown. Tender mercies and joys among the mud and the muck. The spirit of Santa Clara is alive and well. The spirit of Southern Utah is overwhelming and powerful. There is no greater place to live than right here.
I watched history unfold again today. Yes, it’s 9/11, but this time, the history making is in my little town. The dike broke by the Middle School sending a torrent of water down through our town flooding over 30 homes and businesses. I just happened to get stopped and detoured just as the dike broke. I pulled off and took pictures and videos as I made my way to work. I was astounded and shocked at what I was seeing. And I knew right where this wall of water was headed…..straight to the homes of my dear friends and neighbors. Here is the footage of the flooding I shot today. These first few are of the Little league field and then looking south toward where the breach in the dike is.
I pulled around past the high school. Stopped at the Middle School to get pictures of the broken dike, but they wouldn’t let me through. So I went down to the library and walked down the hill and shot these videos:
This was the beginning of a complete disaster. Amazed at what the power of water can do.
I can’t write a post about coloring Easter Eggs without writing about the Easter Egg Bust. This is where it’s at people!! I mean, what else are you supposed to do with a dozen eggs (each)?!
Since most people outside of my little Santa Clara radius have never heard of an Egg Bust, here’s how it works.
On Easter Morning, we (meaning several families here in Santa Clara, most of which are related) meet on the corner by the church. You bring your eggs with you. (And your cameras). ;o)
You grab one of your eggs and go find anyone with an egg (which is usually everyone, so you just go walk up to someone to start busting with). One person holds their egg in their hand and tells the other person if the pointy end or the round end is up. The other person takes their egg, matching the same end, and taps on that person’s egg. One of the eggs will crack. Then you switch. The one who did the tapping, now holds their opposite end of the egg in their hand. The other person taps that end with their matching end. If you break both ends of the egg, you get to keep it. If each of you bust one end, then you tap unbroken ends until one has both ends broken and the winner gets to keep the egg.
Here’s the short video of how this works.
In some cases, you will have what is intelligently termed as a “one ender.” Some of the most fierce competitions come from people who have “one ender’s” dueling it out to see who wins. There have been some years when a “one ender” has won over 20 eggs.
Those people are accused of cheating in some way– feeding the chickens rocks (my cousins have chickens and use their eggs instead of store bought ones), putting shellac on them, boiling them extra long, etc. It’s all in good fun.
In the end, you still come home with a LOT of broken eggs. You will eat egg salad sandwiches, potato salad, and deviled eggs for a week or more.
Here’s a picture of my little cousin’s haul last year. Those shells on the lid are proof that he ate one of those cracked eggs for breakfast while at the bust. ;o)
And just a tip here, while the red root eggs are a pretty color, the onion shell eggs have good flavor. Read here if you missed the whole story about coloring Easter Eggs.
One of the best parts of the Easter Egg Bust is that kids of all ages can do this. As you could see in the video, my teenager was having as much fun as his younger cousin. The two year olds can bust with their grandmas and grandpas– and in some cases, the GREAT grandma’s and grandpa’s. (We are long life-d bunch here in Santa Clara. My Grandma will be 96 in May.) The video below is of my granddaughter, age 2 and her cousin, age 3. They’re brand new at this– my granddaughter’s first year of being able to do it– so it’s fun to see them learn and how cute they are with each other. The video is in two parts because we got stopped part way through the bust to put a shoe on. ;o)
I love watching all ages just having fun with each other. I also love that some distant cousins that you don’t see as often will show up. My kids get to meet distant relatives. But best of all, we keep a dying tradition alive.
Even some of these kids that serve missions for our church and are gone for two years, will boil eggs and teach their companions how to have an Egg Bust. It’s so much fun!
So if you’ve been wondering what to do with all those eggs you’ve colored, now you know how to have some fun with them!
Coloring Easter Eggs is one of our family’s favorite traditions and activities. According to my grandma, they have been coloring eggs this way in Santa Clara for as long as she remembers, so we assume the tradition came over from Switzerland with the pioneers.
It’s a pretty easy and fun way to color. You want to give yourself plenty of time to do it, though, so you can relax and have fun with it. Maybe it just takes a while for our family because we all want our own dozen eggs for the Egg Bust (Read about that here.)
So here we go……
The first thing you have to do is gather up all your brown onion shells. You can get these from the grocery stores if you don’t remember to save yours during the winter months. You also have to dig up some red root. Red root looks like an obnoxious weed that you’d dig up. They grow wild along the ditch banks here in Santa Clara, but since they got rid of our ditches and went to a city water source, we have to track them down in the fields. Here is what they look like:
And here are the roots
You can see how they are reddish in color. You have to take the roots and wash them really good with the hose to get all the dirt off. Then grandma usually takes a rock and smashes them a bit. I kind of twisted mine to break them apart. Then you put them in an old pan and put water in them. These pans we use are grandmas old pans that we have used for years. They are only used for eggs, so if you have an old pan you want to throw out, save it for Easter eggs. =) Here is the pan of red roots covered in water. You need to start them simmering for a while to bring the color out of the roots.
Here is the pan of onion shells. You’ll need to put quite a few in. Cover them with water, as well, and start them simmering to get the color out.
You can get your pots ready a day or more ahead of time if you’d like. Just keep them refrigerated after cooling. Or you can just simmer them while you are wrapping your eggs. We pass these pots around to the whole (extended) family. We all take turns using them and coloring our eggs on different days.
Because we color so many eggs, we have two pots of each going at the same time.
Now to color the eggs:
Before you start coloring eggs, you have to gather up your weeds, flowers, and leaves. We give all the kids a grocery bag and send them off in search of these items. Things that color nicely are peach tree leaves, dandelions, the dried shriveled up iris blooms, holly hock leaves, lilacs, carrot fern, etc. We just wander through up and down our street and pull a few leaves off any trees, bushes or plants we walk by. We try not to take too many if we are pulling them off neighbors property and we never take flowers from our neighbors. Weeds make some of the best designs, so if you find an open lot or such, getting weed leaves and tall grasses are good to color with as well.
Here’s our layout of weeds, leaves and flowers:
You can see that we decided to try some strawberry tops this year. They actually colored nicely. The foxtails leave a neat imprint and so do those snowball flowers off my uncle’s snowball bush. =) I like using the really big holly hock and ivy leaves. Then I can wrap a whole egg in them. They really color pretty.
With the leaves spread out, we put our eggs in a bowl of water. The reason we do this is because we found the leaves stick on them a little better if the eggs are wet.
The eggs will dry quickly, so you can just dip your leaves in the water to keep them sticking. As soon as you get all your leaves, weeds and/or flowers on your egg, you take your spool of thread and start wrapping. Here are a few tips. It helps if you have all different colors of thread to help keep track of your eggs somewhat. When you start to wrap, first tuck the thread under your thumb where you can hold it as you wrap your egg. You need to wrap the egg tight, but not so tight that you break the egg. You’ll get used to the tension amount as you keep doing it. The last trick is to just let your thread go and fall if you need to. You can gather it up off the ground when you finish your egg.
When wrapping your egg, you want to wrap your thread around the ends and edges of your leaves and petals so that it will leave the full imprint. If you don’t, the water seeps underneath them and you can’t see the outline. Here is a video where my family is wrapping their eggs. You will notice that once we get them wrapped, we just bite off the end of the string. Demonstrated beautifully by my hubby. =) The political discussion is a bonus. ;o)
Here are some pictures to show you more wrapping. Remember to use the black sharpie to put your initials on them, cuz if you don’t EVERYONE will claim the prettiest eggs as theirs. ;o) (Not that that has ever happened before at our house.)
Putting initials on.
Here’s a bunch of eggs wrapped and ready to boil. You can see the ones done with loose thread and only wrapped in one direction. Most likely, that thread will fall off during the cooking process and they will have a plain egg. These would be the younger kids’ eggs or my impatient boys who could care less how they look. Here’s some that are wrapped more correctly. You can see how the thread goes in all directions, laying the leaves and flowers down to get the pattern.
Now we’ll cook them. You’ll notice in the video how my sister is making a little hole in the pot to put the egg in. She will move around the pot, creating spots for the eggs. You may have to add water after a few batches to make sure the water is covering the eggs. If you do it in between batches and let it cook a little more, then you won’t weaken the color. Often we notice it as we are putting eggs in and add water. The dye will be a little lighter on those batches when we do that, but that is okay, too, because it gives you different shades of purple/pink and orange/brown.
Once all the eggs are in, you set your timer for 20-25 minutes. They need to simmer, not boil. If the water is boiling, it will crack the eggs, so you just want them to cook on a nice lower temperature. Make sure you set the timer so that your eggs boil all the way. If you don’t then you have runny eggs at the egg bust and that is not only gross, but embarrassing. (Not that we’ve ever done that before, either!) ;o)
When the eggs are all done, gently use a slotted spoon to lift them out.
Get a bowl of cold water and put next to your pan to put them in.
Then you will place the bowl of eggs in your sink. You will grab the loose threads in the water and gently pull on them as demonstrated in the video below. Have the garbage or a bag close, as you will throw away all the thread and cooked weeds into the garbage before dumping the water out.
You can see that you only put a few eggs in the bowl at a time or have plenty of water in there so they don’t hit the other eggs and crack.
At our house, we then take the empty cartons and write everybody’s name on them. When we get them unwrapped, we look at the initials and put them in that person’s carton. As I stated before, we like to each have a dozen eggs to use at the egg bust.
The last step is to shine the eggs. You can get a little square of cloth or some paper towel and rub it in some shortening. Then you rub the egg to make them shine. Here is the video below. And yes, I used real butter. Not the cheapest way to do things, but it was all we had and no one could run to the store because we were wrapping/cooking/unwrapping. It’s a process that we love!
I apologize for my lovely nail polish. Evidently a manicure was not in my plans. At the end of the video, I show you a few of the designs that the leaves have left. (And you get to hear some awesome discussion in the background of each video. I hope you enjoyed that, too.)
And there you have it! Beautifully colored Swiss Easter Eggs!
I will say that one year I wanted to experiment with other natural dyes. I tried purple cabbage, tumeric or saffron, and green onion stems. I remember one year, one family used pecan shells and got a really pretty brown color. What I found was that it the other dyes didn’t color as well as the red root and yellow onion shells. The green ones were either too light, or colored similar to the leaves, so it was harder to see imprints. The cabbage was not dark enough– too pale. The yellow was also different either too pale or blended again with the leaf colors, so it didn’t imprint well. If anyone has any other suggestions for natural dyes or what they like to use to color with, I’d love to hear about it!
I hope you all enjoy coloring some Easter Eggs in a different way this year!
