Crocuses and Eggshells

After years of planting crocus corms in my back lawn every fall, I skipped planting a few hundred more last fall.

But the lawn blooms on! And on!

The first crocuses showed up quite early this year, around January 28, and by yesterday—a bright sunny day with highs in the 50s—they were in full flower.

I even put a reel on Instagram showing them.

I was persistent in planting more crocus corms every year, and I practiced great patience in waiting to see them each spring (winter).

Do you know what else I’ve been practicing?

Egg breaking.

You didn’t see that coming, did you? (Or you did because of the title of this post.)

I’m practicing breaking eggs as close to the top as I can so I can make some little Easter favors with the eggshells. I’m going to fill the best of them with potting soil, paint little faces on them, and then plant wheatgrass or annual ryegrass seeds to grow to be the hair on their heads.

I potted up some eggshells years ago in an ancient time when we didn’t have smartphones ready to take pictures of everything, but I do remember them and how fun they were to make and share. So I decided to make them again this year. I’ll have my smartphone at the ready too.

Because I’m planning this project several months before Easter, I am giving myself time to practice and improve my egg-breaking skills. You can see in the picture above the first egg I cracked open and the last one I cracked open. I’m getting better each time.

I’m also going to have time to sow seeds on a couple of practice eggs to see how long it will take for the seeds to sprout and be at their best. Then I can sow accordingly before Easter.

I want my egg people to have good hair days for Easter!

By Easter (April 9th), the crocuses will be just a memory and foliage, which I will let grow as long as I can before mowing it off. But there should be flowers of Glory-of-the-Snow, Chionodoxa, blooming in the lawn by then.

And the egg people will be in full glory too.

Disclaimer: No eggs are wasted in this project. I eat the actual eggs. Any eggshells that don’t make the cut will be put up on the compost pile, ground up for the birds to eat, or used as seedling containers. And after Easter, the egg people left over will be sent to live the rest of their lives in the compost pile.