Signs and Songs of Spring

1.  Tiptoe through the Tulips

Genuine Massachusetts Tulip

2.  It's A Great Day for the Irish

Genuine Connemara Leprechaun Scat

3.  Here Comes Peter Cottontail

Genuine Vermont Hay

Huh!  Whuh! Okay, that's what I get for shopping at Whole Foods.  Exposure to spit-take inducing products like this.

I don't know where to begin on this one.  I appreciate that Vermont agriculture needs all the help it can get, and they certainly have a flock of gnomes working overtime on developing artisanal salsas, jams, cookies, chocolates and cheeses.  But artisanal easter basket grass?  I was too shocked to check the price, but I'll bet it's more than a few jelly beans.

Yes, it's biodegradable, natural, compostable, fragrant and buying it will make you feel all warm and fuzzy, just like a bunny.  It's a teachable moment in a box if your kids are the kind who don't know that apples grow on trees.  You can explain that this is Timothy grass, it is cow fodder, and cow's give us milk, and when they can't do that anymore, they are slaughtered and ground up for dog food.

You can fill your cute grass nest with heirloom eggs and organic jelly beans for a tasteful if pallid alternative to the garishness of genuine plastic easter basket grass, technicolor jelly beans, and marshmallow eggs.  But don't save your straw for next year unless you want a teachable moment about mold, bugs, death and decay.

You might want to lay in some of that nice staticky purple plastic stuff after all.


 I like to include fun links for further reading, but I really cannot bring myself to link to an on-line tutorial on how you can make your own colorful plastic easter basket grass by shredding up plastic bags.  There is more than one of these tutorials out there.  Really, you have to go look for it for yourself.