Once upon a time, a few weeks ago, I had a thought and ordered tiny Easter baskets for our pet finches. This will be their first Easter with us—and definitely the first Easter for the babies we welcomed to the nest in September. Little Easter baskets seemed like one way to make this year’s holiday a little extra special.
You never know how big something will really be when you order it online, but when these dollhouse-sized baskets arrived, I was thrilled. They are just right for our petite birds.
The baskets make me smile. They’re adorable and delightful and also a little ridiculous.
The finches will not care at all about them. They might be mildly interested when the baskets are holding seeds or kernels of corn, but they are very conservative creatures, and they do not want anything different in their cages.
Regardless, I am excited, and these baskets are bringing me joy that you might think would be hard to experience prior to Easter Sunday.
You would be wrong.
“Wouldn’t it be fun if they laid an egg in the basket?” my younger son said as we admired our new delivery.
We talked about how wonderful that would be.
Then the next day, I found an egg in the female finches’ food dish. We knew it wasn’t fertilized since the boys are separate from the girls right now. So, I scooped it up, boiled it, and set it in the fridge. I figured we could decorate the tiny little egg and put it in the basket.
How long do you boil a finch egg? I didn’t even Google it. We certainly won’t eat it. I just wanted to make the shell stronger since these precious eggs are so very fragile. I went with 10 minutes. I’ll let you know how that works.
Then the next day, we found another egg.
And the next day, another.
We now have three little boiled eggs, sitting in our refrigerator, just waiting to be decorated.
Will we dye them? Paint them? Sketch a tiny finch on one? Write the smallest little “Alleluia” you could imagine?
The possibilities are too marvelous. Eggspectations are high.
And every time I open the refrigerator door and see the eggs, I smile.
I tried to introduce the finches to the baskets briefly, and they were quizzical. But I’m still enjoying this little extra sweetness of the season.
As we take these last few steps along our Lenten journey, I hope you’re finding something that makes your heart sing with a little of the extraordinary joy we’ll encounter on Easter Sunday.
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