Easter Stake

The basket started out as a nest.

The Easter rabbit came over with German settlers in the 1700s and put down roots in Pennsylvania. In the old country he was the Osterhase — a hare, not a rabbit — and the arrangement was this: children built him a nest. Caps and bonnets turned upside down, tucked into the barn or a quiet corner of the garden, so that if they had been good he would come in the night and lay colored eggs in it.

The nest became a basket somewhere along the way. Same idea. Same hoping.

Both are on this branch — the hare sitting up, the basket with its bow, and an egg beside them cut through with hearts.

The eggs themselves came from a practical place. In the old fasting rules eggs were off the table through Lent, and hens kept laying regardless. By the end of forty days a household had more eggs than it knew what to do with, and they went to the table on Easter morning, boiled and colored. Thrift first, tradition after.

And the day moves. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox, which slides it anywhere from the twenty-second of March to the twenty-fifth of April. It is one of the last holidays we still let the moon decide.

Hang it out when the crocus comes up and leave it a while.

Set it where the low sun gets behind it — the tree at the front walk, the porch post, over the door.

Specifications