Question: According to folklore, you can stand a raw egg on its end on the equinox.
Is this true?
Answer: One spring, a few minutes before the vernal equinox, several (Farmer's)Almanac editors tried this trick. For a full workday, 17 out of 24 eggs stood standing. Three days later, we tried this trick again and found similar results. Perhaps 3 days after the equinox was still too near. Try this yourself and let us know what happens!
Today Spring arrived. Snow arrived as well but it was a Spring snowfall.. Surprisingly, on this peaceful island, the quiet was broken by a new sound, chainsaws. I wasn't happy to hear them.
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| started the morning with the sound of chainsaws |
The tree that was a focal point in yesterday's painting is now gone. It was a coincidence to choose that tree of all of the ones around here to paint. I did choose it because it had been marked for destruction with the big orange dot,
but I didn't think it'd be the next day.
We worked in the studio all morning into the mid afternoon completing drawing number 2, which made all of us very happy. Right after we were done we tacked up the paper for our last drawing. It is a mere 7'9'' x 4'. The last one was a generous 18' x 4, our largest work yet. Our aim is to finish number 3 before we are off-island on Friday.
I still have to post pictures of the residence here but that too will come. Tomorrow will be jam-packed.
But today as I searched the net to find the exact arrival time of Spring I came across the Spring Equinox egg folklore thing and decided today was the day to try it. Every year I want to try it but this was the right place to do it finally
I grabbed my egg carton and headed out with my artists friends. Soon I was relieved of the egg carton cause I had a day of dropping things, and losing things, and misplacing things.
I wasn't to be trusted with the eggs.
I planned to finally get on the pier and see if my raw eggs did indeed stand upright, but with the wind, and the snow, and the waves, I didn't get on the pier again. (Two more days to try to do that.) I also thought the wind could prevent the egg from standing up so the experiment had a strike against it already in that location.
Walking away I found a railing and in my enthusiasm to see if the egg would stand up, I put it on a flat surface too high up and it fell. And cracked. They were right. I wasn't to be trusted. I was encouraged to find a flat surface close to the ground.
There was some marble slab nearby (yeah, artists are around here for sure). When I tried to stand the egg up, it tipped over. Hmmm.
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| witness the egg on its side during the equinox |
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| cracked egg fell over |
So I tried another surface, wondering if this marble was level. I didn't have a level so maybe that was the problem.
And then this happened. It stood up. But look at that textured surface. Talk about support for an egg.
I tried another egg and this is what happened
One down, one up. My cracked egg was down. So.... we tried a few more surfaces.
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| wonky shaped egg not upright |
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| egg on its side on flat piece of metal |
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For me the folk tale of an egg standing upright on the vernal equinox did not hold true.
However, the cracked egg did go on to be a noble egg,
sacrificed in the name of science.
Tomorrow Artscape Residents are invited to attend the Island's Spring Bonfire where they hang their Xmas trees upside down and burn them. Earlier this week I saw artists creating other big things to burn, like creature shapes.
I cannot wait to go.
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| note trees hanging from the trees |
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But until tomorrow night we have one more day to be focused and productive before we pack up.
