Chicken Little.

When I was out walking this morning I thought of Chicken Little. You DO remember Chicken Little of “the sky is falling” fame?

While most people are immersed in their Easter weekend plans ... like donning their new duds, dreaming about tomorrow’s feast, or just devouring their candy, I was meandering along thinking of chickens.

When I was a youngster, I was not allowed to eat candy except on special occasions. Easter was designated as one of those special occasions. In anticipation of the big day, Mom would empty the contents of her old brown wicker sewing basket into a bag and stuff it away somewhere. Her sewing basket was repurposed to hold my Easter goodies. It didn’t look like your traditional Easter basket. No pretty pastel colors, festooned with a huge bow and wrapped in cellophane, but it was very festive nevertheless.

This was thanks to the chickens.

Mom always put chenille chickens all around the edge of the basket. They were cute and fuzzy, yellow-colored chicks with orange wire feet, that she slid in between the woven wicker to secure them to the rim of the basket. Inside the basket, nestled in the shiny green Easter grass, was a tall foil-wrapped bunny, some Laura Secord pastel chocolate suckers, plus the latest “Golden Books” with animal themes to read, re-read and treasure for many years to come.

I was dwelling on the past, reliving those Easter Sundays and chenille chickens lovingly fastened to a basket. They were sweet memories, much sweeter than those chocolate confections ever were.

But soon my mind got to wandering, just like I was wandering along the perimeter path in my favorite woodsy area. Only nothing fell onto my head, like the misfortune endured by Chicken Little as she walked through the woods in that famous folk tale.

You might recall Chicken Little was scared witless, believing the sky would fall, so soon she became the town crier to anyone she met along the way. There’s a morale to the story, and if you don’t remember it, you can find it here: https://www.worldstory.net/en/stories/chicken_little.html

There has been a lot of activity in our sky of late, and that’s not counting all the rain, the potential snowflakes that may be on the way, and wind that is gusting mightily outside right now.

It wasn’t enough that Michigan had that meteor streaking through the night sky, leaving behind meteorite particles back on January 16th; now we find that our part of the Mitten State (Detroit and Southeast Michigan) is likely the landing place for chunks of space debris from China’s Tiangong-1, an 8.5 ton space station that did not already burn up in space. Unlike the meteorites that were scooped up and prized, this is considered a hazmat situation and people are to stay 150 feet clear of the debris. Hmm. I hope it stays away during its final descent now set to occur late Sunday or early Monday.

Last night was the second full moon of the month, also known as a blue moon. Did you see it?

Ten years ago, our neighbor Marge saw a story about sending your name to orbit the moon. She registered my mom and me and printed out the certificates for us.

Recently I found those certificates which I had squirreled away for safekeeping. Coincidentally, a few days later, I heard that NASA is doing a similar project for the sun. You can submit your name to be placed on a microchip on the historic Parker Solar Probe mission, which will launch this Summer. I’ve already done mine a few weeks ago as you see below:

Anyone around the world can submit their name (before April 27th) to be part of this solar fun: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/08/us/fly-your-name-to-the-sun-trnd/index.html

That’s my virtual Easter gift to each of you since I can’t send you those marshmallow Peeps I know you all love so much.

Happy Easter!

[Images of vintage chenille chick and postcard from Pinterest]

You can catch up on my blog posts before I started blogging at Patch in August 2013 by going here: http://lindaschaubblog.net/