By Kari Svenneby
Lately I have felt that spring in the air. Yesterday it was 5°C or 41°F here in Toronto; a beautiful day with sunshine. It was also a perfect day to spend some time in our backyard. In the end of the winter on a warm day it is great to look and see if you have any buds on your trees. Living in a city, I do not have a big backyard, but I’m lucky to have a pussy willow tree in my backyard. We where happy to see there were buds on the branches as well on my birch tree. We picked some branches to force them to come to life.

We also made a fastelavensris  (tree branches with colored feathers) it is a Scandinavian version of Mardi Gras celebrated the Sunday before Fat Tuesday. Yes, I do know we are little bit late, but living in a foreign country I get a little mix up with Norwegians holidays so this year we celebrated fastelaven one week after the fact and baked some traditional sweet buns to go with it. Regardless of the reason, I think it is great reason to sprout some buds and celebrate that spring is just around the corner. It is the perfect way to get kids to start watching for the changing of the season.

Fastelavenris (Branches with feathers)
You need
Branches
Feathers
Pipe cleaners or steel wire

Head out and look for buds and pick a branch, traditionally it should be birch. Put different kinds of feathers on the branch; use pipe cleaners for young kids. If your child is older you can use florist wire for binding the feathers to the branch. Put the branches in water and watch it grow leaves.

For how to force pussy willows click here Pussy willows