It has long been a tradition
in the pastures that border the village
of Elderberry Hedge to celebrate May Day!!
The field mice take it quite seriously!
Well, as serious as a group of silly field mice can ever be!
They get together in March and begin to make plans...
Throughout April they gather supplies,
and finally the BIG day arrives - May 1st!
After all their hard work and preparation the mice were thrilled
to awake to a day that was sunny and bright!
The sky was a perfect blue and seemed to stretch on forever...
A few flossy clouds drifted by during the day - adding charm to the celebration!
May Day for the field mice includes:
1) Flowers - everywhere!
2) Fun - had by all!
3) Food - a plenty!
and
4) a May Queen!
Can you guess who the field mice chose as their May Queen this year?
Ellie, one of their most favourite friends in all of Elderberry Hedge Pastures
was unanimously selected as this years May Queen!!
Let me tell you, those dear mice worked almost non-stop for several days
collecting enough flowers to make a "crown" suitable for their May Queen!!
Ellie was SO honoured to be May Queen
and to spend the day watching all the festivities!!
AJ was also an honoured guest, sharing with Ellie in the enjoyment of the day.
She was thrilled to find that the mice had remembered that her favourite colour is pink
when they made her a lovely and bright flower wreath for her head!
The mice had thought of every nice thing in their planning!
They had a parade complete with banners, flowers, and music...
They had a wonderful BIG cake that had to be carried in
on a huge platter by six of the biggest, strongest mice...
And they had a Maypole!
A Maypole complete with flowers, colourful ribbons, and exuberant mice
who pranced around and around, crisscrossing at just the right moments,
so that when they were done they had covered the pole with beautiful woven colour!!
Someone else was joining in on the fun - did you see?
a shaggy, golden Shetland Pony named Kimbly!!
Oh, the mice had so much fun adding floral garlands to Kimbly's mane
and dotting her long, flowing tail with pretty posies!
Kimbly even gave some of the more adventurous spectators
a "bird's eye view" of the festivities!
Fun was had by all! Much cake was munched on and the flowers were collected.
All of the flowers will be delivered to Newt's stationery shoppe in Elderberry Hedge,
so that Newt can add the colourful petals to her paper pulp and create beautiful notecards!
Ellie, AJ, Kimbly, and all the field mice hope you had a lovely May Day as well!!
♥ Cath-
P.S. My original painting was too large to scan completely into the computer and the above photograph of it does not show much detail... here is the most complete scan I could do:
"May Day in Elderberry Hedge Pastures"
(Watercolour and gouache, approx. 10" x 14")
