This morning, March 1, 2009, I looked at our calendar and noticed it said The First Day of Autumn. Our calendar is from New Zealand, so of course it is the first day of spring! We are so ready for spring!!!!! It gets very VERY cold here in Moldova. They have a great tradition here in Moldova, actually all of Eastern Europe, that includes a legend. The legend goes that the Spring Princess was tenderly nursing a small white flower and trying to keep it warm with her hands so it could nurture and grow. The mean winter princess was trying to hang on and stop the flowers from growing. She was trying to stop the spring princess and in the process cut the spring princess's hand. Blood ran from the spring princess's hand onto the little white flower and the warmth of the blood nourished the flower but turned some of the pedals red. Today, the tradition is to give to those you care about the hand made pins of white and red to commemorate the first day of spring. You will notice, above, that Wendy has three pins that were given to her today at Church. All of them have little red and white flowers, the larger one (given to her by yours truly) also has a blue and green flower. These pins are to be worn until you see the first flowers on the fruit trees. Then we will know that Spring has Sprung!

The other significant tradition here is that next Sunday commemorates women. Similar to Mothers Day, but it is a day that recognizes all women. We will be having celebrations to commemorate spring and women for the next two weeks.