[caption id="attachment_815" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Hanging up my martenitsa!"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-815" title="CAE Tree + Martenitsa " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dsc06191.jpg?w=225" alt="Hanging up my martenitsa!" width="225" height="300" />[/caption]

Spring is here! Officially, I think.  Thank-you Baba Marta!

So everyone is shedding their martenitsas.  I feel bittersweet about this.  I love the tradition.  I think that it's the mix of giving and receiving the martenitsas that I like the most.  Oh and I love how cute each one is which is probably the reason I spent over 20 leva on them in March.

Anyhow now that it's spring and there's green in the trees and birds in the sky you've got to take off your martenitsas and hang them in trees or stow them under rocks.   I've been looking forward to this part of the tradition ever since my martenitsas started fraying and looking shabby--about two weeks ago.  That and I really wanted spring to finally come.  Baba Marta really threw us for a loop in March with snow a couple of different times mixed with bright sunny weather and grey cold days as well.

I know, I know. I chose a questionable tree to hang my martenitsa on. <!--more-->But I figured that if you're doing this in part for your luck it's better to keep your luck close to home and these are the trees that line a street close to my apartment.  And for the record they looked lots, lots better a few weeks ago before they had their untimely haircut.  Someone went a little bit overboard on the pruning of these trees, if you ask me.  So I left my martenitsa here.  Hopefully it will be good luck for me and the tree.  It looks like it's going to need it.

Then there's this photo.  Taken by a photographer who will remain nameless.  But I am sure as soon as you look at the

[caption id="attachment_816" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Misunderstanding of the Baba Marta custom"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-816" title="baba-marta" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/baba-marta.jpg?w=300" alt="Misunderstanding of the Baba Marta custom" width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

photo you'll know that a guy took this photo.  It was shared with me recently via Facebook.  The caption simply read: Misunderstanding of Baba Marta custom.  <em>No kidding.</em>

Here's the thing for everyone unfamiliar with the custom (not that you should be considering how much I've written about it): when you see a stork returning from the south or the first green on a tree you're supposed to hang or tie your martenitsa to a tree or tuck it under a rock.  And clearly what's happening in this photo is not that.

As a new convert to the Baba Marta/Martenitsa tradition I got really fired up about this photo (even more so when I learned it was the martenitsa I'd MADE for the photographer).  After I punched him and his buddies in the arm a few times, I was told that the bird was dead and lying on the ground when they found it.  They assured me over and over that is was no way shape or form living when they found it.  I can only say now: leave it to boys to see a dead bird on the groud and instead of walking around it think: hey, this will make a clever photo.