Easter Eggs in Germany

My friend emailed me this great story of a man in Germany who decorates his tree with 10,000 painted eggs!

A feast for the Easter Bunny:
German couple decorate their garden tree with 10,000 painted eggs
Easter comes but once a year – but one couple have turned it into a lifetime's project.

German pensioners Volkerand Christa Kraft have decorated the tree in their back garden in Saalfeld for Easter for more than 40 years. The tree now drips with more than 9,800 colorful Easter eggs, painted with pastoral scenes and religious icons.

Volker Kraft adds to the 9,800 Easter eggs hanging from the tree in garden of the home he shares with his wife Christa. Each egg must be pain stakingly emptied of yolk and whites, to ensure it will not go bad, before they can be hand painted and hung out for all to see. The easiest way is to pierce two holes in each end of the egg with a hat-pin, then blow out the contents through a straw. The better equipped can use a syringe pushed through just one hole to extract the gooey gubbins. But be cautious when handling raw eggs - they may carry salmonella.

Don't tell the Easter Bunny! Heike Lutz, right, visits the Krafts' tree together with her son Anton Lutz. After their kids moved out of the house, it seemed the Easter Tree would finally catch a break, but grandsons arrived and the Krafts went back to decorating their giant tree. The number of Easter eggs hung by the tree‚ branches grew every year, and in 2010 it reached an incredible 9,500 eggs.