Now if you've noticed I don't usually do holiday specific posts or videos much. I'm really out of that game. But I decided to do an easter related one, just because I love bunnies.
And since I haven't mastered the holiday themed posts I decided to tell you guys a story from my childhood. One of the reasons being that I haven't really celebrated Easter as a big thing for years and years now. For me it's more like a flash back to childhood. :)
I can't tell you how accurate I'm going to be with the facts but I'm going to tell you the story the way I remember it!
I yearn to have a bunny rabbit as a pet and occasionally drop subtle hints of my bunny love here and there. So the next story will probably explain where my love started for these fluffy little ones.
So the picture above is actually photo of me on my 5th birthday!
PS! The man holding the rabbit is my dad and the girl in the background is Agnes (one of my best friends and the one who you might have seen in my videos because I lived with her in London).
Let me set you a scene:
Every year pretty much since birth little girl Carol had the biggest birthday party of the year. Partly because she was born at the high point of summer, the sweet sweet and warm time in the end on July. And partly because it was thrown at the country side at her granny's place.
The place was capital B Beautiful and the land for kids to run around was huge. There were flower bed all around the property and just green everywhere. There were many activities to do. We ate a lot of food that my mom cooked with help from many including smoked fish by my uncles. Granny was keen on growing all sorts of fruit and berries. And even though grapes, and watermelons, and plums and apples, and cherries and pears weren't ready yet, we could eat strawberries and raspberries and gooseberries and sun flower seeds and kid's absolute favourite peas in pods fresh off the bushes.
There was a row boat in the river which ran around the property. And did I mention, on the river there was a small island that granny let us claim as ours and build treehouse on?! :D
Right next to the secret drive in (you drive over a bridge to get to the property but the bridge is hidden away by trees and bushes) theres neighbour's cow pasture, where we loved to secretly go and play around the cattle.
We would have this basic eating and chill out place for adults right next to the main house and a bit away from that area, you could relax and chat on hammocks hidden in the shadows of pear and apple trees.
Not only was the sun up high and just so warm every year, it would also for many many years be the exact time when one of the cats had kittens. So we would play with the dogs and kitties and have the Best Day!
Side note:
- Here I have to mention that I didn't really have many friends growing up and I would rarely invite
someone to the party myself. (It only happened few times and it was just one person at once) But it
would be the time that ALL of my family would come together. From my mom's side and dad's. We
would have all my cousins and aunts and uncles and everyones entire family. We would even have
all of the family friends or my mom and dad best friend with families over.
And this also might be the reason why I was really close with most my cousins and grew up with
them. And why I treasure family above all! But therefor didn't really have friends outside of the
family. (Just to keep count for now I have 3 siblings and from dad's side 6 cousins and from mom's
side 8 cousins)
Now that I've painted you a VERY LONG but still vague picture of my annual birthday party let me get into the story:
It was my 5th birthday party when I was asked to open one of my presents which was a big cardboard box with air holes.
Side note:
- I considered animals as my biggest passion when growing up! I would read about them and watch
documentaries on them. I would have even considered becoming a vet if only I didn't have a phobia
of blood and sharp objects close to skin and cut ins. I would try to save every lizard, bird,
mouse, hedgehog or a bug that was injured in anyway (often because of our cats and dogs). I'm not
going to get more into it but I've mostly been a lone wolf my entire life and animals where the
greatest friend I could ask for.
Now when I saw that box I knew there was a very special creature in it. Someone who I'm going to love with all of my heart. However I still remember it so clearly how my 1st though was that it's a TURTLE! xD
Don't even ask me why because I have no idea.
But it turned out to be my first rabbit, who I named Bug Bunny after my favourite cartoon character. <3
Even though 5-years-old I was perfectly capable of taking care of the animal. Even though I didn't get to see him daily because I lived in the city and he stayed at my grandmother's. Probably for other reasons too but manly because he wasn't a house bunny, he was down right rabbit who lived in the shed.
Regardless of that I would always cuddle him, cause he loved it, and I take him inside with me to watch TV on the couch. :3
After my 6th birthday he grew a tumour on his back and ''was sent away to a rabbit farm where I couldn't visit him but apparently it was a perfect place to heal him and he was happy'' or so I was told as kid. I got a ''replacement'' rabbit. I named him Potsataja.
On my 6th birthday, me and my cousin, who has a birthday close to mine, we got two female rabbits.
I can't give you the time frame, only because as a kid, time seemed and felt different to me as it actually was. So what happened next was between short period of time, I would think...
Imagine a male rabbit and a female rabbit living in the same cage for a while...do you know what's the after math?
I'll tell you! I didn't take long until we had around 50 rabbits! True story.
When we had new-born babies, sometimes the mother wouldn't feed the babies and so we had to help them out so they would survive. This was one of my favourite things besides feeding them hay straws though the cage's little wholes: gramma would take the mother on her lap and calm her down by stroking her and I would take the babies one by one out of the nest and but them on their mother's belly so they could feed. :)
I'm not going to get too much into what happened to the rest of the rabbits but in the end we had 4 of them left. Potsataja, the 2 female rabbits who were birthday presents and my favourite and the only black offspring bunny who we had. My favourite because he was the only one who survived from the very first litter. He was named Jänks. ;)
Ironically enough on my 7th or 8th birthday party kids forgot to close the shed door ,where the bunnies lived, and they all run away. :/
That was the end of our rabbit era!!
But because I don't want to end this little childhood flashback story on a sad note I'm going to tell you about the second time we had a bunny.
Well technically it was my younger brother's cony. He was jealous of me having hamsters as pets while he didn't have any of his own. So he got a bunny who he necklace soon after and so I was the one pretty much from the start who took taker of the bunny and loved this cuddly little one.
The funny story about her is...it took as about a year to realise that she was actually a he. :P
I hope you enjoyed my storytelling and have a fun Easter!
xoxo
- Carol
