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Soft Memories...Another Rabbit Story

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It’s hard to believe how much my life has changed in the many years since we last lived in the country. Sitting here at my computer, I reminiscence fondly about those years in our rambling farmhouse. Its main heat source was a wood burning stove and of course air-conditioning was not even thought of, by us anyhow. We had three bedrooms upstairs, to split between six kids. But it was an age of innocence, wrapped securely in the warmth of family, cushioned against the world’s worries. Winter or summer, there were rabbits to keep us busy. We raised purebred rabbit and we raised lots of them. Some we sold to other rabbit breeders, some we used for 4-H projects and the rest we butchered and ate. We raised several different breeds. Californians are white with grey ears, tails, nose and feet. New Zealand Whites are white and New Zealand Reds are red of course. Checkered Giants and Dutch are two different varieties of bi-colored rabbits, coming mostly in black and white and both with very precise markings. Chinchillas have blue, gray and black shadings so that they were one color on top and another when you ruffled the fur to the skin. Each of us kids was in charge of a different breed. At one point we had over 100 rabbits that needed feeding and watering every day. They could certainly eat and drink a lot. We bought the rabbits’ feed in 50-pound bags of pellets at the local co-op. The water we hauled up from the creek in the summer. I remember having to duck under the electric fence and then there was a fairly steep drop-off down to the creek. In the winter, we had to tote each and every water bowl up to the house every morning before school and usually every afternoon. The bowls were heavy: rough ceramic; and when it was cold the water would freeze in them. I can still recall the sight of them floating in our bathtub, with the opaque circles of ice drifting loose. As soon as enough were cleared of ice: back down to the pens they would go. Spring was always fun, it brought baby rabbits. Each doe would give birth to four to seven rabbits in a dark nest box lined with sweet smelling hay and soft, silky rabbit fur. By county fair time they would be lean, lanky and feisty, a big change from when they were trusting little bundles of fluff. Each one of our rabbits was tattooed in the ear with an I.D. number. That was a really fascinating experience. The rabbits were not at all interested in having the skin inside their ears pricked and dye rubbed into the skin to make the numbers show up. When I was eight, my family moved into town and we sold almost all our rabbits. I still remember their melting brown eyes and twitching noses. But I remember the hard work and the cold mornings too.