Easter traditions

It's Easter morning, a most special day at our house as it always reminds me of the resurrection and new life. While living out here in the country you see it all around you. Many of the birds in our yard have paired up, built their nests and laid their eggs. We've put out several bird houses for them and when I peeked inside, most of them had neat little nests. We've left some pieces of string out in the yard to assist the birds with building their nests. It's time for rebirth, awakening and new life.

I didn't have to dye my Easter eggs this year as our chickens lay colored eggs. We have arancanas, production red and a buff cochin. With this combination of hens we get pink, brown and green colored eggs. They're all very large, very fresh and very delicious.

Every family makes its own holiday traditions. There were seven kids in our family and at Easter we always had a contest for the most beautiful colored egg. Our mother was the judge and I knew that her favorite color was blue. So I colored several bright blue eggs each year and won a dollar as the prize. That's a lot of money when there are seven kids in the family. During the big Easter Sunday egg hunt we would search the whole yard so thoroughly that invariably one of us kids would find an old, forgotten egg from the previous year. Heck, you didn't have to dig for it; you could smell its rotten, stinky, putrid odor. P.U.!

We also had to search the house for our candy and toy-filled baskets - hidden lovingly by the bunny himself, after he'd eaten all the carrots we'd left out for him. Then we'd all get dressed up in our colorful new clothes and go to church. Going to church every Sunday was a part of our life. That was followed by a fun-filled day of feasting and playing together with our extended family of about 20 relatives. Oh, what happy days they were.

More family traditions: One of our special family traditions is making a memorial garden of trees that we've planted for loved ones who have died. Since we live so far away from their burial places, we frequently walk through our own memorial park right here in our yard and read the engraved nameplate that's attached to each special tree. We try to make the nameplate personal, such as "Dad, Inventor and Father of the Clan," "Mom, Poet and Mother of the Clan," "Richie, Remember his smile," "For Darling Phyllis," "Mikey, Our Littlest Angel" and "I told you I didn't feel good!"

We even have a pet cemetery with a little white cross for each pet. Our 14-year-old dog Ginger is buried under the big Juniper tree along with her favorite food - carrots. Then there's Quackers the duck, Sunshine Kitty Cat and Silver Shadow. This seems a lot more personal to us, and now living members of our families are even telling us just what kind of tree they would like to have and what to say on their nameplates. You can't get much more personal than that!

-- Linda Monohan can be reached at 782-5802.