by Sarah Miley

STAFF WRITER

Easter is on Sunday, and while I may not have specific Easter memories -- aside from the traditional Easter books my parents give out as gifts instead of candy -- I do have memories of bunnies, which are one of the symbols of Easter.

There are several schools of thinking concerning the connection of bunnies and Easter. My favorite is that Easter comes around when spring is here, and rabbits are symbols of spring and fertility. Perhaps I favor this story because I know how fertile bunnies can be.

When I was younger, my family had bunnies. We started out with two, but that number quickly jumped to much more.

The person who gave us the rabbits promised the mom rabbit and son rabbit wouldn't mate. They couldn't have been more wrong.

We were overrun by rabbits and couldn't take it anymore. So all the rabbits and bunnies got taken to the zoo. And while I'd like to say they had a happy life there, eating carrots and hopping in the green grass to the delight of zoo patrons, in truth their lives were quite short. They became lion food.

This time of year also reminds me of other baby animals. Growing up, my house and yard was constantly filled with animals -- mostly because of several of my siblings' love for furry creatures -- many of which would be born in the spring.

In addition to the rabbits, my family had parakeets, snakes, red-tailed hawks, kestrels, pigeons, chickens, ducks and a dog -- just to name a few.

After several weeks of disappearing to nest, the mom ducks would emerge from hiding with a trail of six or seven ducklings scurrying behind.

While this may not seem strange for a rural area, in my suburban neighborhood of Bountiful it was strange. Luckily, the neighbors loved the animals and our house often had many visitors to the "suburban farm." Neighbors especially liked the ducks and didn't mind when they often wandered into their yards because they ate all the snails in their gardens. The ducks did become a problem, however, when they -- who were half-mallard, half-domestic and too big to fly -- would fall into neighbors' window wells, often scaring unsuspecting people opening up window blinds.

In elementary school, when other kids brought neat knickknacks they got on vacation or a special gift they had received, I remember carrying a cardboard box the few blocks to school and showing-and-telling a duck.

One of my favorite pets was a tame white chicken named Daffodil. She especially loved my mom and would often strut into the house -- as the back door was frequently open -- and follow my mom around for hours as she did chores in and out of the house.

But the most recent chicken, Rusty, was a pain. She would roost in a large pine tree in the backyard at night and would squawk when the raccoons would try and get at her.

My dad spent hours building a chicken coop to protect her at night, but once it started getting dark, she wouldn't let you catch her. Eventually we quit trying.

Although I don't have a pet now, I'm hoping to get one. I'll probably start with a cat or a dog, but who knows where that could lead.

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