E is for Easter Eggs

This is a repost from April 2012.

Fond memories of the hay meadow come to mind when Easter rolls around.  I guess we probably had a different childhood than most people.  We grew up on a farm and things were very tight when you tried to raise a family of seven kids on a farmer’s income.  I’m not sure how my parents managed it at times.

But we had plenty of chickens and would color eggs before Easter.  Somehow, Daddy always managed to find some money to get a package of La Paz Easter egg dye every year.  We would mix the colors in cups or bowls and then “ooh” and “aah” as we moved the eggs around with a spoon until they were just the right color.  You can imagine the five of us girls crowded around a small kitchen counter to do this.  Our two brothers weren’t very interested in coloring eggs.

On Sunday morning, we would all pile into the old pink and white station wagon and our parents would drive us all down the road to the hay meadow to look for eggs.  At some point Daddy must have gone out to hide them in the clumps of hay.  He was always gone tending the crops so we probably thought nothing of him leaving the house.  He would get a couple packages of those candy eggs too to mix in with the bunch of chicken eggs we colored.  All of us kids would squeal with delight as we stumbled over each other to get out of the car and attack the hay meadow.  You have to understand that we never did much at all growing up so this was definitely an event.

That afternoon we would sit around and look at our treasures as we ate the stuff and “oohed” and “aahed” again at all the beautiful colors.  We rarely had any sweets either, so we gorged ourselves on those sweet eggs and practically got sick ever year, but it was worth it.  That stands out as a high point in our lives growing up.  We still talk about it today as adults.

I guess it’s a good thing harvest time for the hay wasn’t until after Easter.  It gave us kids something to look forward to every year. There was certainly no other place on the farm to hide Easter eggs.  That spot was perfect.