When my siblings and I were growing up on the ranch at Morapos, we spent a lot of hours reading, sometimes the women’s magazines that our Grandma Osborn gave us when she finished reading them — Grandma subscribed to a lot of magazines.

Around Easter these magazines featured a lot of colorful photos of kids dressed in Easter attire as they hunted eggs hidden in tall grass and blooming daffodils and tulips. White bunnies with pink ears peeked out from hiding places.

We kids couldn’t imagine what such scenes would be like because rarely was there even a little bare ground at the ranch on Easter, depending on the March or April date. Certainly there were never any blooming spring flowers.

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To get an idea of Easter weather conditions, just look outdoors, because it was usually a lot like now, although more spring-like in Craig. Anyway, when Easter grew near, we kids kept our fingers crossed that a lot of snow would melt by then.

The few times we did get to hunt Easter eggs outdoors were memorable, indeed, because in addition to a big yard, there was a big grove of chokecherry, serviceberry and oak bushes out behind the house, with great big rocks hidden among them. While hunting eggs, we often found our Easter baskets setting on top of the rocks.

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The day before Easter arrived. Imagine this typical day. There were a few bare spots in the yard. We kept hope that we might be able to hunt a few eggs outside and tried to ignore the clouds that were building. We got the dyes ready to color eggs. Mom had saved up at least seven dozen eggs, and they had been boiled and were cooling.

We colored the eggs, writing family names on some of them with the wax crayon included in the dye kit. When the eggs were dry, we put decals on them, also in the kit, using a damp cloth. Finally, we put the eggs in bowls and left them on the table for the Easter bunny to find the next morning. We were hopeful because it wasn’t snowing — yet.

However, it did snow during the night. Mom woke us with the news the next morning. She said, “It did snow, but get up anyway. It’s Easter.” We wondered: “Did the bunny find our eggs?”

As soon as we put on our shoes, we knew the answer. There were eggs in the shoes. Boy, did we get excited. We hurried downstairs and noticed eggs here and there. The hunt was on. We found our Easter baskets, too. I remember finding mine in a pull-out flour bin in the kitchen.

It would have been fun to hunt eggs outdoors, but we had a fine Easter anyway, complete with a festive dinner of ham, all the trimmings, hot cross buns and a special dessert like a bunny cake fashioned from a rectangular cake decorated with white icing, coconut and candies.

Snow or not, Easter on the ranch was always memorable.