Last week I finished reading Rabbit Hill, by Robert Lawson, aloud with my children. We were drawn to the simplicity of the setting and storyline. It was reminiscent of the beautiful Colorado valley where we spend lots of time at Granny’s house—and of the animals who dwell there, often helping themselves to snacks from trash cans and gardens.
Every Wednesday evening the children spend the night with Granny in her old 1883 parsonage next to the church building in the valley that is called “Pleasant Valley”. The time is always filled with gardening, wood stacking, walks around the property, rock throwing contests, climbing up dirt piles, nibbling from the grape vine and plum tree, and plenty of sunshine. Deer, rabbits, woodchucks, hummingbirds, and the occasional bear find their way to the yard to watch and nibble in the sunshine as well.
The time in the valley has recently changed for the worse with the sudden death of Papa—the children’s grandfather. He could always be found outside with them, pulling them in the wagon or pushing them in the wheelbarrow, shooting bow and arrow, tending beehives and letting them taste test the “liquid gold” from said hives, chatting with neighbors and passersby, chopping wood and showing them how to stack it, shoveling snow and cleaning off cars… and the list goes on. He taught them to always tend the earth around them as God told Adam and Eve to tend Eden, and to the very best of their ability. He said to always plant fruit trees and perennial flowers and bushes wherever you live, even if you don’t know how long you’ll be there, so that anyone who comes after you will enjoy the bounty and the beauty that you left for them.
Last week’s Granny Sleepover for my ten year old son was spent picking apples from what Papa had called “The Walmart Apple Tree,” since it had grown from a seed from an apple he’d purchased at Walmart. It has provided lots of delicious fruit for many years, and this year Granny has been making apple butter. My son, using the long apple picker, filled bucket after bucket to be lovingly peeled, sliced, and cooked to apple-butter perfection. The last bucket was picked shortly before leaving, so he left it beneath the apple tree.
The next morning Granny sent our family a picture of an empty apple bucket and explained that she had heard a noise outside and when she peeked there were a bunch of deer surrounding the bucket, chowing down on the apples.
We had a laugh about that, and one child mentioned how that reminded her of Rabbit Hill and the Francis Assisi statue that said, “There is enough for all.” The happy Rabbit Hill animals would surround the statue each day and enjoy a bountiful meal shared with them by the new people in the house, people they now understood to be friends and not foes. These people planned and prepared and tended a garden to the best of their ability, not only for themselves but for the benefit also of others around them. They could easily have seen the animals as a nuisance but instead chose to see them as creatures worthy of sharing in the delicious harvest.
The Rabbit Hill family was like my children’s Papa who, although he has now gone to be with the Lord and is deeply missed, spent his life planting and watering and tending so that those after him could enjoy—So that a grandson could pick apples, a Granny could make apple butter, and a family could enjoy the fruit of his labor. And so that a group of deer could come together for a late night feast under the apple tree and eat their fill without fear, because there is enough for all in our valley too.
She lives in Loveland, Colorado where she homeschools her three read-aloud adventure loving children and runs Honorbound Media alongside her husband.
- Papa and Rabbit Hill - November 11, 2024
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