Дома я долго вспоминал, как овца ела сено, а маленький кролик прятался за ведром.

Дома is a very common adverb meaning at home. In Russian, when you want to say that someone is at home in a general sense, дома is usually the natural choice.

• Дома = at home
• в доме = in the house/building

So in this sentence, Дома я долго вспоминал... means At home, I was remembering for a long time..., not specifically inside a house as a physical structure.

Russian word order is much freer than English word order because grammatical roles are shown mainly by endings, not by position.

So Дома я долго вспоминал is natural and emphasizes the setting first:

• Дома = at home
• я = I
• долго = for a long time
• вспоминал = was remembering / recalled

You could also say:

• Я долго вспоминал дома...

That would still be grammatical, but it would sound a little different in emphasis. Starting with Дома highlights the location first.

In the past tense, Russian verbs agree in gender and number with the subject.

Here the subject is я. Since the speaker is understood to be male, the verb is:

• вспоминал = masculine singular past

If the speaker were female, it would be:

• вспоминала

So:

• Я долго вспоминал... = a male speaker
• Я долго вспоминала... = a female speaker

Вспоминать is the imperfective verb. It is used here because the sentence describes an ongoing mental process: the speaker was spending time remembering something.

• долго вспоминал = was remembering for a long time / kept recalling

If you used the perfective вспомнил, it would usually mean remembered in the sense of a completed event:

• Я вспомнил = I remembered / I recalled

But Я долго вспомнил would not work naturally, because долго fits much better with an ongoing process than with a single completed moment.

Yes, как literally often means how, but in this kind of sentence it introduces what is being remembered or imagined.

So:

• я вспоминал, как овца ела сено... = I remembered how the sheep was eating hay...

In English, this can also sound natural as:

• I remembered the sheep eating hay...
• I recalled how the sheep was eating hay...

So как introduces the scene being recalled.

Russian uses commas very regularly to separate clauses.

1. Before как

   • Дома я долго вспоминал, как овца ела сено...
   • The main clause is Дома я долго вспоминал
   • The subordinate clause is как овца ела сено...

2. Before а

   • ..., как овца ела сено, а маленький кролик прятался за ведром
   • Here а connects two clauses:
     • овца ела сено
     • маленький кролик прятался за ведром

So the commas are required because the sentence contains multiple clauses.

Both can sometimes be translated as and, but they are not the same.

• и simply adds one fact to another: and
• а often means something like while, whereas, or and meanwhile, showing contrast or comparison

In this sentence:

• овца ела сено, а маленький кролик прятался за ведром

This suggests a contrast between what the two animals were doing:

• the sheep was eating hay,
• while the little rabbit was hiding behind the bucket.

So а is a very natural choice here because it sets the two actions side by side.

The difference is partly lexical and partly grammatical.

1. ела

   • from есть = to eat
   • past tense, feminine singular
   • овца is a feminine noun, so the verb becomes ела

2. прятался

   • from прятаться = to hide
   • past tense, masculine singular
   • кролик is a masculine noun, so the verb becomes прятался

So the past-tense endings agree with the gender of the subject:

• овца ела
• кролик прятался

The verb прятаться means to hide oneself / to be hiding. The ending -ся is the reflexive marker.

Compare:

• прятать = to hide something
• прятаться = to hide oneself / to hide

Examples:

• Он прятал книгу = He was hiding the book
• Он прятался = He was hiding

So in your sentence, the rabbit is not hiding something else; the rabbit itself is hiding. That is why прятался is used.

Сено is the direct object of ела, so it is in the accusative case. But сено is a neuter inanimate noun, and for many neuter inanimate nouns, the accusative form is the same as the nominative form.

So:

• nominative: сено
• accusative: сено

That is why the form does not change.

The preposition за can take different cases depending on the meaning.

• за + accusative usually means motion to a position: behind
• за + instrumental usually means location: behind

Compare:

• Он спрятался за ведро = He moved to behind the bucket
• Он прятался за ведром = He was hiding behind the bucket

In your sentence, the rabbit is already located there, so Russian uses:

• за ведром = behind the bucket

And ведром is the instrumental singular of ведро.

Маленький is an adjective meaning small or little. Adjectives in Russian must agree with the noun they describe in gender, number, and case.

Here it describes кролик, which is:

• masculine
• singular
• nominative

So the adjective must also be:

• masculine
• singular
• nominative

That gives:

• маленький кролик = little rabbit

If the noun were feminine, for example овца, it would be:

• маленькая овца

Both verbs describe ongoing or background actions in the remembered scene.

• овца ела сено = the sheep was eating hay
• кролик прятался за ведром = the little rabbit was hiding behind the bucket

The imperfective aspect is natural because the speaker is recalling a scene in progress, not focusing on completed results.

If perfective verbs were used, the meaning would shift more toward completed events, for example:

• овца съела сено = the sheep ate up the hay
• кролик спрятался за ведром = the rabbit hid behind the bucket / got behind the bucket

That would sound more like distinct finished actions rather than a visual memory of an ongoing scene.

Here долго means for a long time.

• долго вспоминал = remembered for a long time / kept recalling for a long time

It refers to duration, not speed.

For slowly, Russian would usually use:

• медленно

So:

• долго = for a long time
• медленно = slowly