The Reindeer Keeper

So what do diners and churches have in common? Well this time of the year some great home-cooked, affordable meals. While diners pump out their unique menus all year long, local churches step up to the plate now straight through the fall offering everything from chicken 'n biscuits to chicken bbq to lasagna, roast beef, and turkey. Besides the main item you also receive home-baked pies or cakes or brownies, real mashed potatoes with real gravy, assorted salads and vegetables, breads fresh from the oven and a variety of condiments and freshly perked coffee. These days you can eat-in or take it home to enjoy. There's one particular church I vaguely remember going to with my grandmother for their chicken dinner. I only remember going a few times but the aromas coming forth from that simple small church with its tall wooden pews and amazing stained-glass windows remain vivid in my mind. The combination of all the ingredients drifting about that church made you hungry even if you

Just the smell of a crayon brings me back to my childhood growing up in the country. There's nothing like that specific aroma of colored wax-rolled and shaped and wrapped in a paper-covering a lighter shade than the crayon itself. Crayons were like best friends. They were always near. My cousin and I used them when playing school in our chicken coop clubhouse. Our pretend students drew some great pictures with their crayons even when the crayons were just broken pieces. That didn't stop some of their artwork from being chosen to hang by thumb tacks on our bulletin board-the bottom of a cardboard box. At home I always had crayons in my desk ready when needed. Besides drawing, coloring in coloring books was so much fun. We had a JJ Newberrys and a Woolworths next to each other in our downtown back then. Sometimes in the summertime my cousin and I would pack up our purses and walk the country road to go shopping. Newberrys had great over-sized coloring books. I think I bought

The farm across the road from where we lived in the country when growing up was a fun place to visit in May. Being pretty young I was clueless as to why or how but that farm had a May Pole and whenever we went over there this particular month we got to run and dance and skip and sing around it, over and over and over. It was just one tall pole with ribbons fanning down from the top. Somehow it would go around and around as we held on to a ribbon and went around and around. I just remember it was so much fun although it did look a bit out of place next to an old barn and fields of cows nearby. I loved May out in the country. There were so many wildflowers. Fields and pastures were painted in shades of purple and yellow and violet. There were adorable little forget-me-nots, trilliums, clovers, dog-tooth violets, astonishing lilacs, and so many more. Of all the beautiful wildflowers my favorites were lilies of the valley. Lilies of the valley amazed me. So dainty, their bell-shape wa

As I write this I can look out the window and see the moon. We've been told this will be a "Super Moon" tonight-bigger and brighter and closer to Earth than the usual moon outside windows everywhere. While this moon this night is bigger and brighter and closer I have to say-I've always thought the moon was Super! Years back when my cousin and I went down to the creek and skated on winter evenings we were able to do so because of the moon. It was so big and so bright and so close to Earth that we felt we could almost touch it as we laid on top of the ice and talked and dreamed. Whenever we'd play hide 'n seek on summer nights the moon tagged along. On Halloween it was the moon setting the stage to many a scary Eve-creating shadows that most certainly had to be monsters and witches and goblins. If we'd gather on the screened-in veranda of our grandparents' farmhouse the moon was always there as my grandmother rocked in her rocking chair and we sat an