The Reindeer Keeper

This is one of several b/w illustrations created by gifted illustrator-Suzanne Langelier-Lebeda for inside the pages of "The Reindeer Keeper." This particular piece is a favorite of mine. It reminds me of my mother's cookbooks. She treasured her cookbooks. She'd sift through their pages, reading each one like a novel-treating each one like a good friend. When she passed away, we divided the cookbooks between us and what I discovered to be even more fun than reading the recipes were the bits of paper and pages from notepads and looseleaf with recipes written on them in her handwriting mixed in with a few handwritten grocery and things-to-do lists. There was even the back of a bag of Nestles chocolate chips with the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe on it. Whenever she found a recipe she liked in a magazine, or if someone recited a recipe for her to try, my mother would write it down and put it in a cookbook for safe keeping. My mother was a fine co...

I can't say for sure if my grandfather is drinking tea or coffee in this picture but if I had to choose I'd say it is probably tea because tea and toast is what my grandparents and some of the other adults enjoyed during the day when possible-or in the evening or in the case of one particular aunt, as supper. My grandmother not only drank the tea, she read the tea leaves and when the reading involved me-she was always right on. A few times I wish I would have listened to her! I remember it was green tea that they drank-Salada green tea I think or maybe it was Lipton. Of course tea choices were limited back then. There were no fancy flavorings or endless variations of tea. Tea was tea-kind of like coffee was coffee. I never acquired a taste for tea. I tried but even with the amount of sugar I'd add it still tasted like tea! The thought of dunking a much anticipated piece of toast into a drink I did not like-toast made from a toaster where you'd pull...

When you put a washtub, bench, and a few old chairs together, you get just that unless you're a little kid like my older brother playing outside on a sunny afternoon. From the look on his face it's obvious he's quite content. After all, the opportunities to inspire such a young imagination at that very moment are endless and they don't cost a penny. Put those chairs together-throw an old blanket over them and he has a tent. Put those chairs in a half circle and he can play musical chairs when someone comes along ready to partake in such an adventure. To make it even more fun they could march around the chairs singing all the way-until the singing stops and the scramble begins! And if no one comes along-he could pretend someone did. Or, he could put the chairs in a straight line and play train-All aboard and off he could go around the fields and back again or over the moon and beyond. Or he could jump off the train and hitch a ride with his grandfather passing ...

I'm standing sideways in this picture attempting to feed a cow. I don't remember anyone taking the photo. That's probably because I never liked cows and I am sure I was a little nervous being so close to them. It doesn't make sense to me that I didn't like them because when you're growing up in the country cows go with the territory. I don't remember much about my grandfather's cows. Whenenver we played in the barn it was void of cows or chickens or horses which was ok with us. It gave us the whole barn to play in and that included the large area full of stanchions where the cows were kept when inside. We loved playing in there. We turned stanchions into swings-trying not to land in the cowpies hidden under the hay. For awhile my brother had a few black angus which he kept in the barn. I can't remember where he went but he was away for a good week. He asked me to take care of them. So I did. Every morning before I went to scho...

I don't think anything turns a house into a home more than a rocking chair. Just the presence of a rocking chair evokes warm feelings. A rocking chair embraces and comforts. Its rhythm soothes your soul. Its never-changing melody feels like a familiar hug every time you sit down and put your arms in place and push your feet ever so slightly. It becomes an old friend, a good friend. A rocking chair links generations. Those once the infants and rocked in the chair become the adults doing the rocking and comforting sometimes late into the night or all through the night as the wind might blow or the rain might fall or the snowpiles might grow higher or the magical moon might shine brighter. A rocking chair can tell a family story-and it's a story little ones love to hear. When I think about rocking chairs images of my grandmother in her farmhouse kitchen come to mind. Although her time during the day was limited, sometimes she was a...