The Reindeer Keeper

I've written so much about growing up in the country surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I've gone on about playing in the barn and down at the creek and in the pine grove and especially the hours my cousins and I spent in our chicken coop clubhouse. More often than not we older ones took care of the younger ones and we never knew it. We were all just playing. Oddly enough I hardly ever write about cousins on the other side of the family. That's because I hardly knew them. That was my father's side of the family. I have no clue why we didn't get together that often. It's not that they lived far away. They were close by-down another country road. Maybe it was because that side was all brothers and my mother's side was all sisters. Maybe it was because we were always involved with my mother's side since they were our neighbors. In the summers we shared our dinners under my aunt's pine trees. It was a given that every holiday we

With gardens now in overload-plants spreading their vines beyond the edges like spider webs, covering everything in their path; their leaves and bounty selfishly and boldly declaring they rule the back yard or back field or wherever a garden may be, I hear people saying they don't have time to weed or water or even pick and cook and can or freeze or giveaway the beans, peas, squash, zucchini (oh how those zucchini plants produce), tomatoes, corn, beets, carrots, potatoes, peppers, onions hanging from plants or clinging to vines or underground waiting to be discovered. When I hear this-and I say that too-I think back to the gardens on my grandparent's farm.I remember one along the side of their farmhouse. My cousin and I would help weed it. Even better, we'd sit and eat the carrots. But I don't remember the one in the photo above which shows my grandmother at a very young age working it. Besides seeing her so young, what struck me was the enormity of that garden. I s