The Reindeer Keeper

I looked for an old photo of the sidewalk I used to play on before we moved to the country but I couldn't find one. The above photo is a stock photo from the internet. That is not me. But it could have been me many years ago when playing on the crooked, bumpy sidewalk running by our home situated alongside a lane. Being able to play on the sidewalk once spring came was as exciting as seeing robins or seeing grass or seeing daffodils and tulips or hearing the geese flying over.  Sidewalks were a playground all to themselves. Part of the sidewalk I played on was going up a slight incline. There were cracks in it. There was even a bump that you had to plan for when going down the incline full speed on your bike. It was best to ride over on an edge of the bump than take your chances riding over the middle of it. The bump would send you flying. If that happened it might have been fun soaring through the air or disastrous. I had both experiences.  Part of the sidewalk was older than the

 Welcome to Page 133 of Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cook Book printed in the 1960s. Way back when I was in Junior High/High School this page would be spread out on the kitchen counter in our house in the country right about now. After making the Funny Bunny Biscuits and Peter Rabbit Cake a few years in a row I really didn't need to refer to page 133 in that cookbook. By then I knew it all by heart. But going into the kitchen drawer and pulling the cookbook out had become just as much a tradition as making the biscuits and cake. So that's what I would do. The fun part of doing that was one thing lead to another. I'd sometimes make up my own recipes. I'd sometimes give the bunnies a body by using another biscuit and then add a small biscuit tail. I'd use the suggested raisins for the eyes and candied cherry for the nose and slivered almonds for the whiskers if my father had picked up some almonds when at the grocery store. Or instead of making a Peter Rabbi