The Reindeer Keeper

My mother loved snapdragons.  When we lived out in the country she grew snapdragons along a rock wall beside our house that was painted yellow. Once the snapdragons were fully grown the colors were breathtakingly vibrant-everything from marvelous magenta to orangey orange to sunshine yellow, purple haze, and snowy white.  It was like growing rainbows. When my mother didn't have time to weed her snapdragons, she'd ask me to go out and do the pulling of weeds between each plant. I loved pulling the weeds especially when the sun was shining and a breeze was coming over the fields, across the creek and up the hill. I'd bring some cookies along. Most always I'd have to go back inside sooner than later and get some more. But while I enjoyed the cookies, I enjoyed sitting there surrounded by snapdragons even more. Especially when they started to sing. Oh I had to help them a little. And only snapdragons that had fallen to the ground joined in the chorus. The others would stand

I've only ridden on a few trains yet I can honestly say I love trains. Where I live I can hear trains passing by across the river in Canada. Listening to the chugging of the train down the tracks, hearing the whistle blowing, me wondering who is on board and where they are going all takes place as soon as I hear the movement of a train. It's especially mesmerizing at night as I'm wrapped in blankets. I listen to those sounds until they fade into the darkness. My most memorable train ride was back when I was in junior high school. My grandmother asked me to go with her on a train from Syracuse to Indianapolis to visit relatives. I was so excited, first to be asked and second to be riding on a train that would include riding the train all night long. I would be one of the passengers and maybe somewhere in the darkness someone would hear the whistle of my train and the chugging of my train down the tracks and wonder where I was going. Of course no one would know me but that di