The Reindeer Keeper

Take a ride down most any country road in northern New York and you will see at one time or another, cornstalks lining up like soldiers out in the fields. Some of those fields seem to stretch as far as the horizon. Growing up about a mile out on one of those country roads, playing outside with my cousin whenever possible, cornstalks would on occasion become part of our pretending, especially in the summertime. There was a field adjacent to my grandparents' farmhouse and on certain days when our pretending was on overload, that field full of cornstalks would work its way into our adventure-like the time we found our way out to the middle of that field. Then plopped down and made a cornstalk house. That meant bending some stalks. Crushing a few to the ground for cornstalk tables & chairs. Crushing a few more for cornstalk beds with cornstalk pillows. We would pretend our cornstalk house had windows from which we could "spy on the adults." We were certain they never saw ...

  With the geese flying and the leaves turning, Autumn is upon us with all of its splendor. And now with those leaves falling, walking through them is as enjoyable as it was when growing up.  Besides walking through them when growing up, raking them was just as fun. My cousin and I would rake them into a huge pile. Then we would divide them into smaller piles. From those smaller piles we would construct leaf houses using our rakes as our tools. After forming leaf walls into place, we would divide the house into rooms. The bedrooms would be complete with leaf beds complete with leaf pillows. The kitchen would include a leaf table with matching leaf chairs. We played in our leaf houses until the wind blew them away. When outside the other day, watching my grandson raking leaves that had fallen and then jumping into the huge pile of leaves he created, I had the strangest thought.  The best Toy Company ever is the one created by Mother Nature, if that was ever possible. When ...