The Reindeer Keeper

 When it got to be that time of the year, when winter was thinking of fading into spring, my cousins and I gave Mother Nature a hand in the process as it seemed pretty slow to us. Because we spent lots of time outside anytime of the year-lots of time in the fields and pastures, whether attempting to feed my older brother's black angus as pictured above or running through hayfields or running to our clubhouse or down to the creek, when the thought of spring was in the air, we pitched in to help that happen even faster than Mother Nature had planned on making it happen. Sometimes we'd start in the driveways. We'd go into my aunt's garage and bring out whatever we could find to chop through the ice and shovel the remaining snow away. Guess we thought we'd then be able to ride our bikes. Whatever we thought we'd be out there working hard with shovels and hoes. Part of the fun was etching little streams out in the melting snow, leading that water to a bigger pool of ...

The granary set behind my grandparent's barn was as intriguing as both the barn itself and the chicken coop that had been turned into a clubhouse for all of us little ones. By the time we came around the granary wasn't used too often as the farm no longer was a working farm. There were no cows or horses or pigs or chickens to feed-except for the Black Angus my brother had for awhile. Because it was hardly ever used the granary became yet another place for us to explore and pretend. It never took much to stir our imaginations when playing around that farm. We didn't need fancy toys. We had all we needed right there on that rambling country road. Once we walked inside that rickety old structure the fun began. The first room was more like a workshop. There were old cans full of nuts and bolts and nails and screws. There were hammers and files-the kind used to smooth wood or metal, wrenches, screwdrivers. There was a vise-which became...

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...