The Reindeer Keeper

With zucchini so plentiful in the garden last week, my son Brian and I spent a few days making small loaves of zucchini bread. Some loaves will be for Christmas gifts and some will be for giving away—and some are for our own enjoyment. The process began when I brought out my mother’s old Universal food grinder. The old grinder holds so many memories of preparing for so many Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I can still hear cranberries poppi ng as they were squeezed through the grinder. Some never made it through. Instead they’d go flying through the air when the grinding speeded up and the juice from the cranberries fell into a yellow bowl sitting on the floor underneath the grinder. My mother once told me she bought the grinder at Barr’s Hardware located in a downtown of long ago. The grinder is still as good as new. There are no buttons to push or speeds to select or cords to plug in. You just put the parts together and off you go. Brian did all the grinding of the zucch...

Winter brought hours of fun playing outside when growing up in the country. It never mattered how cold it got. It never mattered how high the snow banks grew or how wild the wind howled. We'd be out there dressed in snowsuits and scarves, wool hats and mittens and boots made more for the season than for fashion. Some days we'd go sliding or tobogganing. Other times we'd just roll down the hills or piles of snow. We'd often make tunnels and snow forts. The forts were supplied with lots of snowballs in case it needed defending. Skating down at the creek-day or night-was always fun. Sometimes we'd wear our skates. Other times we'd put them on once we got there. I don't remember spending much time shoveling it off. I think the wind was a big help or maybe skating through some snow here and there didn't bother us. Either did having to jump over creek grass sticking out from the ice because if you didn't jump over it, you'd most likely get your ska...