The Reindeer Keeper

My 13-year-old granddaughter sent me a message last week asking if I would make her a strawberry-rhubarb pie for her 14th birthday. It felt like Christmas!  Of course I would make her a strawberry-rhubarb pie! As many as she would like! We decided I would deliver the pie for supper on her birthday. My son Brian and I would be staying for her Celebration supper, complete with a Special-Order Strawberry-Rhubarb pie! When that special day arrived, I decided to make an apple pie along with the strawberry-rhubarb pie.  Ingredients were measured and mixed and two pies were the result. I dressed up the Strawberry-Rhubarb pie since it represented what would have been her Birthday Cake. I wrapped both pies up in aluminum foil. Then placed them side by side on a wooden tray and placed that tray on the back seat. Off we went with the radio on high and the excitement growing.  As I made the last turn onto their road, I heard something. Something going on in the back seat. No! That wo...

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...

You won't believe what I'm going to tell you but even though I grew up in the country I never liked cows-with maybe the exception of black angus. My brother had a small herd of angus cows and when he went away to visit relatives I was left in charge of caring for them. I'd get up way before the bus came and go out to the barn; returning when I got off the bus in the afternoon. I didn't mind. I most likely would have been playing around there anyway. His cows never bothered me. They just wanted to be fed and let in and out of the barn that for years housed herds of dairy cows. By the time we all came along the herds were gone. Stanchions were vacant so it wasn't as if I'd grown up surrounded by cows. There was just something about those black and white beasts grazing in the fields of neighboring farms. With their big, bulging eyes, they'd stare as my cousin and I walked by; staring and chewing-and chewing some more as their tails constantly tried keeping th...