The Reindeer Keeper

Over Thanksgiving and Christmas this past year some of us who'd gathered together spent time going through family photo albums. We had an aunt who devoted hours to organizing the photos chronologically by family. The photos represented a smorgasbord of family members-all ages and all situations at all times of the year. The attached photo is one I had to have. I figure it was probably taken by my aunt with her Brownie camera if Brownie cameras were even around then. I carefully removed the photo from the album and later scanned it and then returned it for others to enjoy. The photo is an amazing snapshot of an amazing moment, showing my grandparents actually sitting down and relaxing, enjoy a summer picnic on the side lawn of their farmhouse surrounded by daughters and their husbands and Pepper the dog. What I didn't notice at first was what was in the background, sitting in the field between the barn and the house. Looking closer I was thrilled to find our chicken coop cl...

What a treasure of a picture I discovered Thanksgiving day. Going through family picture albums with my older brother we came across so many pictures we'd never seen before. We had an aunt who organized family pictures by year and by family. Behind many of the photos were the negatives. I can't imagine how long it took her to do this but I am thankful she did. The first photo I would like to share is this amazing photo of my grandfather's barn. This is the barn I went back to in my memory several times when writing, "The Reindeer Keeper." My cousins and I spent countless hours playing and pretending in this massive structure with two haylofts connected by an old plank bridge and empty stanchios and empty chicken roosts. But empty didn't matter to us. In our imaginations they were sometimes occupied. In our imaginations that old barn was one great adventure after another. Despite the snow and rain creeping in between the cracks, we stayed inside that barn-and...