The Reindeer Keeper

 The photo shows my grandparents' farmhouse of long ago. The house was sold after my grandfather stopped farming the fields and the barn, that once housed chickens and cows and horses with kids running around playing, became silent and empty. That's when my grandparents built a smaller home on land that was part of the farm, big enough to house my grandparents and one of my aunts. But way before that farmhouse was sold I had so much fun with my cousins playing inside and outside that home. There was no TV. No internet. There were no video games. No cell phones. If there had been such things, there would have been no time to bother with them. Playing and pretending were top priority.  It never took much to amuse us. I remember one summer it just took a few pairs of scissors, some straight pins and used magazines and we were good to go for days, playing on the screened-in porch of that farmhouse.  I can't remember if it was an officially declared 'Club' we created. It...

There’s something magical about fields. It doesn’t matter the time of year. Fields amaze me whatever the season. This fascination began at an early age. I remember playing with my cousins as we watched for our grandfather to return from haying in the backfield. Once he drove his little red Ford tractor back over the plank bridge spanning the creek on his way to the barn, we’d run and jump on board the wagon full of hay. Fields surrounded us on both sides o f the road. When I was 8 or 9, we moved to the country, next door to my grandparents’ farm. Despite the farm not being a working farm anymore, the fields provided hours of play for me, my siblings and my cousins. They were great places to play hide ‘n seek. Fun places to pick wildflowers and clovers that were sweet tasting. Fun places to play ‘pretend’, making pretend houses by stepping down on the tall grass. Fun places to escape the adults. Fun places to walk through in the snow, stopping to make snow angels and snowmen and...

On my way back home one day last week passing by farms and fields a story my grandmother would tell came to mind. Whenever my grandmother told the story she’d laugh right out loud. So did anyone who was listening to her talk about the time when she was a little girl sitting at the kitchen table playing and acting silly with her siblings. Eventually her mother told her to stop but she kept on playing. In fact my grandmother played so hard that she ended up running around and around that table so fast that she went flying out the kitchen window. Whenever she’d get to this point in the story my grandmother’s eyes would widen with a twinkle and the laughter would get uncontrollable. She’d always end her tale by saying it was a hot summer day and the window was wide open. While she didn’t get hurt she did ‘catch heck’ as she’d describe the aftermath from flying straight out that window after being told to stop. Once in a while I’d take my grandmother for rides out in the country an...