The Reindeer Keeper

Growing up in the country there are places that become favorite places when you are young and playing and pretending with friends throughout the year. And when the seasons change, the play changes as well. I did most of my playing with my cousins. Mainly, my cousin Carol.  I've written about my grandfather's barn with two large haylofts connected by a wooden bridge and the empty chicken roosts empty because my grandfather had to close down his farm due to asthma. I've gone on and on about the chicken coop void of chickens, cleaned out, then filled with the remains of a closed one-room schoolhouse up the road. Those remains included the books, desks and chalkboards. Students were being bussed to nearby public schools. That happened before my parents moved us to the country. (Us meaning my sister, my brother and me).  The chicken coop void of chickens and filled with the remains of the one-room schoolhouse is where I would play with my cousins most days after school, on the w...

Towering over fields bare in winter and lush with produce in the summer, silos stand tall as children go by in yellow buses. They stand tall as farmers do their chores and families grow and babies become adults and the cycle of life and silos begins all over again. They stand tall as lovers whisper when passing by and funerals slowly make their way down a winding country road to the church or cemetery. They stand tall as loads of hay fill the haymows and cows graze in pastures and another sunrise leads to another sunset and seasons come and go and the wind howls and neighbors move. Some stand tall over abandoned farms. Some stand tall filled with grain. Some slowly crumble to the ground. Whatever the fate of those silent sentinels, those watchers, those guardians of the farms and the fields, they will forever be a part of the rural landscape if only in our memories. When I was growing up my grandfather no longer worked his farm. There were no longer any cows grazing or chi...

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...