The Reindeer Keeper

  I cut down the size of the garden this year by only planting basics. I'm trying hard to keep up with the weeds as well as the watering. Thanks to the rain that keeps on falling, watering has not been too much of a chore. In fact, the garden has become a labor of love. In years past, there was a separate garden for the pumpkins. The problem with that was the hose didn't reach it very well so I had to do the best I could. This year it was decided to only have the one smaller garden and within that garden, include the pumpkins. Having that one smaller garden has been ideal. The pumpkin patch is getting the water it needs. The pumpkin plants are healthy. Their vines are stretching out of the garden and tiptoeing into the yard. And yesterday while out pulling weeds, I discovered a pumpkin. A beautiful pumpkin covered up with leaves like a child wrapped up in a favorite blanket. As I kept on pulling weeds, I thought of pumpkin patches from years gone by. The reason for having a pum...

  For at least ten years now these two handmade friends have been getting together in anticipation of and to celebrate Halloween. In a way, they are related. The decorated gourd maker is the daughter of the brown paper bag pumpkin maker. The brown paper bag pumpkin maker was in kindergarten when he created his paper bag pumpkin. Whatever the handmade decorations made by little ones at home or at school happen to be, they weave their way back on to shelves or Christmas trees or tabletops when the appropriate season calls them out of wherever they were put to rest up for their particular season or holiday to come around again. After all, they have a very important responsibility. They just don't sit on a shelf or inside an old crock as reminders of a holiday. They sit there as reminders of the little hands that made them; a young imagination on full speed, using little scissors and glue if necessary and crayons and pencils; possibly glitter and cotton balls, even pipe cleaners when n...

  EARLIER THIS HALLOWEEN MORNING I was out taking some pictures of the moon over the field when suddenly I could not believe my eyes. A Witch-a real Witch on a broom went flying by. I could hear her heckling and the broom whizzing and the wind drifting through the branches now bare. It's Halloween! Glorious and spooky Halloween with candy corn and lollipops and miniature candy bars and popcorn balls and candy apples and pumpkins carved, and wide-eyed kids full of anticipation out trick or treating. It's Halloween! Beautifully Glorious and So Very Spooky.

Growing up in the country provided the perfect spooky setting when Halloween was looming. Poplar trees with limbs bare transformed themselves into scrawny fingers ready to snatch any one of us kids as we ran by in a hurry. Leaves scurrying over the fields evolved into mice rushing toward us. We were certain our grandfather's old barn with its main door creaking in the howling wind sounded more like screeching witches cackling under the big orange moon. But Halloween wasn't only looming outside with bats swooping down and ghosts swirling about. Things were happening inside the house as well. Especially in the kitchen. For as long as I can remember when my mother would go to the cupboard and take out her largest cooking pot and set it on top of the stove as the leaves fell and the wind blew and homes were decorated with pumpkins and cornstalks and my cousins and I were figuring out what we'd be for Halloween, I knew what my mother was going to make. She made it come every Oct...

The old tin can is back on the small table by the front door full of little garden gourds and other garden remnants found underneath weeds and overgrown plants with sprawling vines. As Christmas nears, the old tin can will hold gingerbread men fresh from the oven; some still steaked with flour and all without decorations or faces. They will remain in the old tin can through February. Many of those little garden gourds and other garden remnants were discovered by a six-year-old. Most every time he visited this past summer, he’d run out the back door to the garden to see what had grown since his last visit. One day he cleared a space between the carrots and zucchini and asked if he could plant something in his little garden. I found some leftover beet seeds in the garage. He was thrilled. Watching how gently he patted soil over the seeds, it was obvious he’d not only inherited the fishing gene, he’d inherited the gardening gene as well. When he was satisfied that the beet seeds w...

There’s a particular tree out behind the barn whose leaves are the first to turn when summer fades to fall. I took a few pictures as that process began again and as I did I found myself looking at that magnificent tree with even greater wonder. I’m not sure why. It could have been the softness of the sun or the quiet of the small meadow where the tree stands tall reaching to the heavens with late season wildflowers spreading about in the tall grass. As September rolled on, the tree kept pulling me back to take more pictures as its leaves became drenched in vibrant colors and the scents of pumpkins and apples told the story of a most magical season evolving into the next. When I went out back one day this past week I found the tree about barren. It looked tired in October’s shadows. I couldn’t figure out how that had happened. It seemed like only yesterday that its branches were dressed in leaves of oranges and reds. Its spirit seemed strong no matter how hard the wind blew or...

Since being blessed with two beautiful grandchildren a tradition has taken hold and continues every year about this time. We pick a Saturday or Sunday to go out back and harvest the pumpkins. The only problem this year is the lack of pumpkins. I've only found seven and that just won't work. So this week my son and I went on a search for pumpkins. With roadside stands-commercial businesses and Amish farms, pumpkins are not hard to find. We chose to ride down a back road and find an Amish farm. And we found the perfect Amish farm. So perfect that I went back a few more times. They know me now. They wave Hi as I pull up in front of their sprawling mass of beautiful pumpkins. Of course having little Amish children running around barefoot adds to the backdrop. Soon we will be going out back to "pick" pumpkins. Little will those grandchildren know that most of those pumpkins are imports. All they will see will be a mass of orange ready to be touched and patted and brou...

This is the time of the year when all the thinking and ordering, cultivating, planting, weeding, watering, picking, cleaning, canning, freezing, and pickling come full circle. You've done all the work starting back in January when the seed catalogs showed up in your mailbox. You've accomplished and crossed off each step on your long list. Now it's October. Time to dig for those potatoes and pull those pumpkins from their straggly old vines. Digging into the earth in search of potatoes is as exciting to me today as it was back when I was a kid living in the country. My grandparents had massive gardens. They had to. With 6 daughters and farmhands, meals were major productions especially during haying season. When it came time to clearing the gardens in the fall, helping dig for potatoes was like going on a treasure hunt. You never knew what the shovel pushed into the ground might reveal when pulled back out. The hope was for oodles of potatoes but there were no guarantees. ...