The Reindeer Keeper

  When driving along a back road the other day, I noticed a stream overflowing its banks as spring begins to push winter aside. I had to stop. The stream reminded me of days gone by when my cousins and I played outside until we were dragged back inside, dripping wet from playing in oversized streams and puddles created by the melting snow. As I took a few photos, I thought about our making mud pies. That led me to thinking about our grandmother making her pies. There really wasn't much of a difference-in the process. Our grandmother never had to reference a recipe or use a measuring cup when making her pie crusts which always ended up heavenly flaky and the perfect texture. With perfection, she would fold the ingredients in to the yellow mixing bowl until she had it all where she wanted it. After gathering the dough into a ball, then kneading it and working it, she'd divide the dough, flatten it out with her wooden rolling pin and then spread it out in her glass pie plates, flu...

After passing by the creek shown in the attached photo, I found myself turning back around to take a closer look. There was something about that creek; bringing me back to another creek waking up in springtime. When growing up in the country, spring surrounded us with the smell of the earth thawing and the honking of geese announcing their return. The creek that ran behind those four homes full of relatives would overflow its banks like clockwork when the temperature began to rise. One day it'd be frozen in place. The next day it'd be moving along swiftly, spreading out into the surrounding fields like a wildfire out of control. It was exciting to see that creek expand. Sometimes while having supper, we'd watch muskrats sitting on chunks of ice flowing by as if on a carnival ride. We weren't allowed to play near that creek when the water was full of cakes of ice and moving along at full speed but that didn't matter. There was a little stream that ran alongside...

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...