The Reindeer Keeper

 Growing up when the snow started falling and the wind howled it became time for mittens and boots; skates, sleds, and toboggans as well as homemade soups and breads, casseroles and a favorite my grandmother used to make-Rice Croquettes.  I'm sure any of us grandchildren who sat around her kitchen table enjoying those rice croquettes never understood what a croquette was but it didn't matter. We were going by the taste, the warmth and the fun we had sitting around that table in the wintertime. Sometimes after skating down at the creek, we'd stop at our grandmother's and if she was baking cookies or making rice croquettes she'd sit us down to enjoy whatever it was she was making. Her molasses cookies were so delicious. One was a handful. I never realized until years later that rice croquettes are quite simple to make. There are only four ingredients. After mixing the ingredients together, you roll out the croquettes in flour and cook them in deep fat until browned. T...

The other day as big, fluffy, beautiful January snowflakes fell, Brian started listening to a Gordon Lightfoot CD I'd bought him for Christmas. I bought it for one particular song that he's always liked. After he listened to it, I suggested he listen to the other songs, telling him the other Gordon Lightfoot songs were just as good. So, he did. I was in the kitchen when a certain song started playing. It used to be a favorite of mine (still is) so I started sing ing as I began to gather ingredients to make him an omelet. "How do you know that song?" he asked. "I don't remember. I've just always liked it." "Come sit down and listen to it." So, I did. It was peaceful sitting there with the snow falling about the fields. I went on a bit about the beauty in winter; the peace I find in the stillness and how absolutely breathtaking it was outside. Of course, Brian has heard me go on and on about winter many times before. This ti...

This old photo shows me standing between my parents. My mother is holding my little sister. We are packing up the first place I ever called home and moving to the country. I remember feeling sad. I didn't want to move anywhere. I loved that clapboard house sitting on a lane just minutes from where I went to school. I loved my bedroom with back stairs leading down to the kitchen. I loved having my desk in my bedroom sitting beside a window where I could look out as I "wrote my stories." (Check the notebook in my hands). I loved the sun porch and the high counter in the kitchen where my tadpole swam in a bowl of water. I loved the big yard and my best friend who lived but a minute away. I loved the double living room. I loved coming down the front stairs on Christmas morning. The photo was taken in the second living room. The doorway behind my mother led to the kitchen and then the sunporch. To her left was the dining room where on Christmas Eve she'd set the table ...

I don't remember people going to gyms when I was growing up. Oh we had gym class in school when I hit the 7th grade. I've included a photo of what our gym suits resembled although we weren't quite as sophisticated looking in them as the mannequin with her red lipstick! I never liked gym class; especially going into the locker room and changing into my gym suit. It was embarrassing at that age to change clothes in front of your peers when you hardly knew most of them. As far as gyms go I really don't recall any gyms where you'd join to go work out. But you never miss what you never had. Growing up in the country was like owning our own private gym open twenty four hours a day seven days a week free of charge; free of dealing with strangers in your space. There was no waiting; that is if parents allowed us being outside day and night. They most always did. When I think about it me and my cousins and siblings  were working out all the time just by running, jumpin...