The Reindeer Keeper

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...

With gardens now in overload-plants spreading their vines beyond the edges like spider webs, covering everything in their path; their leaves and bounty selfishly and boldly declaring they rule the back yard or back field or wherever a garden may be, I hear people saying they don't have time to weed or water or even pick and cook and can or freeze or giveaway the beans, peas, squash, zucchini (oh how those zucchini plants produce), tomatoes, corn, beets, carrots, potatoes, peppers, onions hanging from plants or clinging to vines or underground waiting to be discovered. When I hear this-and I say that too-I think back to the gardens on my grandparent's farm.I remember one along the side of their farmhouse. My cousin and I would help weed it. Even better, we'd sit and eat the carrots. But I don't remember the one in the photo above which shows my grandmother at a very young age working it. Besides seeing her so young, what struck me was the enormity of that garden. I s...