The Reindeer Keeper

This b/w photo of my mother as a young girl intrigues me-both because of her youth and her style. I love her dress with that flower print and fashionable neckline. My mother's taste for fine fabric was obvious at an early age. Years later she'd open a fabric shop. She was a perfectionist as a seamstress. Camel coats-suits-robes-she made them all. Every seam was straight. Every dart exact. I love her hair. The style reminds me of what movie stars from that era wore on screen. I don't ever recall her wearing her hair long. This is the longest I've ever seen her hair. But even more intriguing to me than the dress or the hair are her eyes. They're not tired or worried. They're full of possibility. Did you ever wonder what your mother dreamt about when she was young and life was yet to unfold? We all have things about us that we keep to ourselves. We all have hopes and dreams and expectations we keep silent in our hearts that have nothing to d...

I am no expert on pie making. I think if I made a pie more often I could master creating the crust from scratch but it would never taste like my grandmother's. Her idea of mixing ingredients for a pie crust was a pinch of this and a dash of that and lard was always cut into the sifted flour with a knife. She was a Master Maker of Pies-berry, raisin, mincemeat, strawberry-rhubarb, and of course, pumpkin and apple. It didn't have to be a holiday for pies to be in her oven. You knew the minute you walked in the door if she was baking. That sweet aroma was all through the house. And it didn't end there for once the pies were cooling-she'd gather the remnants of crust dusted with flour sitting on the counter and roll them into one ball of spongy dough with her hands. Then she'd roll the dough out with her wooden rolling pin-and cut through the dough with a cookie cutter-and repeat the process until all the dough had been recycled into shapes and th...

I own a Picasso! It came in the mail-exquisitely drawn on a card with smiling pumpkins on the front. I know why my little Picasso chose that particular Grandparent's Day card. It was those pumpkins! You see, this little Picasso and I wander about the gardens out back. They are full of pumpkins of all sizes-some are still green-some a vibrant orange-all still on gnarly vines with picky leaves. They're so picky that she'll pull her dimpled hand back and ask me to move those big, ugly, prickly leaves out of the way so she can squat down and pat each one-big or small. And as she is patting them ever so gently in their beds of soil or grass she quietly talks to them, telling me to be quiet because they are sleeping. "Shh Gra-Gra! Shhh," she will say to me in a concerned tone with her finger to her lips. Then whispering in a little voice sounding more like a chorus of angels, she tells each pumpkin she touches how pretty it is-how nice i...

I've written so much about growing up in the country surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I've gone on about playing in the barn and down at the creek and in the pine grove and especially the hours my cousins and I spent in our chicken coop clubhouse. More often than not we older ones took care of the younger ones and we never knew it. We were all just playing. Oddly enough I hardly ever write about cousins on the other side of the family. That's because I hardly knew them. That was my father's side of the family. I have no clue why we didn't get together that often. It's not that they lived far away. They were close by-down another country road. Maybe it was because that side was all brothers and my mother's side was all sisters. Maybe it was because we were always involved with my mother's side since they were our neighbors. In the summers we shared our dinners under my aunt's pine trees. It was a given that every holiday we ...

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...

Recently when going through files of pictures, I found myself looking at this particular photo differently than when I took it awhile back. Of course seeing my granddaughter smiling, holding her crayons still makes me as happy as it did that Sunday afternoon. But this time it had a deeper meaning. Maybe it's because she's growing up. Maybe it's because she is talking a mile a minute and asking questions and sings and dances and loves butterflies and jewelry and dinosaurs and books and knows her colors and can count and remembers where she left everything when visiting the last time. Or maybe it's because I still remember her father sitting at that desk-coloring, playing with his G.I. Joes and Matchbox cars. She looks just like him. It's the eyes. When curiosity got the best of her that day, I helped her open the top of the desk. We found a few G.I. Joes-a few scribbles her father had done and a few papers from when he was in elementary school....

I've noticed in many of the old photos I've seen of my grandparents-so many show them using their hands to create something. While they obviously used their hands to do the necessary-cook, garden, tend to crops and barn duties, clean, do the wash, care for children, etc., whenever there was an opportunity, their hands got busy in a different way-a way of relaxing and making things; stimulating their soul after a hard day's work or after completing one task before getting on to the next. Maybe that's why my aunts, mother, and grandmother got together once a week for what they called their 'Busy Fingers' Group. They'd take turns hosting the group. I remember times when it was at our house. They were always laughing and talking! Of course back in my grandparent's day television was a non-factor. There were no zillion channels with still nothing to watch. Texting wasn't a word. Communicating was face-to-face. And when that moment came-that break in t...