The Reindeer Keeper

Did you ever look at a photo and wish you could remember that moment; remember what lead up to it and what everyone was saying and who took the photo and what happened after the photo had been taken and life continued on? I had all those questions and more after receiving the attached photo from a cousin. That’s me sitting on a horse behind my Uncle Paddy-my cousin’s father. My older brother is sitting on the other horse. I have no recol lection of that day. But I do know if my Uncle Paddy was involved, it would have been a fun day. Most in the community knew him as owner of a shoe store. I knew him as an uncle who was a kid at heart. Uncle Paddy was the one who built us kids rafts out of telephone poles so we could go off on adventures on a creek that ran along behind our homes. Uncle Paddy was the one who helped my cousin and I set up a tent behind his house so we could camp out on occasion over summer vacations. Of course he was also the one who loved to scare us later on ...

This past December when going to the woods for a Christmas tree, I came back home with two trees. One was for the living room. The other was for the room where Brian and I spend most of our time. We call it the Groove room. It used to be a back porch. Now it’s where it all happens; everything from singing and dancing to TV viewing and CD listening and writing and watching the leaves turn and the snow fall and the garden grow and the deer pass by. It overlooks the back yard and the fields; a rock wall where rabbits live and the old barn with a light in the upstairs window. I’d thought about putting a small Christmas tree in the Groove room before but I never followed through. Something was telling me to do it this past Christmas. So I did. Once Christmas was over, it didn’t bother me to take down the tree in the front room but that little tree on the old back porch was a different story. Brian and I weren’t ready to say goodbye to what had become our favorite little tree. So we ...

With the snow and the wind and below zero temperatures, I sometimes fix something simple for myself when suppertime comes around. This doesn’t happen every night but when it does happen; whatever I fix not only warms me up but fills me with an even deeper appreciation of winter. I’d never think of having hot cereal for supper in the summertime. But I do during the winter. And I enjoy every spoonful as much as I would enjoy a full-course meal. After the hot dogs and potato salads and the boiled dinners and turkeys, winter offers a time of slowing down and occasionally treating yourself to simple, warm and relaxing suppers. Besides a bowl of hot cereal, which could be Oatmeal, Corn Meal, or Wheatena with an added treat of dipping a piece of toast into any one of those cereals, my simple winter supper might be buttermilk pancakes with either blueberries or bananas on top. When the kids were little I had a Hello Kitty-shaped pancake skillet. Those pancake suppers were quite popular...

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...

On mornings like this morning when waking up to a breathtaking soft and fluffy snowfall, I think of my mother. Growing up, on days like these, she'd go to our 'entertainment console'-a big, clumsy piece of furniture made for stubbing toes, where inside there was an AM/FM radio which was a big deal, a record player for all of our many 45 records and 331/3 albums (a really big deal) as well as a storage place for the albums-albums including Sonny & Cher, The Beatles, Glen Miller, Perry Como, Simon & Garfunkel, Boston Pops, Frank Sinatra, and So many more. Of all of her choices on those wintry, snowy mornings, she'd always select a Dean Martin album and when that funny and talented man began singing, "It's a Marshmallow World", she'd sing and dance around the house while dusting, doing dishes, making beds. She'd play that song over and over again. Sometimes, if I was there, I'd pretend to be annoyed-that's just what preteens an...

When growing up and playing in the dining room of my grandparents’ farmhouse with my cousins, I remember being told to be careful of the china cupboard because it held all of my grandmother’s china, including tea cups with matching saucers and serving dishes, as well as plates and silverware kept in a particular box lined with velvet. We were told most everything in that china cupboard was kept for good. When I was a little girl I loved sitting in the middle of my parents’ bed and looking through my mother’s jewelry box covered with-yes again, velvet-midnight blue velvet. Everything in that jewelry box seemed to glisten. Gently touching the strands of jewels and stones and rings that glittered, I felt like a princess getting ready for the ball. But there were a few things I’d been told not to touch, like the long, narrow box holding my mother’s pearls and another holding a cameo brooch with matching earrings my father bought for my mother. I’d been told those pieces were kept for...

Before last week’s mini ice storm I’d put some suet out for the birds in a clustered bunch of bird feeders. A few of the feeders are made of wood that’s now worn with plastic dividers chipped in the corners. One feeder is made of small, colorful pieces resembling stain glass that glitters when the sun is shining. Once the ice storm hit with howling winds and snow falling and ice forming, many of the remaining seeds in the feeders went flying. Many ended up on top of the ice covering the ground while even more of them ended up under the feeders. Seeds just sitting there on the ice and under the feeders attracted a variety of birds but more often than not, only the big birds were able to conquer the slippery ice; then grab some seeds and take off to a nearby tree to enjoy their winter feast. Of all the birds that were out there, it was one little bird that caught my eye. She was very small but determined. As my son Brian and I watched her fight for a seed, we found ourselves che...