I went out yesterday morning to feed some babies. It was the first time the sun appeared after a few days of rain and it was fresh and crisp and lovely all around.

I had a major amount of work to do in the house. Like piles of notes and phone calls to make and stories to write. That’s the thing about working from home, when you’re home, that work waves to you all uppity like from that little nook of a desk that sits in the middle of your house. You can’t escape it, you know, unless you wander off.

So I wandered, me and big brown dog. (The pug? So glad you asked. He was snoring on the couch inside, avoiding mornings like the plague is his thing.)

Then I said  to myself: “Self, you’ve got time. This is why you live here. To feed the animals and spray the weeds and unload the dishwasher and avoid the laundry and ride some horses and wander. There might be something in there that says write and be productive and make a living, but I can’t be sure right now…oh and look, how convenient, I have my camera with me! How did that happen? I think I’ll just climb up this little knob and maybe I can find something to photograph seeing as things are all showered up and sparkly.”

So sparkly.

I like sparkly.

I wasn’t expecting anything but a couple bluebells, some horse poop, maybe a dried up crocus or two and a little time to clear my head, but as soon as I hit the top of the first butte, BAM!

It’s wildflower season.

I think we’ve been over my wildflower love affair before so you will have to forgive me as I revel in my obsession and breathe in the colors I’ve been waiting for all winter, the colors I could only find briefly in the sky that touched the white buttes on clear evenings.

I love that sky and I’ll see it again someday, but you’ll have to forgive the fact that all I desire is to put my nose to the ground for a few weeks, to poke around through the tall grass, kick the mushrooms, smell those soft petals and take them home for my kitchen table.

You’ll have to forgive all the photos of flowers that will be covering these pages during this very fleeting time in this very fussy climate. Because I am simply amazed, year after year, that as soon as the ground thaws out a garden that no human person planted just appears out of all of that clay and mud and poop and rocks.

Forgive me, yes. Forgive my amazement and overt enthusiasm for tiny little miracles like this…

and this…

and these…

Because who wouldn’t be excited about their own personal floral shop, a small offering given to us out here for enduring all of this snow and rain.

Gifts like the smell of sweet peas on your kitchen table that make a deadline a little more attainable, something that the dried up Glade plugin that has been sitting in my outlet for months has never fully achieved.

So thank you for taking this little wander with me. I tell ya there is a lot more where that came from, but I’ll try to restrain myself  to ensure that you get some of the other exciting news from the ranch. Important things like:

• it’s wood-tick season
• the pug currently still has all of his limbs in spite of his love for picking on things bigger and far more dangerous than him
• Cowboy has been grilling the most delicious cuts of beef and venison, reminding me every day that I made the right choice in husband (even if he doesn’t do the dishes)
• it has been too wet to get the cows home and
• I am making to do lists for little sister to ignore when she comes to live at the ranch for the summer.

Oh, and I’m playing music with pops tomorrow evening in Medora at the Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room. I will also be on Prairie Public Radio today at 3:00 (CT) to talk about being a part of Dakota Air: The Radio Show  at the Burning Hills Amphitheater coming up on June 4th. Due to flooding in the Medora area, this show has been rescheduled for September 17th! But I’ll still be chatting on the radio, so catch it if you can online or on your dial. They’ll be playing some of my tunes and I’ll be talking about new music, old music and what’s to come.

More details on my upcoming appearances:

• May 27, 2011
  5:30-8:30 PM (Mountain Time)
  Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room
  Medora, ND
• June 3, 2011
  5:30-8:30 PM
  Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room
  Medora, ND
  
• June 4, 2011
  Rescheduled for September 17th due to flooding in the Medora area
  2:30 PM
  Dakota Air: The Radio Show
  Burning Hills Amphitheater
  Medora, ND
• June 4, 2011
  5:30-8:30 PM
  Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room
  Medora, ND

Thanks for all your support. Here, I picked these for you:

Hope to see you out west soon!