This costume idea brought to you by breakfast.

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Well, Halloween’s officially here, though we already celebrated the shit out of it last Saturday at a house party down the road.

This costume idea brought to you by Saturday’s breakfast. It’s sort of an educational effort, a farm to plate demonstration if you will.

Just doing what we can to promote the agriculture industry, working hard to keep it as realistic as possible.

And, although it’s hard to believe, I’d like to tell you that not a stitch of sewing went into any of these creations. I mean, you wouldn’t guess it, the way those wings look like they could just take a floppy, chicken flight at any moment.

And that egg? Looks so edible, so delicious.

If there’s an award for a series of costumes put together entirely of staples, rubber cement and zip ties, I will gladly accept it.

Halloween. We take it pretty seriously around here.

So I’d really like to know who the hell spiked the punch?

Peace, Love, Bacon and a Happy Halloween!

Love and weather.

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Today Americans are talking about the weather as we watch the television report on an epic storm that is promising to roll in with a fury on the shores of the east coast.

Tucked safely in the middle of the country under gray skies we spent our weekend watching the snow fall outside our windows. It was the first significant dusting we’ve seen since it melted off the earth last spring, fulfilling a promise of warmer weather like it does year after year. And so here we are staring another winter right between the eyes, wondering how we’re going to fare, wondering if the snow will pile high, wondering if it will be bearable.

There are times during the cold seasons I ask myself why I didn’t chose to live in a climate that promises endless 70 degree days. There are places like this, I’ve heard about them.

A lot of people in short-sleeved-shirts play tennis and golf and watch baseball there.

I contemplate this when I’m scraping ice off the windshield or half of the muddy yard off the bottom of my boots. I think about California when I’m leaning against a strong 30 mph winds or helping to shovel a stuck 4-wheel-drive out of a snow bank in the middle of a blizzard.

Yes, there are times I wonder why I tolerate such weather, but it’s never the day the first snow comes.

Because no matter how old I get or how many season changes I’ve lived through, there is still something oddly peaceful and calming about the first flakes drifting quietly from a gray sky, finding their way to the ground and turning the landscape from brown to white.

I feel the same way every year. It was no different on Saturday when I opened my eyes and looked out the window of the bedroom to find the ground covered in white. I woke husband and we just laid there on our stomachs, heads resting on our hands as we stared out the window and watched little birds hop from branch to branch, sending the fluff flying off the brown leaves and finally down to the ground. We turned over and pulled the covers up to our chins, snuggling down against the chill in the house, the arrival of the snow suddenly making us feel less guilty about our desire to stay in bed a bit longer to recover from our 2 am arrival home that morning after my CD release party.

The gray and white weekend stretched over us like that blanket, laying heavy and soft on our bodies and welcoming us to sit close, make breakfast, drink coffee into the afternoon and keep the animals inside and at our feet.

In my life I have welcomed many first snows with this man, in different houses in various stages of our relationship. It’s a familiar feeling standing next to him in my wool socks as I press my nose to the window and he crosses his arms and leans back on his heels. We say the same things– we say it feels like Montana or Christmas. We wonder how long it will last, we talk about the chores we need to get done, we negotiate the movie we’ll watch.

We make soup.

And pretzels.

I snap a photo, not so much a documentation, but a ritual I’ve developed at the first sign of winter, as if capturing the change in weather will make the feeling stay.

In three months I will be thoroughly chilled. In three months I will have worn out my turtle necks, lost my left mitten and all evidence of ever having seen the sun and given up on the prayer of squeezing into my skinny jeans.

And today the snow that coated the ground this weekend has warmed up and turned the once frozen dirt to mud beneath my feet.

But this weekend I spent the first snow of the year with my first love. Standing next to him in the house we’re building watching the first flakes fall it occurred to me that in so many ways waking up next to this man is like waking up to the fresh and falling snow every morning–full of promise and quiet comfort, familiarity, fresh starts and wonder.

I may tire of this snow and the way it lays heavy on the frozen earth for months, but I have not grown tired of this man laying next to me, weaving his fingers in mine. I will never tire of his coffee, the dumplings he makes for his soup or the scruff of his beard grown in after a weekend without shaving.

California might have the sun and the waves of the ocean, but it does not have the snow.

It does not have the snow or the man I love standing next to the window in his bare feet watching it fall.

The day the water came to us.

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

This was our world last weekend as Pops, Little Sister and I rode through our fields and pastures. It was a beautiful nearly 60 degree day, the sun was shining and the scent of damp leaves filled the air as they crunched under the hooves of our horses. On days like these I convince myself the sky will stay blue forever.

But this morning I woke to a chill in the air that left frost on our windshields and a dusting of snow on the ground. The sky is gray and soon our world will turn white.

And I’m reminded how fast some things change.

I mean, wasn’t it just yesterday that Little Man was working on growing hair?

Now look at the guy. He’s growing up, honing his farming skills, learning to drive, and really getting the hang of that hair-growing thing.

Little Man turned 2 last weekend. His two-years-of-life celebration was another reminder that time changes things–just as it grows tomatoes it grows little boys…and sometimes I can’t tell which ripens faster.

But this week I was also reminded that not all change comes quickly. Some milestones are their own kind of miraculous.

See, on Wednesday this ranch was officially hooked into a rural water system that provides safe and clean drinking water to residents living along gravel roads miles away from the nearest city sidewalk. It’s a monumental event for those of us who depend on wells and springs to supply our family and farms with water for laundry, livestock, noodle cooking and baby feeding.

Out here among the gumbo hills that freeze solid in the winter and often dry up with the heat in the summer, the availability of a reliable water source has determined the fate of many farms and ranches, being the one non-negotiable variable when it came to the location of the house, the barn and the livestock pens.

When we determined the site for the new house last winter we were aware that we had the option of purchasing rural water, an option available to us that was not available to my parents or those who made their homes out here first. We made in a deposit and waited patiently as the system was put into place, a project that started with a vision and has taken over three years to come to fruition. For the three months that we’ve been living in this new home Husband has filled a giant tank in the back of his pickup with water from town, hauled it 40 miles down bumpy highways and gravel roads and hooked it up to this house so that we can take a shower, clean our dishes and fill the dog dish.

Without the rural water option, we could not have built our house here under my favorite hill tucked back in the oak trees–the same spot where the little ranch house was located when my father was a young boy. He and my aunt remember the day the family decided to move their home over the hill, back to the original Veeder homestead where a spring watered the livestock. The decision was a result of a losing battle with a well that continued to sand in. Both my aunt and Pops have mentioned how disappointed they were to abandon their little oak grove to the treeless farmyard just over the hill, so much so that the 7 or 8 year-old Pops took to the hills with a bucket and a shovel and proceeded to transplant a series of native trees from the coulees to his new yard in an attempt to recreate his preferred surroundings.

Some of those transplanted trees still remain in that barnyard, the spindly but proud result of a little boy hauling water in buckets from the spring to encourage them to grow tall in the hard gumbo soil, to provide him shade and leaves to rake.

“A yard should have trees,” Pops declares whenever the moment is right, an opinion that determined the fate of my own childhood growing up in a house tucked alongside a creek-bed that winds through a thick mass of trees.

As a child I would take off my shoes, tie the laces together and swing them over my shoulder so I could walk in the water, following the creek as it bent and bubbled in the most secret places on the ranch. It was never a question to me what was here first–the water or the trees. I knew that if I were an oak I would take root next to the water.

I suppose trees aren’t that much different from people in that respect, only I don’t imagine trees have much to do with the politics involved in such a precious natural resource. They take what they need to grow and leave the rest in the ground for the next living thing that comes in for a drink.

Humans make it complicated. And the road to come up with a way to pipe and manage this fresh, clean and paid-for water that is now flowing out of the faucets and into the kitchen sinks and bathtubs of my neighbors miles away has not been without its politics, fights and complications.

But this morning I woke up to fill our coffeepot, just like I had done the morning before, and the morning before. But it meant something different today as I lifted the glass pitcher up to the window. Husband shuffled in behind me and we stood there for a moment, taking in the monumental fact that this water that will brew our coffee traveled for miles in a pipe from the big lake where we swim and fish, has been purified and pressurized and cleaned up nice and fresh to ensure our white clothes stay white and our ice-cubes crystal clear, this water in our coffeepot is ours. Reliably, clearly and without much worry.

When we lived in the old house last winter there were times when we came home, turned on the faucet and had no results. This would send Husband pulling on his snow boots, wool cap, gloves and coveralls to investigate the situation. It might have been wiring, or a bad pump, a short or something I never really understood, but either way, it was our responsibility to figure it out.

Our quality of life out here in the middle of rural America depended on it.

Today we don’t have to worry about such things.

Today if we wake to find we don’t have water, we can make a phone call and someone on the other end can help us find an answer.

Today I can’t help but think of my grandparents who built a house in their favorite spot, our spot, only to have to literally pick it up and move it to the water.

Today I think of the homesteaders out here on the prairie in the heat of summer or the cold of winter worrying about water. Worrying if there would be enough. Finding solutions to get it to their homes and livestock. Making tough decisions based on the source.

On Saturday my parents will get their rural water. My mom will no longer have to take her white clothes to town to be washed, a chore she’s been performing for years to avoid rust streaks on light clothing from the discolored water that comes from her spring. My Pops will no longer experience the worry of sleepless nights when the faucet is dry and he doesn’t know why.

The day the water comes my parents will celebrate a monumental occasion, a long-awaited change, that, for as long as we are living, will not be taken for granted.

CD Release and a video!

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I’m getting ready for the release party for my new album “Nothing’s Forever” on Friday in my hometown of Watford City. It’s a project that’s been in the works for a while, most songs written in the time I’ve been living back at the ranch. I’m nervous and excited and happy to be playing songs I wrote with some of the best talent around.

If you’re in the area, I hope you can make it.

Friday, October 26th
7:00 pm
Outlaws Bar & Grill
Watford City, ND
Click here for more information

If you’re in New Zealand or Minnesota or Oregon or something, I understand if you can’t make the trip. Maybe I’ll find my way to you someday 🙂

Either way, until then, take a look at this NEW sneak peek video for one of my favorite songs on the album, “Home”

To preorder your copy, send an email to jessieveedermusic@gmail.com.

“Nothing’s Forever” will also be available in local stores, iTunes and other online merchants in November!

I’ll keep you posted.

Read more about the music and the release party here at www.jessieveedermusic.com

This familiar place

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Weekends out here can be bliss. Especially when it’s 50+ degrees and sunny and crisp and it’s autumn and your little sister comes over to spend the whole two days with you.

This happens sometimes–the weather cooperates perfectly with the plans you have. And our plans consisted of big breakfasts and coffee, a long walk through our favorite coulees,

a ride with Pops to our favorite spot in the trees

and a couple birthday parties for Little Big Sister and her Little Man.

Little Sister and I scheduled our weekend together and proceeded to tackle the checklist that ensured we got to everything from omelets to birthday cake. And we accomplished it all.

See, she’s been gone for a bit, out doing what we’ve been taught to do when we hit eighteen and graduate high school: get out, get going, see stuff, learn stuff, work and study and graduate and travel.

And come back if you want to.

Come back for a while.

And so Little Sister has come back. She’s come back with the same sort of remembered wonder that I experienced a few short years ago when I did the same thing. I’ve tried to explain it here a few times in these lines and photographs I share with you, how rediscovering those secret places I used to wander at the ranch as a child hold a sort of haunting nostalgia and comfort when visited as an adult.

But now that I have arrived and am here to stay my childhood secret spots have become familiar again. I visit them regularly either for a stroll to take photographs or to chase cattle along the trails. I am remembering and learning every day where all of these deer and cow paths wind and twist and turn, determined to be capable of navigating the place the way Pops does one day, without pause or back track.

And it’s an interesting and adventurous task I’ve set out to accomplish, one that, growing up, was always tackled with a shadow following a few yards behind me.

I swear just yesterday I was hollering at that little curly-haired six-year-old in the purple barn jacket to “go home and leave me alone!” Just yesterday, wasn’t I suggesting that if she really had to build a fort along the same creek bed, perhaps it should be a little further up the coulee and out of my sight.

And there we were last weekend walking side-by-side, adult women with our own fears and worries pushed back until Monday, tucked away so that we might enjoy and remember the time the tire swing broke sending Little Sister flailing into the creek, how we used to climb the old apple trees behind the house, and the hours we spent following Pops chasing a cow or a deer in the oak trees and brush that line the creek bottom.

How many mittens did we drop along the way? How many times did our boots fill with creek water?

How many wood ticks and burs and grass stains did we accumulate?

And in all of the lines and photographs I share in this space about the magic and adventure the ranch, our home, holds for me–all the ways I tell you it mystifies and heals, puts me in my place and brings me closer to the version of myself I like the most, I have to confess it is not the landscape alone that holds the responsibility.

I imagine I could fall in love with a number of creek beds, oak groves and rolling fields, marveling at the way the afternoon sun hits the leaves that have fallen into the water, getting to know how the trail winds up the embankments, coming to understand how it changes with the season.

I know I could fall in love with many places and landscapes throughout this world.

But it is this one, this one that holds my father’s footprints, my Little Sister’s laugh, my mother’s call to come in for supper. It is this one that promises Little Man a place to run and learn to ride horse and Big Little Sister a refuge if she needs it.

It is these hills, these paths, these coulees, these acorns, these fallen trees and fallen logs and this mud and these thorns and soft grasses that have bent under my growing feet and the feet of those who know me the best that gives this place a heartbeat and makes the sunrise brighter, the trees grow taller, the creek clearer, the horses more capable…

and me more grateful every day that through all these years we can be out in it, loving it and living in those familiar spaces on a days that were made to be together.

I blame the wind

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The wind is blowing like a spooky scene in a movie outside my window. What’s left of the leaves on the trees really have no chance at this point. It’s autumn and it’s acting like it, regardless of the fact that I was getting comfortable with weather in the upper 60s.

I’m not sure if it’s the wind or the rain or the cold that’s stirring things up, but I feel like the universe is out to annoy me.

I mean, I woke up this morning to the rain beating on the roof of this house and the wind whipping its hardest against the siding. It felt like it might shape up to be a nice day to stay home under the blankets, only, some people have to work.

And I am some people.

So I drug my weary body out of bed only to discover Husband milling around the house with a headlamp strapped to his forhead. Thinking this was a sweet ploy not to wake me in the dark of the early morning hours, I pulled my robe around me tight and flipped on the light switch.

And got nothing.

The same result with the faucet.

No power.

No water.

No lights, no coffee, no heat, no coffee, no shower, no coffee.

No coffee.

Well, I had to get to town so I came up with a reason this situation was a good thing. If I couldn’t take a shower, at least it was dark enough in the house so that I couldn’t see my hair sticking up or if my socks matched. At least I would have an excuse for looking disheveled. So I loaded myself and my empty thermos into the car and made my way to town, put on a little makeup in the visor mirror of my car when I arrived and, well, it all went down hill from there.

And I blame the wind.

I blame the wind for the fact that not even a ponytail can contain this wild hair. And for the hole in my sock that my big toe’s been poking through all day.

I blame the wind for my attention defect disorder while trying to meet a deadline.

I blame the wind for the long lines at the postoffice, the grocery store, the gas station and at the stoplight in town. I mean, it could be the damn apocalypse.

I blame the wind for blowing the door open to the house while I was gone and bringing with it a nice collection of leaves I’ll be cleaning out of this place until next fall.

I blame the wind for the fact that the dogs ran away. Again.

And while I’m at it, I blame the wind for compelling this ridiculously playful kitten to take painful swipes at my fingers as they move across the keyboard before she decides to climb up the back of my sweater to perch on my shoulder and put her butt in my face.

And it’s the wind’s fault that I have no idea what to make for supper, which is even a bigger problem because I skipped lunch. That was the wind’s fault too. And so is the lack of wine in the house and the fact that the lights in the bathroom didn’t come on with the rest of them when the power returned.

I blame the wind for the cow poop in the yard and the fact that we might never get around to finishing this house.

I blame the wind for the moldy cheese in my fridge, my laundry pile-up situation, the lack of cell-phone service in this house, my missing motivation to run a marathon, lift a weight, climb a hill or do any related form of exercise , the weird mole on my neck, my shattered dreams of becoming a professional figures skater, my sub-par culinary skills and my unruly eyebrows.

I blame the wind.

And I feel better.

Trail Riding

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It was a beautiful fall weekend at the ranch and to celebrate roundup and the change of the seasons and friends and horses and kids and ranch life in general our community got together for a trail ride.

The Blue Buttes Trail Ride is a tradition that has been organized on and off for years in this rural “neighborhood” that spans a circumference of 30 some miles.

When I was growing up this event was the like Christmas. The opportunity to ride my horse across pastures all day alongside my best friends made me feel grown up and capable and wild and free and a million things that a little girl wants to be when she’s 8 or 9 or 10.

Sometimes it snowed. Sometimes it rained. Sometimes the wind blew and sometimes we got all three. But regardless of the weather, the neighborhood showed up. They showed up with their horses and wagons and drinks and snacks and kids and they rode together on a trail mapped out weeks before that stretched for miles across pastures and cleared fields, through coulees and along fence lines and roads.

I don’t remember anything from when I was a kid about the route we took or the weather really, I just remember being so excited the night before that I couldn’t sleep. I remember riding my old mare, Rindy, kicking my feet out of the stirrups during the third or fourth mile, swinging my leg over the top of my horse’s neck and thinking I was cool.

Thinking that there was no kid in the world luckier than me.

And so this weekend, almost twenty years later (20? REALLY?) I saddled up again to hit the trail with my neighbors. And I have to say, aside from a little horse malfunction due to all of the energy in the air on that warm fall morning, it wasn’t long before I was feeling all those things again.

Cool? Well, maybe it was more temperature related than attitude, but capable and wild and free and lucky?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And really proud of my community and how they’ve held on to this tradition despite a changing world.

Proud of how they’ve kept their kids on the backs of horses and encouraged them to run.

Humbled by how they swing ropes and hitch up teams of horses to wagons.

Proud of their potluck dinners and generosity and enthusiasm for a lifestyle that is unique and important and tested by the modern world every day.

For twelve miles I sat on the back of a good horse and rode next to a friend. We talked about life and house building, husbands and pets, horses and work.

And we observed our world as it played out before us, young kids, their stirrups barely reaching the bellies of their mounts, kicking and flying back and forth across the pastures as fast as their horses were willing to take them.

Those kids would have gone faster and further if they were allowed.

And we watched families connected as they talked and laughed and moved through the pastures and gates. Old friends catching up.

Sisters laughing and joking.

A big extended family loaded and bundled up in a wagon sharing snacks and stories.

A husband and wife riding quietly side by side, helping one another along.

Whatever’s going on here.

And my friend and I, getting to know one another and the landscape that stretched for twelve miles as Pops pointed out where his mother was born, the dam where he used to swim and the route we took nearly twenty years ago when I was 8 or 9 and knew nothing but those miles and the back of my favorite horse.

Last Saturday I may as well have forgotten everything I’ve ever learned and all the things I’ve seen and have come to know in those years between. I may as well have forgotten I’d ever wanted to be anyone else.

Or anywhere else.

Because I was having good old-fashioned, genuine fun.

And I was the luckiest kid in the world.

More time

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

If I had one wish worth fulfilling I would wish the days longer.

I would wish for the sunrise to take its time,

and for the afternoon heat to linger.

And I would suggest that the night wait a while to come creeping in, sprinkling stars and showing off the moon.

I would ask to prolong that evening light, that witching hour where the world seems to glow with the soft golden haze of the sun.

I need more time to bask in it.

And I need more time to get to my work, to do the things I love and do them right. With care. With thought.

Yes, if I had a wish I would wish for more time.

More time.

To linger in embraces.

And kisses.

And not worry about the passing hours and a list impossible to tackle in the time given me in 24.

If I had a wish, I wouldn’t make lists.

I would move through the day knowing that what I get done is good enough.

And I would splash in more puddles.

If the earth spun slower I would take longer walks, I would write more poems, scratch more bellies, take longer baths, and can those tomoatoes already.

I would spend more time on the back of a horse,

in a conversation with my mother, over pancakes in the morning and in his arms at night.

If the sun would wait to set I would get in my car and drive to see you. I would. I would come with the muffins I baked and the bottle of wine I picked up along the way because I had time to make muffins.

And to pick the perfect bottle of wine.

Because I wished for more time.

I wish.

Delusions.

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I’ve been meaning to tell you some things about the pug. You’re all so supportive of him, the dog who, despite his sins and misadventures, still somehow finds a way to sleep on the couch.

Anyway, I figured you might be wondering how he’s been adjusting to this new life in his new home over the hill.

I’ll tell you, at times, it hasn’t been pretty…

And sometimes, his ear does this.

I’m guessing it’s probably due to the wind whipping through his fur as his short, stubby legs take his barrel shaped body across the pasture to try his luck at hunting down this guy:

Nope, not much has changed. Despite the new four walls the pudgy canine is still shitting on floors, hitchhiking to the nearest oil sites to see what’s cooking, working on taming the new feline in his life and exercising his delusions of grandeur.

And every year those delusions get, well, grander.

Don’t tell him he’s not a horse. He won’t believe you.

He will also not accept that he is not a cat.

Or a 110 pound cow dog.

Which is working out really well, now that Husband is on board with the idea that this dog could actually become something… well…helpful.

And so Husband has decided to work on it, you know, making the pug the best cow dog on our place. Which I realize doesn’t say much for the other dogs at the Veeder Ranch, but based on what we have to choose from, I’ll tell you, it could be true.

But it’s definitely weird.

Because the pug’s newly-honed talent has allowed for a fat little pug-shaped space in the corner of my husband’s heart.

A bond 4 years in the making…

Now I wasn’t aware this new role and relationship was occurring until I witnessed the pug stare down a small herd of cattle that had found their way to our front yard, pleasantly munching on what was left of the green grass poking out from under the fallen oak leaves and acorns.

Anticipating that damn dog’s next move, I hollered his name.
I hollered “no.”
I hollered “get back here!”

The pug turned his good eye toward me in confusion while Husband came up behind me, scolding me for yelling at the pooch.

What?

He then proceeded to inform me that lately he had been working with the pug on the whole cow-chasing thing, because, well he seemed he was brave enough, and when told to “sick ’em” the lab just runs for the first big stick.

So it’s either Husband or the pug who is destined to perform the task of getting those cows out of the yard.

And it seems the pair have found their common ground.

Delusion.

The difference between us.

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I convinced Husband to accompany me on a ride after work on Tuesday. The weatherman warned me it might be one of the last nice autumn days for a while and I felt the need to take advantage of it.

Plus, I dreamed the night before that I was riding a fast horse like the wind through the tall grasses in endless pastures and I suddenly felt the urge to make that dream come true.

An evening ride wasn’t a hard thing to convince my dearly beloved to participate in. Especially if it meant he could pretend he was looking for cows and actually getting work done. So off we went, the two of us, seeking the only kind of marriage therapy that works for us–a little ride together through our world.

The breeze and the light were perfect and my horse was just the right amount of lazy.

Suddenly I felt a wave of creativity as the sun crept down toward the edge of the earth.

So I asked Husband if he would be opposed to a little “sunset photo shoot” along the horizon, you know, because he has always made such a nice silhouette.

As usual, he humored me and I quickly planned out a method of capturing the romantic vision I had of my husband riding his bay horse at full speed across the landscape.

I got off my horse and crouched down among the grass as my husband followed my directions to “run your horse back and forth in front of me for a while until I say stop.”

So he did.

Thrilled with the results of that handsome man and his handsome horse romantically frozen in a moment of speed and power inside of my camera, I hollered at him “Go faster!”

So he went faster, back and forth, working on his horse, going nowhere in particular, just back and forth across the sky.

But from behind my camera they could be going anywhere, that man and that horse.

I felt like an artist with the power to freeze time, the gift of my camera allowing me to catch that horse’s mane as it reached toward the sky and his feet as they gathered beneath him.

“Go faster!” I hollered from my spot behind the camera.

So Husband made that horse go faster.

Watching them move across that landscape was beautiful and romantic and rugged and western and kind of like a John Wayne movie scene…all of the things Husband can be to me sometimes.

“Stop. Come back. Come here!” I yelled, suddenly struck with another idea.

The idea that if my husband could be all those things as a silhouette, I wanted a shot at what I could be as a dark, mysterious woman on a horse against the backdrop of a setting sun.

Husband stopped his horse in front of me and I handed him my camera.

“Can you take some pictures of me now?” I asked as I climbed up on my horse who was lazily munching on the tall yellow grass. “I’m going to go really fast. See if you can get my hair blowing in the wind as I ride off into the sunset.”

Husband took my camera and snapped away as I worked to channel the dream from the night before, the one where I leaned into the neck of my horse and kicked him gently as his hooves moved faster and faster across the landscape, gaining speed, pushing forward, becoming one fast blur as our hair whipped together in the wind.

Only, it seemed my horse didn’t have the same dream.

Nope.

His dream involved less running through endless pastures and more grazing through them.

And about half-way through our second pass across the photo shoot area, Husband yelled “Faster!” and the horse between my legs, the one I envisioned behaving like Black Beauty as I channeled my inner rodeo queen, began to behave more like the mule in that John Wayne movie with the nun.

And in one swift jump and kick, that horse demonstrated the major, glaring difference between me and my dearly beloved: