Well, I survived planning and executing Little Sister’s Bachelorette party.
As you can see, I made sure it was epically ridiculous by suggesting we all raid our mom’s and grandma’s closets, the thrift store or the costume shops to find the ugliest bridesmaids dresses possible.
FYI, Little Sister is now the proud owner of this gem of a bridal gown right here, in case she changes her mind about her real wedding dress…
As for my bridesmaid’s dress? Well it was so beautiful I was only allowed to rent, you know, to give others a chance at such beauty…
Anyway, Little Sister has cool and fun friends who are game for anything, so they obliged in full force, I made some tacos and margaritas, called the party bus and we were off for a night on the town.
We danced, we drank a few cocktails, we twirled around in our pretty gowns and we confused a lot of people.
And of course, it would be just my luck to be recognized by a loyal reader of my column at the Lonesome Dove while I was dressed as an 80’s prom queen.
But what’s life without a little good, clean, ridiculous fun…and a ridiculous outfit worn in public every once in a while.
And now I’m home this Monday rested up, getting ready for a round of CD release parties across the state and thinking about love and marriage beyond the celebration…
This week’s column is on dancing in the kitchen with my big sister and learning the two step in country school gym class.
It’s about being in a band and watching from the stage the different ways old cowboys two step and waltz and how the tradition of that sort of dancing, in this neck of the woods anyway, seems to sort of hang in there.
It’s about how I’ve been dancing with my husband since shuffling across the gym floor in phy-ed class in 7th grade and how we still argue about who is really leading (because my big sister always insisted that I be the boy).
I wrote the column after a Saturday spent playing a college rodeo dance and watching the couples spin, lift and swing each other around, packing the dance floor on the more traditional country songs that we played, and dispersing to the sidelines until we played another they could dance to.
Photo by Annika Plummer Photography
Watching all those young people in cowboy hats and cowboy boots out on the dance floor was so refreshing to me. I couldn’t help but think how they might have learned their skills dancing in the kitchen with their moms or dads or sisters.
I couldn’t help but think of this Ian Tyson son my dad used to sing as I wrote….
Things are starting to shape up around here. We spent the weekend with family and friends working on sprucing up the barnyard. We painted out-buildings, built new fences and painted those, pruned some dead trees,
cleaned up old rusty pieces and parts, painted signs and made more plans for next time.
It’s funny what a little bloom on the trees and a little paint can do the spirit of the place. This barnyard facelift has been a long time in the making, but tough to get to because when we’re all working full time and getting ready for cattle in the spring, sometimes all we have time for is the basics: fix the fence so the cows don’t get out, make sure we have water. Ride to check on things.
But because Little Sister’s wedding and the 100 year celebration of the ranch is coming up on us quickly, we have a goal to make the place functional as well as presentable to the public. And so that’s what we did.
In the time in between, back over the hill at our house, my husband has been busy working on building the walls in the basement and I’ve been busy obsessing over our new lawn.
And making plans, finally, for a garden of my own over here.
It’s coming on time for planting. It was pretty cold the last couple days, but in a week or two I think we’ll be in the safer zone for frost and I can get my hands in the dirt to plant some beans and peas and cucumbers and corn and carrots and onions and tomatoes and anything else I can find room for there.
This garden has been on my list since before we got this house built over here, and each year it seems more important projects sort of push it out of the way. So I head on over to mom and dads and help plant theirs so that I don’t feel as guilty when I raid it come July and August.
But this year is my year. I mean, we got the grass growing. We got our fence up. We’re getting the barnyard under control. We’re getting our shit together…
And in honor of the work getting done around here, I want to share with you another song off of the new album, which will be available to download on CD BABY and at my front door TOMORROW!
“Work” Jessie Veeder, Northern Lights-2015
And if you order the signed album atwww.jessieveedermusic.com today, I’ll throw in this cool sticker as a token of my appreciation 🙂
Jessie Veeder discusses her Nashville album, “Northern Lights”
This isn’t a new horror story for you my dear readers, but, well, WOODTICKS!
I found one crawling up my bathroom wall this morning.
Last week, when I was in the doctor’s office, I reached up to find one on my head.
The blossoms are blossoming, the grass is getting green, the trees are budding and the little bastards are marching out in full force.
And because all I seem to do lately is pick them off of my pant legs and off my husband’s pants legs, and off my dogs and, apparently, off my walls, I had to write about all the horrifying and encounters I’ve had with them in this week’s column.
Upon publishing, it was brought to my attention that I shouldn’t take such pests lightly as they carry diseases and some people have been affected by said diseases in terrible ways. My heart goes out to anyone who has suffered from lymes disease or any other debilitating symptoms that ticks and mosquitos can cause. I know this is a possibility and we work to prevent these encounters as much as possible out here at the ranch. Please, use bug spray, always check you and your kids, know the proper way to remove them should they become embedded, and protect your pets with the appropriate medication.
I don’t want anyone getting sick. I just want all the ticks in the world to die because as far as I can tell in my abundant research, they don’t do anything any good.
But if you can’t beat the scary and creepy things in life, I find it’s ok to laugh in its face…so that’s my tactic. Laughing at the things I can’t control and then flushing the little bastards down the toilet…
I’ve sort of been doing the North Dakota, small town tour lately. I’ve been hired to speak and sing at some special events, touching on topics like ranch living and what it’s like in Boomtown.
It’s been fun, hitting the open road and taking the exists on familiar highways that I’ve driven by but never turned fully discovered.
But it’s also been nostalgic in a way. Because I’m reminded in these small towns what my small town used to be like. Actually, I’m reminded that not all small towns are bursting at the seams, under constant construction and constant growing pains.
I’m reminded that some places stay the same. Quiet. Quaint. Full of people who know one another, their children and their children’s children.
The funny thing is even after watching my small town boom from 1,200 people to over 12,000 or more, I still think of my town the same way as I thought of it growing up. And, in a way, I see it that way too. I mean, I’m not blind to the changes, but the way it was seems to sort of be ingrained in me.
Like, I still call the hardware store Hardware Hank, even though it hasn’t been called Hardware Hank since I was in junior high.
And when I give directions or talk about the new developments, I base locations off of where things used to be…like the old Chuckwagon cafe that closed when I was in high school or the where the bakery used to be…or where Larson’s used to live…
Funny how memory works. Funny how we connect to place in different ways and at different times. Funny how, in my mind, time sort of stopped for my hometown fifteen years ago…
Funny how this causes major issues when a new resident is trying to give me directions to a new development (that used to be a field next to my friend’s house) based on street signs…
Funny how annoyed I was at the reality of getting lost in my hometown…
I spent my work break today pulling woodticks off of Gus.
I’ve never seen so many ticks on a dog in my life. I think there were more ticks than dog actually.
I’m horrified.
And I’ve even taken preventative measures. Nothing can stop the little bloodsucking bastards around here.
So there’s that.
On my next break I’ll tackle brown dog…there’s more square inch of actual dog, so I’m guessing there’ll be more tick…
‘Tis the season
And it’s also the season for spring cleaning and raking and fencing and painting and all around maintenance and clean up.
We do this a little bit every spring when the weather warms up, but there’s a sense of urgency this year because Little Sister is getting married out here in like two months.
Yeah, that little sister…tell me we haven’t all grown up…
Anyway, a big party to plan means we’re doing things like pulling weeds in front of the barn where there’s usually a bunch of hay.
No one’s ever pulled weeds out from in front of the barn ever in the history of the world, so that was fun.
Seriously. I have an entire pickup full of dried out six foot tall pigweeds waiting to be disposed of when the wind decides to give it a rest.
Oh, and I bought paint for the little tin tack rooms too. I’m going to match them to the barn. It’s going to be adorable.
Just call me Martha Frickin’ Stewart, Queen of the Barnyard.
Sometimes all we need is a party around here to get our shit together, and picked up and thrown out. Seriously. We even cleaned the shop a little. Well, at least got rid of some of the Tupperwear bins full of childhood things none of us girls could throw away when we moved out of the house. Because one day I might want to display that old 4-H horse show trophy in my adult home.
Sheesh.
Anwyay. So that’s what’s been on my mind. Weeds and grass and woodticks and weather and weddings and putting this place together.
I have to focus on something or I’m going to have a mental breakdown about the fact that my little sister is grown up enough to get married and own a home…
Summer is making a promise to appear once again and I am thinking today about the way life can change in that short season.
When we were younger, summer meant a break, a breath, a transition onto the next phase in our lives, the next grade, the next chapter.
Now that I’m all grown up, it’s changed a bit. Summer means hustle and heat and a chance to get things done around here. It’s not a transition but a season we look forward to so we can warm up and make plans.
But sometimes when you’re in the middle of making plans for your life, your life changes.
That’s what happened to me almost nine years ago today. I opened the classifieds to look for a summer job to get me through the slow months between touring in the spring and fall, and I ran across a job opening for a Special Event planner at a performing arts school in Fargo, ND.
I was a year out of college, planning a wedding and getting ready for the rest of my life. The job was going to be a stopover, a temporary position, a stepping stone to the happily ever after.
Turns out on my way I found what have become some of the most important people in my life. I fell in love with them between flipping burgers, moving picnic tables and changing the lights in the porta potties. They made me laugh while we worked our asses off in the 104 degrees of the hottest summer of my life.
And when that summer was over, we just held on to each other. Not out of some master plan to never lose touch, but because we liked each other. Because when we meet up we get a break, a laugh, a chance to be our true selves together before rushing back off into the real world, the one we were imagining that summer, the one that we never seem prepared for.
The one that’s a lot easier with these friends on the other end of the line.
We’re scattered all over the mid-west now, married or paired off or single, but we meet up when we can. Just a few weeks ago it was flinging ourselves down a mountain in Colorado.
It seems we always find an excuse to drive or fly in the direction of each other.
And so I was thinking about my friends when I wrote my column this week. I was thinking about them and so I wrote about them, but maybe didn’t get to say exactly what I wanted to say in the end. Because it turns out it’s hard to conjure up words to describe how lucky I am to have found a set of people who are just so perfectly themselves that they make me believe in all different kinds of love.
Summer arrived here for a minute or two this weekend.
And when summer arrives, I can’t be trusted.
I drink more alcohol because it tastes better on the deck.
I eat grilled brats for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I blow off chores and work to get on the back of a horse.
And, I, uh, well…
I do shit like this…
Because I lose my mind out here when the weather thaws the ground. There are so many fun things to do and not enough time to do them, so I tool around the place looking for projects that inevitably turn into predicaments…
predicaments like these…(Cue Prince Charming…)
No worries though. Despite my idea that I should drive, followed by my insistence that I was trying to avoid the mud, and the thought that maybe, after a few minutes of rocking back and forth and flinging mud into the atmosphere, my mouth, face, hair and everything in between, we should, you know, go get the pickup and a rope, Husband and I saved the machine from its muddy, messy grave…by man power (and woman thumb on the throttle) alone.
Here’s hoping that you had a similarly successful, summery weekend of your own.
A few weeks ago, in Western North Dakota, three teenage boys were driving home together from a basketball tournament when the pickup they were in hit an icy patch on the highway and slid into the path of a semi.
None of them made it home that night.
When news of a tragedy like this spreads to our small town and rural neighborhoods, our hands go to our mouths and our hearts drop as we think of their families and remember our own losses.
These three young boys, though I didn’t know them, have been on my mind and on the minds of those across this state, which seems to get bigger and smaller all at once as we reach out and connect in our shared stories and experiences.
After this column was published I received email after email from those who were remembering someone they lost, or those grieving, or those comforted by reading words that were on their minds.
Thank you for those notes. The human experience is as tragic as it is beautiful and I am fortunate to have an outlet in which I can reach out and express my personal thoughts with the hope that they resonate with someone.
Your words back to me mean the world to me. It’s the reason I keep attempting to put thoughts down week after week.
Because we need to know that we’re not alone out here in this unpredictable world.
I’ve had the privilege during the last few weekends of February to be involved in a variety of celebrations focused on music.
Last weekend, for example, I was one of dozens of local musicians who stood on the stage and sang our own versions of Bob Dylan tunes as part of the first ever Dylan Fest, an effort to applaud a man of prolific talent with a broad scope of influence.
The weekend before I stood on the same stage to sing and celebrate women and the wide variety of music that lives in us.
And then I moved down the street and shared the stage with those women as we celebrated songwriting.
The day before I had been in our capitol city celebrating North Dakota musicians. And after the awards ceremony, I gathered with my band on a small stage for an after party where we found ourselves surrounded by musicians of every genre singing along, collaborating and sharing that stage together in the name of camaraderie and respect for our work and an overall passion for words and notes and dancing along for the love of it all.
I have to say, for a woman who has been performing most all of my life, I continue to be surprised by the way music can gather people together of all different ages and backgrounds and stories and experiences and hold us there, connecting us in the moment.
It happened last weekend on a big stage and it happened for me on a smaller stage later that day where I found that I had collected a drummer and a lead guitar player from Bismarck and paired them with a bass player from Fargo and a steel guitar player from Minneapolis and we mixed it all up with a rancher from Western North Dakota and his daughter, the writer and singer who had the big idea for the whole shenanigan in the first place.
In that restaurant in Fargo in the middle of city streets in the middle of winter there were a hundred different stories and a hundred different reasons why we all found ourselves there—a birthday party, a gathering of friends, a drink after work, a chance to hear something new—but there we were, not just in the same room, but nodding our heads and clapping our hands and sharing our stories and toasting and drinking and living in the moment together.
And man did we have fun, the six of us misfits fitting nicely together up at the front of that room singing songs I wrote that some of them had never even played before that night.
And then old familiar tunes that we could all sing along with.
These experiences just keep getting better and more meaningful to me as an artist. And I’m not sure why except to say I have begun to realize how special they are, not only as an artist, but as the person who has sat in a crowd and found myself so moved by what someone else had to say.
Because not only did it make me feel like I wasn’t alone, but because it meant that they weren’t either.
And so I’ve been thinking lately about the value of that moment and how important it is for a community to cultivate it.
Because some of the best moments of my life have been built by music.
Some of the hardest have been processed through the same medium.
And if there wasn’t a song to reflect it all, well, then I have always been compelled to make one for myself.
My column appears weekly in newspapers across the state of North Dakota. If you’re interested in running my work, please contact me at jessieveeder@gmail.com
Well, I survived planning and executing Little Sister’s Bachelorette party.
Things are starting to shape up around here. We spent the weekend with family and friends working on sprucing up the barnyard. We painted out-buildings, built new fences and painted those, pruned some dead trees,
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 