Category Archives: Fargo Forum Columns

Sunday Column: A Birthday

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It’s birthday day today! It’s hot and muggy without even the slightest hope of a breeze and I’m eating popsicles and contemplating a birthday afternoon nap. Sounds about right for every August 25th I can remember.

And so I’m happy to report the deck was a hit, and so were the margaritas and the thirty-seven salads, the  beans, the chips and dip, the roast beef and the sweet Super Mario birthday cake my friend made.

Did you know that the first Nintendo was released in 1983?

Yes.

I share a birthday with Mario.

And the moonwalk.

And Hooters.

It was a good year.


And it was a good day.


And I am grateful.

Coming Home: Whether it poured or sprinkled, birth story holds truth 
By Jessie Veeder
8/25/13
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com 

 


Sunday Column: Holding on is the best part…

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Wedding
Last week Husband and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I went to the new grocery store and picked up crab legs, opened a bottle of champagne and we sat at our kitchen table and looked out the window at the tall grass and the setting sun and remembered what it was like

To be 15 and at the movies together for the first time

To be 16 driving the backroads in his Thunderbird

To be 17 and making plans to leave this place

To be 18 and away from home together

To be 21 and uncertain about where to go from there

To be 23 and married under the oak tree at the ranch with nothing ahead of us but time and gravel roads and plans we started making when we were 15.

Wedding Tree

Today my dearly beloved is outside hammering and screwing a big deck to the side of our house so that we can spend the rest of our summers opening the sliding glass doors with a glass of wine, a plate of steaks, watermelon for cutting or corn for husking, a magazine, a guitar or a good book to accompany us while we look out over our little homestead under the big blue sky or setting sun.

My future with this man has not always been clear, but it has always held him close: in the hot summer sun wiping the sweat from his forehead as he measures and saws and plans, bundled up against the winter winds on his way to work, rolling out his mother’s noodle recipe on the kitchen counter, throwing a stick for our big brown dog, riding a good horse behind some good cows, rocking our children and next to me, no matter what, just near me.

And so I hold on. I’ve held on since we I was eleven years old sitting next to him in band class.

Coming Home: Loving the same man for more than half my life
by Jessie Veeder
8/18/13
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com 

I hold on because it just keeps getting better.

Sunday Column: Hometown/Boomtown

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Last Friday I helped play host to one of the biggest community events in Boomtown, the  Best of the West Ribfest Street Fair and Car show.

We had been planning the event for months and were relieved to wake up under sunny skies and a forecast that was perfect for strolling the sidewalks, listening to music, shopping, and tasting the ribs seasoned and cooked to perfection by local  organizations and businesses.

For almost twenty hours the committee and I ran up and down Main Street organizing teams, taking photographs, making announcements, moving chairs, washing tables, talking to guests and generally making sure everyone was having a good time.

My feet are still recovering, but the blisters were worth it. It was a great event, the kind that makes you proud to be from a small town, even though that small town is growing and changing right before our eyes.

Yes, every year this event gets bigger and bigger because every year our town gets bigger and bigger, growing and bursting at the seams to accommodate and welcome the evolving oil industry barreling down our gravel roads.

Last month we celebrated the grand opening of a giant new grocery store.

This fall we’ll have a Chinese Restaurant.

We have two stoplights.

We are planning a new hospital, a new daycare, a new school and a new way of thinking about change and what it means to us.

It hasn’t been easy on everyone and that’s a truth I can speak without hesitation.

It hasn’t been easy.

But it has been interesting. And exciting. And overwhelming and at times and in many ways really wonderful.

Like Friday, when families, both new to town and natives to the area, strolled down a street smoking with the smell of summer cooking, stopping to listen to their hometown band or to grab some free ice cream or take a shot at dunking their favorite teacher in the dunk tank.

We were having fun. We were slowing down. We were spending time with one another and continuing a tradition.

And we were all neighbors eating ribs on a summer afternoon in our town.

In Boomtown.


Coming Home: No standing still in Boomtown
By Jessie Veeder
8/11/13
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com

Sunday Column: The road

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I’ve had some pretty great adventures in the name of music. This summer almost every weekend has been filled with some sort of gig that takes me away from this place for a bit.

I’ve loaded and unloaded my car and pickup dozens of times.

It’s been months since I’ve completely unpacked my bag.

Please don’t look in my closet.  I don’t even want to look in my closet.

Anyway when you live in the middle of nowhere, pretty much everywhere you need to go involves a road trip.  So it’s a good thing  I’ve had years to master hours of car time. Sunflower seeds. Coffee. An updated play list on my iPod. A mental list of the most convenient places to stop for fuel. Not a bit of hesitation about singing at the top of my lungs, even when pulling up next to you at a stoplight. Windows open when the weather’s nice and the time is right.

The road to and from this place is early mornings, peaceful and dewy, running-late afternoons and evening sunsets where I don’t really feel like it but I’m going.

Some of my most creative times have been behind the wheel of my car, alone out there somewhere on a road in the midwest.

Some of my scariest have been out there too. Blizzard and tornado watches, black ice, flooding and miles and miles of antelope and sagebrush fields with an emptying tank and not a gas station for miles.

In the last few weeks my road trips have involved the men from my hometown band. It’s nice to have a pickup full of voices and stories about the old days playing in bar bands and bowling alleys. I welcome the company in the car and beside me playing guitar.

And it’s nice to have a crew that understands the life of a musician is mostly just an absurd train of events that involves setting up on flatbed trailers as a thunderstorm rolls through town, hauling around and hooking up sound system after sound system, laughing off requests to play “Smoke on the Water, ” to turn it up, to turn it down, to play something faster, or slower or something we don’t know. It’s good to know that this group won’t mind if a gig doesn’t quite turn out the way we planned, or the night drags on into morning, or we have to haul our guitars through a foot of mud to the stage. It’s alright. Because sometimes it’s great, and the harmonies are on and the audience is swaying and singing along and you know that they know that there’s more to music than the miles we’ve put on to get here and home in one piece.




So when you get back to the ranch at 3:30 in the morning only to wake to a call that the cows are in the neighbor’s wheat field, you don’t complain, you just take a swig of coffee, pull on your snap shirt and boots and head out the door to saddle a horse and bring them home.

Because it’s the life I chose. The one I write about and sing about and bring with me when I go.

Coming Home: Freedom sometimes means settling down
By Jessie Veeder
August 4, 2013
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com 

Music and miles, late nights and cows with terrible timing…

And it’s good.

Sunday Column: What makes a summer

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Well, we made it back from the edge of the Montana mountains late last night. We were a wagon train of two pickups headed west, our cargo of guitars and sleeping bags, boots and coolers of beer, musicians and friends, a little more dusty than when we arrived in that Montana cow pasture ringing with music on Friday.

It was a long haul. 800 some miles, three small town diner stops,

countless fuel-ups, sunflower seeds and coffee refills  and only one “could have been major but actually turned out ok for once” pickup hiccup on the interstate east of Billings, MT.

Because, as Husband says, “It isn’t an adventure until it’s an adventure.”

And so we had one out in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, a bunch of neighbors and friends from the oil fields of North Dakota headed west to hear Merle Haggard sing “Momma Tried” and pick a little themselves on stage and around the campsite at night.

I’m home now with the memory of it turning the corners of my lips up a bit as I unpack and pack my bags again to head east for another gig.

I go to Devils Lake, ND today to sing in a park, but the band will stay home. They have work to do and things to catch up on so I’ll go it alone and that’s alright.

Although it’s always more fun with the boys around.

It’s going to be August in a few days.

August. The last month of summer at the ranch, rolling in with big thunderheads, sunflowers, prairie grass and wheat that turns gold over night.

Summer is fleeting here and I’ve spent this season chasing it–behind my camera, on the highway, on the back of a horse, on the top of a hill, down in the cool draws and behind my computer making plans.

I wish it were longer. Everyone does. But it doesn’t matter really. I’ll think of summer when the snow falls outside my window in December and I won’t think about its lifespan.

I’ll think about the life we put into it.

Coming Home: Berry season brings good intentions
By Jessie Veeder
7/28/13
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com 

Because summer means so many things to me, and so I’m happy to be here in it while it lasts…whether it’s picking wild raspberries in a cool draw on our North Dakota ranch

 or singing to the wild landscape and wild, wonderful people of Montana!

I’m glad to be home for a minute, and then I’m glad to be on the road.

 See you in Devil’s Lake tonight! 

Sunday Column: Some days the Bakken ain’t so Rockin’

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On Friday evening we took a ride through the east pasture checking cows. The sky turned from blue to pink in front of our eyes and a small storm pushed through.We caught the breeze but didn’t get caught in the rain.

We caught the juneberries and the raspberries before the birds.

We caught Pops over the hill filling his mouth and his pocket and we were caught in one of the greatest things about living on this place.

Today I will attempt Juneberry pie because Husband packed his saddlebags and the breeze is blowing nice through the kitchen windows and it’s Sunday.

This is the kind of life I like to talk about. The kind of things I moved back here for. Sunsets and wildflowers and the sleek back of horses and fat happy cattle and Sundays and family.

These are all part of my reality.

But so is the dust kicked up by trucks tending to the oil well a mile down the road and the slick mud they make when it rains.

Sometimes I get stuck on my way out of this place.

Sometimes my car breaks down and so does our pickup on the way to get it all fixed. Sometimes the price of progress means you won’t possibly make it to your appointment on time.

And sometimes, after all that, one of those big trucks kicks up a big rock and you get another big chip to add to the 27 you already have in your windshield.

Sometimes I use my middle finger and think, hell, it’d be easier to just ride my horse out of here.

Sometimes it rains like hell and I’m reminded that I’m not perfect and neither is this place.

Sunday Column: Some days the Bakken ain’t so rockin’
By Jessie Veeder
7/21/13
Fargo Forum

I’m not perfect and neither is this place.

Sunday Column: How we’re tied together

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We built our new house below a hill we call “Pots and Pans.”

This morning the windows are open to a cloudy sky and the damp, cool breeze is drifting in the windows and tickling my bare feet. I look out on the hill my cousins and I used to scale with little legs, a weekend’s supply of juice boxes and big aspirations of adventure. Even after all these years that hill looks big to me. 

Even after all these years, when the cousin’s get together, we remember the quests we would take to reach the top where a different generation had left us treasures–flour sifters, cheese graters, mixing bowls, cast iron pans and big deep pots we could use to make mud pies or sweet clover soup.

Even after all these years we still remember who got a cactus in his butt on the way up, who peed her pants, who cried when the horse flies got unbearable and who lead the charge. 

Even after all these years I still climb Pots and Pans, to get a better view, to check on things, to remember and to be grateful–for my family and the landscape and memories that binds us. 

Coming Home: Family is connected by land
By Jessie Veeder
7-14-2013
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com 

 

 

 

Sunday Column: On horses and what it means to hold on

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July is full of so many seasons out here in the middle of America. We have fireworks season, chokecherry season, lake season, running through the sprinkler season, county fair season, street dance season, grilling season, family reunion season and, of course, wedding season.

This month holds so much potential for fun and connecting with community and family that it’s one of the reasons I wait for it all year.

And one of the reasons each day of sweet July is planned, each square on my calendar is filled in with an idea and an event I cannot miss.

This weekend was one of those that has held its spot of anticipation for months. The youngest of the Veeder cousins had a date to get married and so the rest of the cousins were summoned from Western North Dakota, Eastern North Dakota, Southern North Dakota, Washington DC, South Dakota and Texas to give him hugs and cry because he was all grown up.

And so we were all together to celebrate most of the seasons: fireworks season, wedding season, grilling season, lake season, dancing season and family reunion season.

Here we are, all grown up! (We missed you Little Big Sister and your Little Man)

This past week spent with the cousins and family who used to gather in my grandparent’s tiny house tucked in the buttes of the ranch for Easter egg hunts and turkey dinner and carols by the Christmas tree has been the highlight of my summer.

And so I’ll tell you all about it when I sort through the photos.

I promised you last week and I’ll keep my word.

Can you tell we’re related?

Because you have to see these beautiful and talented people. And I have to show you a photo of what we used to look like when we ran around these hills as kids decked out in our fanny packs and neon t-shirts, side ponytails and scraped knees.

You won’t believe that we all turned out to be pretty cool in the end.

It’s true, despite, well…this…

But for now it’s back to the grind and back to life on this ranch, a place that rings with the laughter of my cousins and the adventures we made for ourselves out here when we were glued together by grandparents that left us too soon.

Tonight Husband and I will move some cows from the home pasture out east, because July is also made for ranch work. I will sit on top of a horse I learned to ride under this very hot July sun all those years ago and think about the blessings and lessons this ranch has taught me about horses and family and what it means to hang on tight.

Coming Home: Learning their language, horse whisperer or not
By Jessie Veeder
7/6/13
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com 

Sunday Column: Celebrating the Legends in our family

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If I I’ve learned anything from coming home it’s that the people in my family are some of the most fascinating, entertaining, hilarious, trustworthy, giving and talented people in my life.

This last weekend we celebrated family and community with Watford City’s annual Homefest celebration, an event that features street dances, street fairs, kids games, art and music in the park, golf and a road race, all ways for reunioners to get together and reconnect.

I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for months because it meant that our family got to have a little reunion of our own. My cousin from Texas had made plans to swing through the ranch with her two adorable kids and her mom and spend some time before all of my relatives load up and hit the trail to celebrate my baby cousin’s wedding on Saturday.

So that’s why this Sunday post is coming to you on a Monday. Because yesterday I was making breakfast and squeezing sweet baby cheeks and picking wildflowers and climbing the hill my cousins fondly refer to as Pots and Pans with the next generation of Veeders in tow.

I want to tell you how it made me feel to stand on that hill with my aunt who reminds me more and more every day of my grandmother, and my Pops and uncle and Little Man and my cousin and best friend who used to wear trails with me on this place showing her young daughter what her great grandparents worked so hard to keep for her.

I want to tell you all about it and I will when I sort through all of the photos I snapped of those sweet babies exploring this place. It was the first trip my cousin has taken to the ranch since our wedding almost 7 years ago, so to say it was special would be an understatement.

To say I’m excited to spend next weekend celebrating my baby cousin’s wedding with some of my favorite people in the world who used to lead me up those hills, pick wildflowers for our grandmother’s table and cactus out of our baby cousins’ butts is one of those understatements as well.

But I’ll tell you all about it later. Today, I want to talk about another special gathering of relatives and friends that took place last weekend on top of the badlands on a beautiful summer day where my great uncle Lynn, my grandmother’s baby brother,  was inducted into the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame.


As I say in the column, when it comes to family, we all want to feel like a little part of us is legendary. To watch Lynn be recognized for the work he’s accomplished as a rodeo cowboy and rancher made me proud of our lifestyle, but after the summer days we’ve spent catching up with people connected by roots and stories and blood, I believe the real legacy we leave is in the love, time and memories kept.

Coming Home: Remembering the Legends in our Family
by Jessie Veeder
6/29/13
www.inforum.com 

To have this landscape serve as the backdrop is just another beautiful link in that connection to one another.


Sunday Column: Showing love with rhubarb

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It’s Sunday and I might get to it this afternoon. The row of canning jars lined up on my counter top,  bags of frozen strawberries preserved in the freezer

and stalks of rhubarb waiting for me in Pops’ garden,


waiting for me to stay home long enough to cut, measure thaw and put together a few jars of strawberry rhubarb jam.

It’s Sunday so it’s possible, if the rain keeps falling, hiding the blue sky that means we should go out and work.

Ride my horse.

Chase some cows.

Cut some weeds.

Cut some wildflowers.

Cut some rhubarb…

Because in this weather where the planting was done late and the vegetable seeds are working to break through the ground, the presence and plethora of the ever hearty rhubarb plant sitting out there in the dirt or hiding under the berry bushes makes me feel guilty for failing to reap the benefits.

Rhubarb should be appreciated, made into something, tasted, tested and shared. And because I haven’t had a moment to pick and put some sugar on it, I wrote about it.

Coming Home: Showing love with rhubarb
by Jessie Veeder
6/23/13
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com 

So I think I’ll make time for the jelly today. I owe it to the plant and my Pops who keeps reminding me, there’s rhubarb growing out back…