Category Archives: Musings

my philosophy I suppose

A new quiet chorus repeats…

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If I could fill my blank page with words that made up the most perfect ending to a season that has given us her all, glorious and blue, green and orange and wildflower purple and full of life, I would give to the wind a voice. And he would speak deep and coarse about the way the grass bent beneath him as he worked to push the storms through the buttes and over the prairies.

He would tell us how he worried it might not dry up, how he watched as our lands soaked with water forcing trees to uproot and slide down the hills, and rivers to rise and fill up our homes. He would cry on these pages. He would say “it had to be…it had to be so, just as I must take the leaves from your trees.” And then he would laugh a big laugh at the way our hair stands on end when he comes around and how we lean into him out here…

the way we loathe him and need him and keep him under our skin all at once.

If I wrote the book I’d make the wind tell us. 

If I could paint the most beautiful cool down, I would splash the canvas with gold and deep rich pinks and burgundy hues. I would use my soft brush to give the sky more clouds, thousands of clouds, fluffy and white, a stage for the sun to dance upon, to reflect her light, to choreograph her show the way it was meant.

I would paint the warmth of her glow on horses’ backs and splash her down between the shadows of the trees where the deer go to water. And next to the barn the cats would bask in the light–the light I would make live forever on that canvas. Forever in that space between day and night, sun and storm…warm and cold…

if I were to paint the cool down I would use all of my brushes and all of my colors.

If I were to sing from my soul an encore for the season’s end I would put the chorus on the wings of the geese. And as they took flight, catching that wind, touching those golden clouds, out from their lungs the world would hear a song so true and pure that up from the depth of the ponds and streams the frogs would find the harmony and the waterbugs would hum along.

The wild elk bedded down in the tall yellow grass would throw their heads back and bugle a sad, sad song of goodbye, the crickets would cry and the coyotes would take to the hilltops. The kittens would purr softly, the mice would hold still already and the cattle would stop their chewing to hear as the verses moved from the crocus to long days and onto cool rain.

And the third verse would swell and blend with the howling house dogs and the last screech of the red tailed hawk as the bridge pushed us to the end and then set us up with a prelude to a season changing…

And the geese would fade out for they’re heading south and in their place would be only the sound of winter…

a new quiet chorus repeats…

…another pallet of blues and grays…

…and a familiar wind to remind us.

My husband is the only thing that makes me cool…

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26

Well it’s been pretty quiet here at the ranch. The sun has been shining giving us some beautiful days to work with, but it gets up a little later and goes to bed a little earlier.

Just like me during this time of year, hunkering down and getting ready for the cold.

Yes, we’ve swooped into November free and clear of snowfall and biting temperatures, a gift from above for the late spring we were given. But I’ve heard rumors that we should expect snow and wind in the next few days, which would be pretty typical for these parts…

yeah, you heard me...

I guess the fact that it’s typical doesn’t make it any more fun for some of the creatures around here

Yeah, during this time of year more than the weather and sun make changes to their attitude and behavior at the ranch. The cows stay a little closer to home and the horses hang out by the hay stack, happy for the reprieve from the bugs and heat and happy to work on growing their shaggy coats. The pug snores a little louder for a little longer as he snuggles a little further into the blankets on the couch, the lab whines at the door and the herd of cats come running out from the out buildings at any sound that resembles the shaking of their food bag.

And me? Well, I acquire the qualities of all of these animals put together:  the big fluffy clothes, the munching constantly on carbohydrates, the whining and shivering at the door, the sleeping really, really hard and snuggling down with the passion of the pug.

Now I’d like to think all of these behaviors are acceptable in moderation, you know, if there’s someone around to notice that you’ve worn the same fleece pants six days in a row, to tell you to save a few noodles for the next guy, and to give you a reason to get your ass up in the morning before the sun.

But that has not been the case at the ranch this week. Nope, not at all. On Monday morning husband got up wwwayyyy before the sun and hopped a plane down to Texas for work. And while he’s been hanging out in khaki pants in corporate offices in Houston, eating at fine restaurants and experiencing valet parking,  I have been here in my fleece pants, alone with the animals, eating party pizzas and what’s left of the less than delicious noodle casserole I made on Sunday evening. And I tell you what, I have NOT been experiencing valet parking.

This is as close as it gets around here...

Yes, we’ve entered into the time of year when you need to start your car a few minutes to warm up the frost on the windshield before you get in and drive away. I’ve tried my damnedest to train the pug to do this for me, but I can’t wake him up before 10 am. So I’ve been left rushing out, robe flapping in the cold morning breeze to turn the key on my vehicle only to come storming back inside panting and rubbing my hands together, while the pug snores softly on my favorite blanket.

Oh, if only you had opposable thumbs...

Anyway, it’s day four of husband’s business trip and his absence has got me thinking about what I might be like as a single woman…and I am not convinced the outcome would be the best for me.

See, I’ve known husband since I was eleven years old. He’s been my best friend starting somewhere around fifteen when he was old enough to get his drivers license and drive out to the ranch to visit me, talk guns and horses with Pops, and teach my little sister to play chess. We went to college together, we got married, we’ve moved six times. He’s been the person in my life that unclogs the shower drain, keeps my wardrobe in check (whether I appreciate it at the time or not) and the sole reason I am not watching television on my dorm room sized TV, movies on VHS and talking on a Zach Morris era cell phone.

Here we are, Seniors at our Future Farmers of America banquet. I guess no one is really cool in a corduroy blue jacket...

Now husband and I have spent time apart, don’t get me wrong. When we were dating in college, he went back home to work and I stayed put. But in the course of our relationship it has generally been me who leaves on business trips, music gigs, and Vegas vacations with the ladies for weeks on end.

Yes, you heard me. I usually leave him at home to tend to the cats and train the pug and fend for himself. He’s good at it, you know, with his cooking skills and all. Usually by the time I come home from wherever I had been the pug is doing flips on command, there are six different gormet meals in the fridge left over from husband’s cooking experimentations, only one fork, one knife, one plate and one cup have been used the entire duration of my absence, the bed is made because he’s been sleeping on the couch, the cows are not in the yard, the garbage is taken out and he is handsome as ever…

am I right ladies?

What happens when husband leaves me?

Well, I found out a few weeks ago when he was off on his first business trip…and truth be told, it ain’t pretty.

Nope.

I retreat. I get into my projects, projects that I get distracted from when husband’s around reminding me that we need to cook and that he’s out of underwear so I should probably do laundry. Five days of husband’s absence and I turn into a complete recluse, cat woman who leaves her crafting projects on the table for days on end and eats nothing but peanut butter and jelly toast for breakfast and frozen meals for one at night. And when it’s time to turn in for the evening, I let a smelly little dog sleep in my bed with me while the big dog snores on the floor of my room with the idea that somehow these furry creatures will protect me if I happen to have an intruder…(which turns out is a bunch of shit because last night when I heard something rubbing against the side of the house outside my bedroom window those dogs didn’t move a muscle. I was left to fend for myself against the aliens with my biggest, pointiest high heeled boot in hand only to find out it was a cow munching on my lawn. Damn you cows! Now, if it’d been a raccoon,  it’d be a different story…so I’d like to think the same if it were an alien…) anyway…

My watch dog

When I am home alone I don’t call anyone, because I talk to my dogs. I don’t clean anything because I am too busy crafting,  I don’t listen to music because I am singing to myself…out loud, I don’t get anywhere on time because there is no one there to tell me to get my ass moving, I don’t do the laundry because I have extra underwear thankyouverymuch and I don’t take the garbage out because that is hubby’s job.

Yes, it’s a scary realty, me being in a house to fend for myself. And when husband left again this week, I fell into the same routines, proving that there was a reason the good Lord didn’t allow me to be single…no matter the man-repelling qualities I possessed…

Yup, that's me as a teenager...

So in day number four of living my life as a single woman, I’ve come to this conclusion (and I can’t believe I didn’t realize this much earlier): The man that I call husband, Cowboy, dearly beloved,  is the only thing that stands between me and the label “crazy cat lady.”  It’s been this way since I rolled into town school as a frizzy haired 7th grader in a kitten applique sweatshirt.

Just one look at this laid back, cute, trouble making boy gave me the wake up call I needed to pay a bit more attention to the details and, well, take some risks already…something he’s been teaching me since I first saw him throw spit balls in band class and get away with it.

Yes, husband makes me cooler. He always has.

The evidence is right here:

Without prom date....

With prom date (by the grace of God)

Maybe not a huge improvement, but at least I got that hair under control…

Yup, husband’s been the reason I found myself at parties with the cool kids in high school where I might have otherwise stayed home at the ranch to puffy paint another cat sweatshirt, the big reason I decided to experiment with a hairstyle other than a ponytail and the one who grabbed my heart by taking me on the roof of his parent’s house to look at the stars.

Reason number thirty-thousand I needed to ditch the scrunchies and find a way to keep this guy…

Who knows how many pet lizards, hamsters, puppies and pot bellied pigs I would have if I didn’t have someone across the table sorting through the consequences of such family additions? I would have found out how long that Chevy Lumina I was driving in high school would have lasted with 200,000 + miles on it had I not had someone rational there to tell me that normal people trade in their cars?  I would be watching my tiny TV with binoculars and writing this blog with dial-up internet on the refurbished 1999 version of the leftover computer from my momma’s office.

I would still be dressing like this:

Garth Brooks western shirt buttoned up to the top and a scrunchie on top of my head...yeah, that's what you're seeing here...

Don’t get me wrong here though, it’s not that husband pushes to make me a different person or tells me who I am is not good enough. In fact, I know he would love me should I ever decide to pull out that kitten sweatshirt again, which I fully intend on doing once I hit that age where I’m allowed to wear purple and red hats. No, this is what it is. Husband is the calm, cool, collected to my hyper, nerdy, scattered. He is the dog person to my cat, lizard, goldfish, pet parakeet person. He’s the “knows the right thing to say” to my “say a whole bunch of words and hope something is right,” the muscle to my Olive Oyl arms, the Drano to my drain clogged with frizzy hair.

He watches out for me so that I don’t need to rely on the pug to save me from the aliens. And I do the same for him, making sure that his hair doesn’t grow past his shoulders, fluffing the pillows and tucking the sheets in on the bed he slept in last night and by listening when he tells me he needs clean underwear…

When he’s not here I’m myself, yes. My scattered, nerdy, pet-cuddling, drain clogging, laundry avoiding self…just a little less balanced…

I can't help it, I was born this way...

And and a lot more starving…

Hunny, please come home soon, the leftover casserole is getting moldy…

Halloween in Boomtown

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On a dark and kind of windy night a woman in fleece pants and an old FFA sweatshirt sat alone in her farm house in the middle of nowhere eating leftover noodle casserole, waiting for little munchkins dressed as goblins and witches to pile out of pickups and knock on her door while the news anchors on the TV told her stories she already knew about the bustling, busy, over-stretched and opportunity filled boomtown where she once went to school and now works.

As the sun disappeared over the clay buttes and the stars popped out one by one, she munched on a bite sized Snicker bar for dessert. Her Halloween costume from the weekend’s festivities still lay in a crumpled heap, a massacre of fuzzy pink flamingo in the corner of her tiny house. Two days later and she was still recovering from the celebration of one of her favorite holidays. Turns out pink flamingos can’t handle five beers and two shots in the matter of three hours.

“Sweet Martha”, the girl thought to herself as she unwrapped another piece of candy. “What happened to the good ‘ol days when coming down from a sugar high and planning your costume around the necessity of a snowsuit were your biggest worries on Halloween?”

Here I am, six years old in a clown costume my grandma made for us..

She contemplated this for a while, because she could. Because no little Lady Gagas were knocking on her door and her husband had left her here for a week alone to her own dinner plans…and she was already failing. It was day one and she had resorted to leftovers and candy. Yes, she had time to herself. Time that, in another life, would have been spent planning her Pippi Longstocking outfit with her best friend up the hill who would be putting the finishing touches on her  picnic table costume. They would have been loading up in the pickup with their little sisters in turtlenecks and scarves shoved into witch’s capes and stuffed garbage bags that looked like pumpkins. Twenty years ago she would have been visiting the neighbors who lived within a fifteen mile radius of her little house in the coulee. Twenty years ago she would have been thrilled to curl her tongue into three loops, or throw her body into a cartwheel, or recite a poem about a goblin with the Picnic Table for their neighbor down the highway. “A trick for a treat,” she would say as she clapped her hands together.

Twenty years ago she would have performed. She would have thought this out. They would have expected it, the girl and her Picnic Table friend.  Because the stakes were high out here surrounded by gravel roads, trees windswept and bare, dark, starry skies and howling coyotes. It was Halloween for the love of Butterfinger! Halloween in the country and, well, twenty years ago those girls didn’t mess around.

The neighbor girls...

No, it didn’t matter that there were only five stops, only five houses to visit on Halloween night.  That was of no concern. The girls didn’t know about sidewalks and knocking on doors and running wild through neighborhoods. The ribbon of pink road, the miles of fence posts, the grazing cattle, that was their neighborhood…and it would take them days to walk it (especially in her dad’s oversized boots and with all that silverware stuck to the giant cardboard box her friend was wearing.) So their dads would drive them down the road to farmhouses lit up with lanterns and pumpkins with faces. Houses that smelled like dinner on the stove when they drove in the yard. Houses where their friends lived. The same friends who rode the bus with them for an hour every day to get to school.

Yes, twenty years ago those best friends lived for this holiday–the planning, the creativity, the stories and  piling into the warm ranch pickup with their squishy little sisters, caramel apples, mom dressed as witches, dads dressed as monsters and, well, the treats…

Momma and Pops on Halloween

Ah, the treats. The woman in fleece pants opened a box of Nerds and closed her eyes…

First stop was the neighbors to the south who would have a bowl on their kitchen table filled with pre-packaged goodies for all of the girls: stickers, small games, skittles, candy corn, chocolate shaped as pumpkins and, on your way out grab a scotcharoo why don’t you.

Second stop a half a mile down the road: homemade popcorn balls in orange and green. Glow sticks, apple cider, and a PayDay for the road.

Third stop on the highway: Time to perform. A trick for a treat and a long visit with a retired teacher who loved them and gave them pencils and made them hot Tang and sugar cookies. And they loved her too…and knew better than to say anything about the prunes she placed in the middle of those sugar cookies.

Back to the gravel to finish off the night with caramel apples and a handful or two from the bowls at the doors and then on to the Picnic Table’s house to dump out pillowcases full of treats and trade and sort and count.

A sad clown with a broken leg. Yes, I was accident prone even as a fifth grader...

The woman tilted her head back to finish off the Nerds and then got up off of the chair to take a peek outside.

“There will be no puffy gremlin visitors tonight,” she said quietly to herself.

Because times were different. Twenty years ago this landscape she lived on was dotted with young families working to make a living out on family farms thirty miles from town. Twenty years ago the country school was still open and playing host to Halloween parties with green punch, piñatas and those to-die-for popcorn balls.

Twenty years ago the woman in fleece pants wanted to be Pippi Longstocking…

But somewhere in those years, between eight years old and twenty-eight, people got older and moved to town and no more babies were brought home to those farmsteads that smelled like dinner when you drove into the yard. Moms who once dressed as witches became grammas to babies in other states and the hair on the young dad’s head grew gray or fell out.

And there was a time in there, it occurred to her, that perhaps her dad thought all was lost. When the last of his daughters packed her pumpkin costume away in the toy chest in her old room only to pull out of the driveway to get on with growing up, that he may have believed that he and those five neighbors may be the last to make it out on this landscape where the coyotes howl and the moon is bright.

There was a time like that for him, when there were no picnic tables or Pippis to drive around and the knocks on the doors on Halloween went from ten to five to none…

But she was back. Here she was. And so was her picnic table friend. And their other friends who once walked the sidewalks in town as kids were now holding the hands of their own children on Halloween. Here they all were, back home because it seemed, the times were changing.

The woman saw it first hand after a day of work in town, she understood that the nostalgia came from the stop she made  in the local department store on her way home to help her momma hand out candy to kids trick-or-treating in town. She needed to get a taste of the magic she was missing as a childless adult on this holiday, so she stood by the door unsure of what to expect from the children in her once sleepy hometown that had come to life in the midst of an oil boom.

And what she saw was bowl after bowl of candy diminishing before her eyes as a stream of princesses and Spider Men and bumblebees and pirates paraded through the doors, smiled and opened their treat bags hour after hour. She had never seen so many adorable, sparkly, smiling children out and about at one time. Her friend’s children were dressed as army men and Buzz Lightyear, her nephew as a lion, children she worked with in 4-H were witches, children of families she had never met before wandered in all dressed up and excited…all adorable, all doing what children should be doing on Halloween, all here, in Western North Dakota, on Main Street Watford City laying roots for their futures, making memories here in the woman’s hometown.

So, on a dark and sort of windy night a woman in fleece pants and an old FFA sweatshirt sat in her house reminiscing about a childhood full of Halloweens on a landscape that was dotted with friends and neighbors and black cows. She remembered this. And then remembered  a time when she wanted nothing more to be back in that place…and a time when she thought it might never be possible.

So although that woman knew that she wouldn’t hear a knock on the door of her little farmhouse from a witch or a gremlin or a picnic table tonight, she smiled as she popped another Snickers into her mouth knowing that out there her community was changing. New goblins and firemen and zombies were walking the streets of her hometown, finding themselves bonding over skittles and costume ideas. And for one night those children in sequins and cardboard boxes and masks spoke louder than all of the truck traffic, worries, gossip and news stories that move and swell along a Main Street that is changing every day in a town that is pushed to its limits.

Yes, there, on Halloween, on the scariest night of the year, were the children– building strength, camaraderie and hope.

Hope that there is an opportunity for people to make it again, to really build something, to make it possible again for children to grow up in the hills among the hay bales, to eat a neighbor’s popcorn ball, to sit and sip hot cider, to perform a trick for a treat..

To live a good life.

To have a Happy Halloween.

Whether on sidewalks or better yet, country roads.

To always ride horses…

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25

Last weekend Little Sister came home for the hustle and bustle and celebration of Little Man.

Have I mentioned that I love it when Little Sister comes home? Well if I haven’t said it sixty-thousand times already, I am saying it again and singing it softly to myself in a little tune I made up while I work on building her a quaint house in the oak trees next to mine, complete with a tin-can phone stretched across the yard and a couple of reclaimed lawn chairs from mom and dad’s junk pile.

It’s going to be just like old times.

Because here’s the thing. Everyone has people in their lives that they would like to keep wrapped up in a pretty little box in their pockets so they can carry them along and take them out whenever they need a good laugh, a smile, someone who really understands where you’re coming from, and who will, well you know, tell it to you straight.

My Little Sister is one of those people for me. I wanna wear her as a locket and show her off to friends. I want her confidence and quick wit at my fingertips. I want someone to drink margarita’s with and who will consume bowls and bowls of tortilla chips and cheese dip with me in the middle of the day in sweatpants without judgement…whenever I feel like it.

I know this is weird. I tested the theory out on Husband and he said I was a dork. Especially after I told him I wanted to wear him as a scarf around my neck so I would always have him there to protect me and provide for me better judgment wherever I go.

Well, it sounded good in my head, so I’m sharing it here. I imagine a few of you will be able to relate to my desire to be able to morph my favorite people into accessories and then un-morph (?) them back into people again whenever I feel the need…

Anyone?

Well, anyway, since I have yet to find that Genie to grant me my three wishes, I will just have to take what I can get of Little Sister when she comes around. And one of my favorite things to do when she shows up is to grab her and Pops and Husband and the horses and take a long ride out in the buttes. Because really, there’s nothing better than the smell of horses, crisp air, quiet trails, two of my favorite cowboys chatting about plans and my favorite high strung best friend on a high strung horse snorting and laughing and prancing along the prairie beside me.


So that’s what we did last Saturday as our chatter around morning pancake breakfast brought us too quickly into the afternoon  It was a little chilly out there when we stepped out into the farmyard and Little Sister was dressed just a bit too fashionably for this type of activity, so I promptly dug out my dorkiest hat, gloves and fur-lined vest and we were on our way under the big gray sky that hadn’t made up its mind whether it wanted to rain on us or shine. 

When taking a ride is my idea my posse generally agrees that we will have no particular agenda but to enjoy ourselves out here, to explore and tell some stories, check things out or just be quiet. And so that’s what we did. We strolled through golden grasses, and crunched through fallen leaves in the coulees, the two black cowboy hats in the lead and the frizzy haired women trailing behind.

We stopped on hill tops to catch up, to take a look around at how some of the leaves are desperate to hang on the oak trees, to check out the fences, to listen to one of Little Sister’s stories about school or one of my long stories that usually ends with me embarrassing the shit out of myself.

And as the words between sisters bounced off the hill tops and blew away with the wind and the guys talked hunting and horses, Little Sister’s horse, as he generally does, began to warm up enough to show his personality and the wild whites of his eyes. Here I will tell you that unless that horse and I are chasing after something that is running away from us, I prefer to avoid the Red Fury and stick to the Paint Mare, but Little Sister barely notices the animal beneath her snorting and prancing and all around making sure the other animals know that he needs to be in the lead.

So in the lead she went. That’s the funny thing about horses, while you are on their backs living your own little life, having your own conversations, thinking your own thoughts, they are underneath you, carrying you along on strong and quick feet and, if they are allowed, they are doing the same damn thing. And it was quite apparent that the Red Fury had only one thing on his mind that day and that was to be ahead of the mare I was riding.

It was driving him nuts.

And it was hilarious. Each time Little Sister’s horse would find himself a step behind he would snort and lift his head a bit higher and work on his rider to allow him at least one more step ahead. And so naturally I was tempted to see what would happen if I took off up the hill to catch a snapshot of my favorite people riding toward me. So I did. I rode up the hill ahead of the gang and turned around at the top to find Little Sister and the Red Fury flying up the hill behind me.

Apparently the Red Fury wasn’t about to allow this, and Little Sister didn’t care. She was along for the ride. The ride which I tried to document up until the part where the space between her ass and the saddle measured about a mile and I was almost certain she was going to be launched.

I think I yelled something like “Hang On!”…which is always so helpful in times like these…

but Little Sister just squealed and laughed and said she was a bit rusty after sitting in classrooms.

Which brings me to the point of my story, I do have one (besides embarrassing my sister.) I remember growing up here and taking these rides in the fall air, smelling the same smells, and feeling the same blessed. I remember making a promise to myself not to grow out of this. Not to ever say no to a ride with my father, to a chance to really live out here on these trails. I remember knowing, even at 10 or 12 years old, that I was lucky to have this experience under my belt, even when I had just hit the hard clay ground so hard I couldn’t feel my left arm after being bucked off of my gray mare yet again.

I remember telling myself that until I was old and gray I will always ride horses. No matter the agenda, no matter the responsibilities, no matter the fear of falling. I will always ride.

So seeing my Little Sister fly up that hill on a horse that has just as much attitude and free spirit as the woman on his back, I was reminded of that little girl with wild curls on a white pony named Jerry trailing behind me, singing songs to herself, telling me to wait up, getting her beanie hooked on a branch while riding through a trail in the trees, smelling those same smells, feeling the same breeze and promising herself the same things.

An hour before in the house over pancakes that memory was another life. It was other people in another time with different agendas and thoughts and outfits. But in that moment when Little Sister reached the top of that hill having recovered her balance and her breath, out of my mouth came laughter that was so familiar to me, and out of hers came the same. We were those children again, tucked snug in our puffy coats, cheeks rosy, chattering and riding with Pops in our own little world, promising one another, if such a promise can be made, not to grow up. Promising to stay out here just a few moments longer, to run just a little bit faster.

To stay together.

To remember we are blessed.

And so we rode. We rode with our father, with our other best friend, side by side or tail to nose, or spread out wide over the flat, under a sky that had decided to shine its sun on us after all.

So if I can’t have a locket at my fingertips to hold these moments with my sister, or a scarf around my neck that is Husband’s strong arms keeping me safe from the world’s worries,

or my Pops on a horse forever riding beside me telling me I’m doing fine…

…at least I will always have that promise. The promise to make more moments like these.

and to always ride horses.

October Rain

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217

There’s nothing more spectacular than a season change. And around here, we all have the chance to get up close and personal with the shifting of breeze, the cool down or warm up and the new colors the big guy decided to paint with. So when I feel the shift, when I hear the leaves start to crackle or take notice of something new poking through the ground in the spring, I pay attention. I look around. Because I hate to miss a day of it, really. It happens so fast. One morning you will be walking through oak groves of plush grass, under a canopy of leaves sparkling with life and green, and the next those leaves have all changed clothing and some have already decided to turn in early for the year.

It’s this time of year, the autumn, that I hate to be away from the ranch. I hate to miss the 50 and 60 and degree weather, perfect for rounding up cattle and maybe, if it’s the morning, digging out my neckerchief.

I hate to miss how the horses seem to lay a little longer in the sunshine, breathe out breath we can see into the crisp early air and work on growing their wooly, winter coats. I hate to miss the days the leaves on the oak trees start turning from green to yellow to orange one by one or the crunch of the leaves under my feet and the smell of the damp air reminding me of a childhood spent in these very same places, in this very same season-change ritual.

Oh yes, I’d hate to drive away from this toward warmer sun in the south or shut myself in between safe and heated walls and miss all of the miraculous and well planned preparation going on around me. Because I fear that if I didn’t pay attention to the shifts occurring on the top of the buttes, under prairie grasses and  animal skin, I wouldn’t understand what was happening to me….

…why my skin has faded in color and is begging me to put on long, wooly sleeves, why I want to warm up soup and sink in next to husband on our big chair and talk about plans and life and how I adore him. Without taking notice of the cool breeze, settling plants, and a sun that sinks below the horizon at an earlier hour each evening, I may not understand why my eyes feel heavy, my body weary and my bed calls my name at an hour when I may have still been on a back of a horse miles out in a pasture just months before in a season we called summer.


I might not understand why I don’t allow myself to go down easy, why I hustle around the house at 8 pm putting the finishing touches on projects and work, strumming my guitar and singing songs into the darkening sky, making sure all living creatures in the household know that I have things to do yet, I’m still here, regardless of the light. I would find myself crazy and alone in a world that was trying to get some sleep already if I didn’t witness the sky putting up the exact same fight during this time of year…

See, she’s not quite ready either–not ready to turn in her party dress. Because this time of year, more than ever, in the evening hour, right before dark I catch her showing off her biggest, most fluffy clouds with splashes of fuchsia and deep orange costumes as together they threaten a heavy fall shower with big, splashing raindrops when all the world thought the next thing to come was the dark and the snow.

I see her, I know what she’s doing, I understand the need to make a scene like this and I hear her laugh as she watches the crazy woman with the camera gaze at her face and dream about climbing those very clouds and laying down there for the winter, held softly in the warm fluff of the sky, eyes closed tight, knees to chest like a child, sleeping soundly through the winter until she lets me down with the rain in the spring.

But it can’t be so. I must stay here on the crust of the earth and watch her performance as she turns down the lights and paints the world soft pink, how she keeps the rain in the sky for a few moments, under small and un-daunting slivers of fluff evoking a trust and wonder in the creatures below basking in the uncommon warmth of a late fall evening.

Yes, I must wait here and watch as the sky pushes her sun further down the horizon line, lighting up the farmstead one last moment before she lets loose those big drops of rain, slowly at first, onto the crazy woman’s head.

Because the sky thought the woman needed one last reminder of a warmer world.

And she was right, the sky, she was. The crazy woman who could see the barnyard, a small dark dot on that very horizon, quite enjoyed the way the drops stuck in her fuzzy hair…

the way her feet helped float her body down the butte toward the light glowing from the kitchen of the farm house….


she laughed at the sound of her big brown dog’s paws hitting the dirt, his mouth blowing out air, his tongue hanging and bouncing along his clumsy body as he found his rhythm alongside a woman who was running now…

Running in the autumn rain, under a sky who is wrapping up her show, a season, with a reminder of the scent and feel and colors and sound of summer…

One last rain.

In autumn.

So I slowed my pace because a little rain never hurt anyone…

and me and the sky, we were not going down easy.

When the leaves blow from their branches, I will tell you…

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Dear Little Man with the wispy hair, bright blue eyes and smile that sweeps wide across your face, lifting those squeezable cheeks toward the sky…

This is your crazy aunty here, you know, the one that will do anything, including crawling around on the kitchen floor and underneath coffee tables, jumping up and down frantically or singing “You are my sunshine” forty-seven million times in a row if it means that you will keep laughing.

Hello there. I have something to tell you. Something I intend to tell you every year when the leaves on the trees outside of your window start to drop from their branches and  blow away in the chilly wind. Someday your momma will ask you to rake them up into neat little piles. Someday, when you are bigger you will happily oblige and you will fling your body into the middle of the pile you created, feeling happy and free and glad to be out in the crisp fall air playing and running and jumping and kicking and all around creating havoc like little boys should.

Yes, someday you will.

And someday you will detach and drift and blow with the wind like the very leaves that dropped to the ground on the day of your birth. Someday you will fly away with them into a world filled with adventures and challenges and mountains to climb–the same world you are learning something new about every day.

But today I want to tell you that we are so glad you are here. Before you arrived we were a family, we were happy and full of life and things to do. Before we met you we dreamed you. We dreamed your hair with some curls, your eyes big and blue, your smile the way it showed up on you…always there, lighting our lives. We talked about what you might look like and when you might arrive and who you might become and how we would teach you things about why then sun shines and where the stars go at night.

But we had no idea. We didn’t understand what one little child with two tiny hands and two tiny feet and a nose that turns up just a bit could do to a family that was happy and full of life and had things to do. When we heard you were coming, when we got the call, we couldn’t wait. We drove in the dark in the earliest hours of the morning under a moon that was full and bright to get to you, to welcome you to this earth with open arms. We didn’t want to  miss it. We needed to see you first thing!

So we waited, impatiently. We paced the floor. We called our friends. We were nervous. Your momma was brave. And we were so proud as the moon disappeared and made way for that sun that would hang high and bright and shiny in the sky above you. And that earth that just moments before was preparing for a long winter sleep woke up bright and beautiful as your cries bounced off of the walls and out the door and into the morning air on the day you were born.

We were there to hear that first cry. Your momma, your daddy, your grampa and gramma and me. Your other aunty was calling, anxious to meet you, to hear about your eyes and your hands and your hair. Your grandma and grandpa hundreds of miles away were saying their prayers and holding their breath, waiting to hear the news of your arrival. Your uncle came rushing down the hall to hold you in his arms and say hello. He drove fast to get there just in time. He said you were tiny and perfectly perfect.


Your daddy couldn’t stop smiling. 

Your momma cried tears of joy.

And in that moment we couldn’t imagine a world without you.

It’s been a year Little Man and every day you amaze us. Every day you learn something new, you grow just a bit more. Every day you bring us closer to one another as we fall more in love over your busy hands, your belly laughs, the way you crawl and climb and stand and reach and taste and touch and hold on tight.

We hold tight right back. We don’t want to miss a thing. We don’t want to forget.

And all of wonders we thought we would teach you, all of the things that we thought you should learn from us? It turns out we just don’t know a thing, except the way that your hair plops over your eyes when you play and how your breath sounds when you’re fast asleep.

And so I will tell you year after year as the cold comes marching in, the leaves let go and the moon shines longer into the night, as you reach higher toward the sky, walk stronger on the earth, speak words true and knowing from your mouth, I will tell you on the anniversary of your arrival, on the day of your birth,  of all of those things we thought you would be–a wonder, a blessing, a gift of a life–


Little Man, you are so much more.

Happy Birthday! I love you…

Now can I  please have a bite of that cake?…

Waiting for the cold…

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It’s late October and our windows have been closed for weeks, sealing our houses up against the chill that this month lays upon the nights. And we button up in the morning as we step out to start our cars, or saddle a horse, or feed the livestock or take a jog while the streets are quiet. We rub our hands together and notice our breath pushing out our bodies and floating in the atmosphere, hanging our words up there to linger for a bit. “Huh, look at that,” we say. “Haven’t seen my breath for months.”


Our words forget that they can be seen now.  Our skin forgets, somehow, what this chill feels like. It forgets it bites a bit. It forgets the way the cold comes in, rustling the near-bare branches, dancing with the dried up grasses and the remnants of the wildflowers left behind brave and brittle…just as we have been left here season after season. 

Yes it’s late October and we are reminded by the flush in our cheeks and the boots on our feet, prepared for the moment the sky could fall. Any moment . Our senses know it, we were animals once. The ones who move along ridge lines and on horses’ backs, behind the path of a deer, they remember. They remember that animal’s still there.

So we put on our wooly coats like the horses do and crunch through blankets of leaves on the ground, stripping off layers as the sun rises to give us one  more day of warmth. Oh, we know it’s a gift. If only it could stay until late November. But we take it. We do.

We roll up our shirt sleeves and bring the cattle home. We stroll our babies dressed in fleece on sidewalks along paved streets. We sit a little longer on the front porch. We think of making apple cider, some biscuits, maybe a pie for dessert.

We eat soup and hang on, like the last of the yellowing oak leaves, to a hope that the snow will stay up in the air.

We hang on to the colors that don’t dare leave us, the colors that stick out on the landscape and promise a reprieve from the brown…

from the inevitable white that is to come.

We hang on and take trails still made of dirt, breathe in the damp air and find a quiet spot to watch the birds get ready for it too, wondering where they go in times like these…

…wondering if they’d take us too.

Wondering if they are ready.

Missing them already.

Yes, it’s late October and just like us the sun is slower to rise and faster to set, the dog takes pause before he walks out the door,

the horses nibble on hay, the cows stay close to the barn, the birds move in bunches and call to one another “come on, come here, stick close together, we have places to go” as they fly over a landscape that is rough like our skin,


and an earth that has given in to rest and is waiting, like us, for the cold.


It’s all about autumn…

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Fall is one of those fleeting seasons around here. The kind that doesn’t get much attention because everyone is busy digging out their wool caps and puffy coats in preparation for what’s to come. But boy, this fall, this season, has been truly spectacular so far around here this year. Just like the rest of the seasons, it has not disappointed.

So on this Wednesday as I prepare for one of my good friend’s visit to the ranch, I would like to take a moment out of my frantic cleaning, organizing and thoughts about baking something to pay this season a bit of the attention it deserves….

Because who knows, we could find ourselves in a snow globe scenario in the morning. 

Here we go: On behalf of northern people everywhere, the ones who get out and take walks, stroll their babies through the parks, rake up piles of leaves and let their kids and wives and dogs jump in them while they laugh and stretch out the kinks in their backs before joining them. From the people who carve pumpkins and press pretty oak leaves between the pages of their books, the ones who enjoy a hot cup of homemade soup and light jackets and cardigans, the ones who paint eloquently, photograph with great care and detail, the ones who look, who really see…on behalf of people like these we would like to present this award of appreciation to the season of autumn.

I hope you display this giant, ten foot trophy proudly on the shelf on your wall–the shelf where you hang photos of your changing leaves, vibrant sunsets, rolling clouds and golden hues.

I hope you invite summer over for a cup of cider to brag a little. She’ll have time to stay for a bit now that she’s on vacation.  And winter, I imagine he will want to see this too, as the only award he’s ever won was from snowboarders and skiers thanking him for staying so long.

That winter really likes to chat doesn’t he?

And spring. Let him know that he’s next in line. Maybe the two of you could talk to wind and ask him to tone it down a bit, he’s always trying to ruin a perfectly pleasant season change.

But for now autumn, this is all about you.

You and your understated beauty, your crunching leaves and well worn paths. You and your picturesque views from the hilltops, pleasant temperatures and crisp air.

Thanks for quieting down so I could hear the acorns literally plunking to the ground in the coulees behind my house. Thanks for dropping those acorns,


even if you did drop one on my head.

I forgive you, because you and I are on the same page about the whole “the world needs more oak trees” thing. 

Thanks for putting a sparkle in the stock dam,

a shimmer in the chilly creeks,

a glow on the tips of the trees.

Thanks for reminding me what red looks like…

and orange…

and yellow

…and gold…

Because of this and how hard you have worked to paint a picture outside my window each morning and put me to sleep at night with your cool breezes, I will forgive you your cockleburs, the hornet that stung the favorite part of my hand, and the excessive and obnoxious amount of grasshoppers. They are only out there because you have given them longer life with your warmth and sunshine.

Thanks for that. Thanks for letting us sit outside and read a book, do a project, or just poke around. Thanks for sticking around long enough for me to take your picture. Because I’m sure your friends will want some for their walls.

You rock autumn.

Now go call your momma, she’ll be so proud of you.

The behavior of men and elk…

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Out here on these acres of ranch land there are things I know are there and places I roam everyday. I know there are cattle somewhere between the east and west pastures, if the sneaky animals haven’t found a hole in the fence. I know that if I let the pug out too early in the morning without a bowl of food he will high tail it off down the red road to my parent’s garage where his girlfriend lives with one of those automatic dog feeders.

I know how to catch a horse and where the creek winds. I know where my favorite birch tree lives….and my favorite oak. I know there is a pair of geese that live in the dam in front of where we will put our new house. I know that they mate for life. When it comes to chokecherry picking, I know where to look. The same goes with plums, raspberries, tiger lilies and Christmas trees. I know who rides what saddle and to expect my pops, if he’s home on the weekend, down in the horse pens as soon as the light and weather will allow.

These things I know, these places I have shown you. I have taken you picking those berries, cutting that Christmas tree, down through that winding creek. I have introduced you to my favorite tree and shown you a photo of those geese. I have complained about the pug. These are things I can speak to, I can describe adequately and take you along through words and photos and feelings.

But on Friday evening as I saddled my horse and followed husband out of the barnyard and down the road to meet pops, I realized I haven’t successfully explained or portrayed to you my role out here on these rolling, rugged acres among the men of the Veeder Ranch.  Especially during a season that calls to their inner mountain men, that keeps their eyes wide open, their ears perked, their binoculars close to their sides and rifles tuned.

Yes, it’s nearing hunting season, and if I was ever a tag along, a nod and a “uh, huh” or “yeah, sure,” in their lives during the rest of the year as they explained to me where the fence was down and where the cattle were out, how to manage the water tank situation, how not to run over the biggest rock in the yard with the lawn mower, or where to stand and how to wave my hands when helping one of them back a pickup up to a trailer, ’tis truly the month for observation now, for quiet cheering, for watching these two men finally get a chance to play, to breathe, to flex their man muscles after a year filled with work and stresses.

So on Friday that’s what they did, we saddled up our horses and went scouting for elk–the elk that have been roaming in and out of our lives mysteriously all year, the elk that were behind our little brown house, across our road, by the cattle guard between the two places and then magically appear by my parents’ mailbox.

Because pops has his license this year, a kind of “once in a lifetime” chance at this majestic creature who he can hear bugling in his pastures in the evenings. But here’s the thing that I have learned about pops in my years of sitting next to him in the pickup as he leans his head out the window, his binoculars to his face…as much as the man is looking forward to the season and to the prospect of elk meat in his fridge for the winter,  what means more to him is the observation of this creature. He thrives on learning about their patterns of movement, where they water, where they bed down for the night, where they can be expected…or how they can be so unexpected.

And he wants to share in the experience, tell his story, see if he can show you the same thing. Which is precisely what we were doing on Friday as pops lead the way to the west pasture, talking quietly about how he came right up on these elk on Tuesday evening and got to watch them graze and hear them bugle from nearly 250 yards away. It made his month, that encounter, and he intended to find them again.

To watch.

To learn.

To listen.

And so I followed as the two men lead me down through the creek bottoms, up a rocky pass  across a grassy pasture and through a draw to the top of the hill where pops expected he might find the herd again. I followed as they whispered about guns and bows and where husband shot his whitetail deer a few seasons back. I watched them as they watched the hills, pulled binoculars to their faces, stopped short at the cracking of a tree branch or rustle of the leaves. They pointed things out to one another or stopped in a draw to whisper a few stories, pointers, to say what they expect or hope to see.

It as inspiring really as I moseyed behind, snapping photos and breathing in the fall air. These two men–one who raised me, one who I grew up with–have taught me things I may have never learned without them. Here they were, friends. Best friends out here under the sun that was setting fast and turning golden trees to dark shadows…best friends on an age-old mission, a ritual.

As we pushed our horses up to the top of the butte and dismounted, I watched as the two of them snuck to the edge of the hill, dark silhouettes of men out in an element that was made for them, silent and peering out into the big oak draws below.

My heart pumped hard as husband spun around with that expression I know means business and the two men nearly jogged back to the horses to get a closer look…they had heard the bulging and we were going to get a closer look.

Now here I would like to explain to you what that was like, sitting at the top of that hill with a herd of elk grazing and moving along the trees below us. I want to tell you what these men were saying and describe how the breeze was heavy, the light was low, how I was holding my breath nearly the entire time as the horses grazed behind us, listening for that unmistakable, mysterious bugle. I would have loved for you to be there, really, to learn a little about the behavior of elk in the men’s sporadic and enthused but quiet conversation about what they were seeing.

I could have sat there forever like that surrounded by good things, with the moon above and the grass under my body. I could have listened to these men in their best moments, watched these unsuspecting animals so far away in their habitat, doing what they do to survive out here.


I could have listened to those coyotes howl all night and fallen asleep under the stars at the feet of my horse.

That’s how I felt. 

This is what we saw…

And these are the sounds. They are something you may have never heard before so I wanted to share so badly. It’s nothing thrilling, no fast cars or complicated music, no political banter or celebrity gossip that you might typically find on an internet video. No. This is just the sound of quiet, of calm, of good men in awe of  nature, an elk bugling, coyotes howling and a woman listening…watching…observing the world through their eyes…

The sights and sounds of elk scouting with the men of the Veeder Ranch:

Alone and breathing in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

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Well fall came dancing along in all its glory around here and we sure didn’t need the calendar to tell us so. Just like the uncharacteristically warm weather, the leaves on the trees were not about to take the subtle approach to the season change. Overnight the ash leaves turned from greed to gold, the vines bright red, the grass and flowers exploded seeds and even the slow and steady oaks began letting go their acorns and turning one leaf over to gold at a time.

It has been magnificent. But that’s the way it is around these parts, when it comes to the landscape and the great outdoors, you really can’t accuse it of being understated.

So after a challenging week I was ready to celebrate autumn the way it deserved to be celebrated. I was ready to frolic in it, to let go my agenda and my worries, ignore my pain and troubles and just climb a big damn hill and feel the warm breeze in my hair. So on Friday after a trip to the big town for an appointment, I moseyed on down the busy highway filled with lines of trucks and pickups and SUVs. Vehicles that moved busy humans at full speed along that paved ribbon of road that winds through buttes and half cut wheat fields, across the Little Missouri River that sparkles and meanders under the big blue sky and slowly sinking sun. I wanted to meander too, I wanted to meander among the things out here that are allowed a slow change, a subtle move toward hibernation, a good long preparation for a show like no other, a recital of how to slow down gracefully.

And I couldn’t help but wonder while I tried hard to keep my eyes on the road, despite the neon yellow trees waving at me from the ditches, if these people who were sharing my path were seeing this. Did they notice that the tree was waving to them too? Were they commenting on how the crows have gathered? As we came down through the brakes that move us through the badlands of Western North Dakota, our home, did they notice how the layers of the buttes–the line of  red scoria, the black coal, the clay–did they notice how in the late afternoon light the landscape looked like a giant canvas and the buttes seemed created with wisps of an artist’s brush?

Did they see that river? I mean really see it when they passed over the bridge? Did they take note of how it has receded a bit? Did they feel like stopping beside it to rest for a while? And as they approached the sign that read “Theodore Roosevelt National Park-North Unit,” a sign that indicated they were indeed on the home stretch to their destination perhaps, only 15 miles to the town to stop for gas, to make it home, to take a rest on a long truck route, were they enticed like I was at all on that Friday afternoon to stop for a bit?

Because what could be better than breathing in fall from inside a place that exists raw and pure? A park. A reserve. A spot saved specifically to ensure that nature is allowed to go on doing what it does best while undisturbed by the agenda of the human race, which at that point on Friday afternoon I was firmly convinced didn’t have a grip or a handle or an inkling about how to live gracefully among a world designed for us…let alone accept and live harmoniously among what we can’t control or may not understand–like the change of weather and the seasons and the sun beating down on the hard earth we wish would soften, or a body we wish would heal and function properly.

And I was guilty as well of taking this for granted. I was guilty of driving by this spot time and time again as it called to me to take a rest, to visit, to have a walk or a seat or a climb.

But not Friday. Friday I needed its therapy. I needed to park my car and stretch my limbs and take a look around from the other side of my camera.

From the top of Battle Ship Butte.

From the trail at the river bottom.

From the flat where the bison graze.

So as I pulled my cap down and took to the familiar trail that wound up that big, daunting and famous butte along the road, I took notice of breeze clattering the drying leaves together, the birds frantically preparing for the chill, the grasshoppers flinging their bodies at the dried grass and rocks…

and then I noticed I was alone.

Alone out here in this wild place I’ve visited before as a tourist, as a resident of the area, on dates and outings, family functions and educational tours surrounded by inquiring minds and cameras.

But I’d never been out here alone.

Alone as I scrambled and pulled my tired body up the steep and rocky and slippery trail toward the top of my world  as twobison grazed on the flat below the buttes.

Alone as I reached my destination with no other ears around to hear me catch my breath and then sigh in awe at the colors and solitude.

Alone as I watched those bison move and graze, a spectator in a different world, a spy on a giant rock.

Alone as a ran my hand along the cannonball concretions, scrambled to keep my footing and wipe the sweat from my forehead on the way down.

Alone to take my time as I noticed how the trees sparkled on the river bottom against the sinking sun. No one to tell me that’s enough…enough photos, enough time, enough gazing.

Alone as I walked toward the river, keeping an eye on the time, but wishing there was no such thing. And there was no one there to stop me from following it a little bit further, to see what it looked like on the other side of the bend.

No one there but me and a head full of thoughts and worries that were being pushed out of the way to make room for the scenery, the quiet, the beauty, the wildlife tracks and magnificent colors and trails before me.

And because I was alone, because it was quite, because in here there was no speeding or trucks or access to my phone, because unlike on the ranch, I was unfamiliar with the trails and the directions I was forced to really pay attention, to use my senses, to make new discoveries,  I was able to notice that after a few weeks gone missing I was becoming myself again.

The self that understood this was my habitat, my home and surroundings. The self that knows the weather will be predictably unpredictable, but the seasons will always change, the leaves will dry up, the acorns will fall, the birds will fly away from the cold or prepare for it, the grasshoppers will finish their rituals, the snow will come and coat the hard earth, then melt with the warm sun, changing the landscape, if only a little bit, as the water runs through and cuts the cracks in the earth.

And the bison will roam because we let them and the antelope will too knowing or not knowing that their lives are fragile.

Just like ours.

So we must remember to be present,  live in it…breathe.

Thank God I remembered to breathe.

Please, remember to breathe.

For more photos of my hike around Theodore Roosevelt National Park, click here to visit my Flickr photo album 

Oh, and if you missed it, take a stab at my North Dakota Trivia Game from last week’s post for a chance to win a prize! There haven’t been many brave attempts (I think you’ve all been out enjoying the beautiful weather), so I’m giving you more time!  Get your ND history hat on a play!