When the thaw comes
I’ll rip off these clothes
burn my wool sweaters
and boots with the fur
hide the blankets away
and cool down the tea
let the sun touch my bare skin
set the animals free
drown my scarves in the water that rushes the draw
and scream all the cold out my lungs…
when the thaw comes…
when the thaw comes…
when the thaw comes…
In this stark white world
I come to greet you
through fallen snow
that drifts to change the land I know
up hills
and across a frozen sea
you meet me there.
You see me bundled to the brim and wonder
what a girl is doing out here without a proper coat.
So you come closer
so I can bury my face in yours, thick and full
grown long to keep the cold at bay.
I breathe in the dust and sun and sweat–
the pieces of summer you’ve kept in your skin.
No, I have no coat like this.
Your mane is the wind,
your feet the dirt we miss.
Your breath the sweet green grass,
nose still the warmest touch…
your ears the slightest noise
easy boys…
I’m the only sound you hear
now look me in the eyes
so I can see the life we lived…
before the winter white set in
Happy New Year!
Wow. It’s December 30th. I just looked down at the little calendar icon thing at the bottom of my computer screen and it screamed at me–“It’s almost the end of a whirlwind year lady! It’s almost the beginning of 365 days of new adventure ahead. You should probably reflect on this!”
I jumped right out of my neckerchief at the thought, and since I’m not going anywhere today because nature is ringing in the New Year with yet another blizzard and more drifts of snow blocking my driveway, I figured now is as good of time as any to let you all know something about me.
I am a grateful, frizzy haired, pug loving, frozen and slightly more squishy thanks to the holiday cookies lady.
I am thankful.
I am thrilled and hopeful and full of love and nerves and excitement and overwhelmed…not only at the thought of a year full of changes and decisions and heartbreak and joy and manual labor at my back, but for the one ahead.
The one ahead that is sure to bring all of those things and more…especially that manual labor stuff.
But before I look ahead with you all, ahead to a year where I hope I will see the dust from your car trailing behind you down our pink road and onto our doorstep, I want to look back.
Because looking back always helps remind me, especially when I am in the middle of shoveling away what the blizzard brought us, or sweating and cursing the burs of summer, or trudging through the gumbo of the buttes after a wayward cow, that I am here.
Right back where I started from.
Right where I belong.
See, I’m not sure if I made this clear in the beginning of this little project I started (which I simply refer to as “writing it all down,”) that last year at this time I was living alone. I was living alone in a big house in a town an hour and a half away from the ranch–an hour and a half away from where my husband had just moved to take a job.
And I couldn’t go with him because I too, had a job to do. And together, we had a house to finish–a house we purchased on a good five year plan to gut it all out, put it all back together nice and shiny and live there, working and saving and making our way back to the ranch in good time.
But the fast paced industry in which husband is employed sent to him an opportunity that we couldn’t pass up–an opportunity to continue work with his company and live where we wanted to live. For a good long time.
And we were looking for some permanency, because we had spent the last five New Years in different houses.
Whew, were we ready to be home.
So this couldn’t be passed up. Because ten years ago, when we graduated from high school, together, we would have never guessed that we could be out here in our mid-twenties and starting the life we always wanted.
So husband packed his bags and I kept my job and my stuff in the house that was torn apart from wall to wall. And on the weekends, along with our wonderfully helpful family members, we hammered and nailed and painted and sawed and planned and stained and varnished and cleaned and one of us may or may not have gotten her head stuck in a ladder.
I can’t remember.
And I was exhausted. And I missed my husband. And I was lonely and felt like the winter was never going to end. I cried a bit and then looked on the bright side and then cried a bit more.
Then I went to Vegas.
Me, not winning...
And I met big Elvis and saw Bette Midler and won a dollar and wore my fancy outfits.
Then it was back to the real world, more snow and more building and more missing each other and more tears until one day I finished a job that was challenging and good for me, we cleaned up the sawdust, packed up my shoe collection and the pug, shut the door and put out the for sale sign.
For Sale To the Highest Bidder-the last two years of our lives (and some of husband’s blood with my tears splashed in).
And down the road we went, all of our earthly possessions crammed in husband’s pickup, sweat trickling down our faces, paint on our clothes. Here I would like to say the sky opened up and the sun shone down on us and all was right with the world.
But I am nothing if I’m not real and so I will say instead, I was scared to death. Because I had major plans. And I told people about them. I had this vision of living and having a family and sharing this place with others since I was a little girl.
And here I was and all I could hear in my head, over the birds chirping and the cows mooing and the coyotes howling was my voice…”now what?”
But after a mental breakdown, which I’m sure I’ve told you about, that husband of mine found me out in the grass, and told me to do it already.
Just do it. Do what you want to do. Do what you have always wanted to do.
And I guess all I needed was permission, because in the last seven months, from day two of dropping my bags on the floor of my grandparents’ home, I picked myself a welcome home bouquet and began the journey of telling you all about it…
…and damn it if you didn’t listen and cheer me on as I kicked off my work shoes and postponed showers and my daily grooming habits to roll in the grass, to walk down the pink road, to bury my face in the neck of a good horse, to climb to the top of every hill on this place and take a good look at it all.
To really see it.
And you laughed with me as I danced in the pouring rain and then shook your heads when I came up with the brilliant idea to fling our bodies down the side of a slippery, deadly, bloody clay butte, defying death and acquiring a nasty case of butt burn.
Good Lord.
You listened as I suffered from the nostalgia a childhood home cultivates and nodded your head as I told you about a youth spent in the dirt and mud and hills of this place, hair wild and dreams big. You helped me welcome my relatives for a family reunion and remember my grandmother, make her jelly and imagine her life here.
You shared your memories as well and I thank you for that.
You came with me as I jumped in the cool North Dakota Lake Sakakawea…
…rode my horse behind one of the best cowboys in the country and fought with the attitude of The Red Fury…
…baked my skin under the big, blue sky on the Maah Dahh Hey Trail…
….held up a rattlesnake….
and won a photo contest for crying out loud. (What?!)
And as I continued to add to the members of our pet family, you never judged, just oooed and ahhhed over the utter cuteness.
I love that you agree with me on the cuteness…
…and the fact that you never judge me for my obsession with the pug, but cheered him on as he heroically saved a cat from an eminent death and were genuinely worried when you thought that damn dog was lost or eaten by coyotes or mangled from a porcupine attack.
Which is more than I can say for some members of my family. So thank you very much.
We rode our bikes through the summer when we weren’t on the backs of our horses.
You walked with me down autumn paths and got in close as I took my time examining the mushrooms, and stems of flowers, and acorns buried underneath the leaves.
You helped me appreciate the small things–the small things that sometimes go unnoticed. I noticed them because I wanted to show them to you.
And you wanted to see them.
So I thank you for that too.
Together we marveled at the changing of the leaves…
…and welcomed, bravely with teeth bared, the first snow…
…in September?
Wow.
So I took you along, trudging through snow banks, examining the contrast and the shapes the flakes make on their own and piled up like that.
I flung our bodies down snow covered hills and to a screaming stop in a big pile of family at the bottom.
Then you helped me say hello as we welcomed my new nephew into the world with open arms and came with me to Texas, where part of my heart lives…
…and of course suffered through my home movies and maintained your patience as we kneaded the dough in our tiny kitchen.
And you tasted Cowboy’s cooking.
And, again, didn’t judge as I continued my study on his strong jaw line, masculine silhouette and dark, mysterious eyes.
Which is, again, more than I can say for some members of my family.
So, you know, thanks!
So as the new year rolls in and my plans to make you all a place to stay, a place to hike and bike and ride horses and take pictures continue I know the challenges are ahead. I know this. But it is because of you and your appreciation, your enthusiasm and support and thumbs up and kind words that I was able to see this place again–not only through my eyes, my grown up eyes, but through your eyes as well.
Because this year you know I didn’t scale mountains, or travel the seven seas, or save the world in any way.
But I saved myself.
In 2010 I saved myself by finding within me the spirit of a little girl who fell in love with this land and possessed the gumption and nerve and energy and wild-hair-up-her-ass ideas to maybe make them work someday.
And I have you to thank for that.
So I raise my cocktail glass to a Happy New Year friends.
And to more good stuff, hard stuff, muddy and snowy and annoying and furry and lovable stuff ahead.
Oh, and my New Year’s resolution? To finally get to that damned laundry already….
See ya at the ranch!
I have continued my walking ritual even in this winter weather. It’s important for the sanity of a woman living out here surrounded by snow and horse poop. Because I can get to feeling a bit stir crazy, a bit cramped in, tripping over my stuff a few too many times, scratching at the Christmas tree branches breathing down my neck and stepping on a couple of tails sending cats running for their lives and me cursing the day I uttered the words “kitten-good idea.”
The animals get to feeling the same way too, and even though they’re pretty good at sleeping, every once in a while the whole winter hibernation thing sends the cats scampering through the tiny living room, taking a flying leap to the chair, bouncing off of the couch only to land, dangling, off of the very top of my curtains.
I screech, scratch my neck and send a few choice words their way.
The dogs whimper at the door.
And it’s time to get the heck out of here.
That was the case on Tuesday afternoon as I rose from my desk, stretched my arms out and hollered (in my head, I think) “I can’t take it anymore!” and began the ritual of bundling up.
Because oh, it has been cold here. Along with an uncommon amount of snow being dumped on the area early in the season, the wind has been blowing a bit harder, the temperatures have been below zero, and then, just to see if we are indeed on our toes, it warmed up enough to rain…only to return to its regularly scheduled programming in the morning.
So as you can imagine, as I stepped out the door and into the brisk evening, my winter wonderland was looking a bit crunchy, a bit crispy, a little less fluffy, a little more glossy. Beautiful.
So off I went, trudging in my snow pants and boots, crunching through the unreasonably deep snow, panting to get to the top of the hill, walking a few steps on the top of the hard drifts, only to be sucked down, in snow up to my knees when the ice broke under my weight.
The lab was in heaven, jumping on the hard stuff to bury his nose in the fluff underneath.
The pug thought it was the apocalypse and wondered why he even got up this morning.
The cats were probably hanging by their claws on the curtains inside.
But it felt good to be out in this. It was so quiet, so calm and white, the wind from the days before creating interesting drifts and shadows, the setting sun on the ice coating this world making everything sparkle warm pinks and blues. I spent the evening admiring my world, squatting down to get photos of the grass poking through the snow, shading my eyes as the sun sunk below the horizon, laughing as the dogs fell through the snow and then magically reappeared.
I was feeling lucky to be a spectator.
Because I chose to be out there, in the chill and crisp, under the setting sun. And when I walked through the door to my home, stripped off my layers of clothing and poured myself a cup of hot tea and went about my business, I could relax. I could look out the window that night as the wind blew the snow sideways and tapped at our windows and not have to worry.
See, living out here on the ranch, a dot on this big, white, landscape, always gets me thinking about those who came before me–the men and women of this area who settled this land. These people leaned in against this season in order to hold on to their livelihoods, they watched the patterns of wildlife to predict the incoming weather, and, in the midst of a blinding blizzard, would tie a rope from the door of their shack to the barn so they could feed the horses and milk cows and not get lost on along the way.
When we complain about the snow and the ice because we have to get up out of our beds and start our car in our robes before we venture off to a heated building to earn a paycheck, I sometimes think about my relatives whose paychecks depended on rising each morning, rain, shine or blizzard, to feed the cattle, to break ice on the dams, to haul wood to heat their home, and to sometimes welcome a barnyard animal or two into their small home in order to keep it alive, or, in the places where trees for fuel were sparse, to help keep themselves warm.
I wonder, when I stand high above this white world, no sign of a neighbor’s light, what it might have been like for them out here deep in the heart of the landscape, fifteen to thirty miles from the general store and postoffice, their only link to the outside world, with no snow plows clearing a path for their escape, no plane tickets to purchase to send them somewhere tropical–only work, and faces chapped by the wind and an occasional card game by the fire at night to pass the time.
It must have been lonely for them and it must have been terrifying during those nights when the temperature dropped well below zero, the wind whipped through the cracks in their cabins and shacks, creating drifts of snow reaching high above their heads, making it nearly impossible to tend to their livestock, to get to the neighbors or to the store to stock up on supplies.
And I wonder on those eerie, cold, North Dakota nights how far away summer must have seemed. How desperate it must have felt out here, how helpless they were against the circumstances of the weather, how they just held on tight and did what they could.
I wonder if anyone went crazy with grief and desperation, loneliness and isolation. Because, life, like this landscape, was hard.
But really, I don’t think they stopped long enough to complain. I don’t think they wallowed in the hardship. They didn’t have time. They had to keep moving, they had to attend to the next thing, be prepared to weather the next storm. And yes, the storms were something, but I like to imagine that made the sunshine all the warmer, the evenings by the fire a little more cozy, the company of a neighbor a little sweeter.
My pops told me that when he shared the news with one of his aunts about how I was moving back to the ranch because I wanted to, because I loved it, she scoffed at the thought and wondered out loud why anyone would choose to live out here. So much work, she said. So much work.
Because that is what her life was, and although she picks at the struggles, I am pretty sure the good times, the picnics in the summer sun, are as fresh in her mind too. But it is because of her steadfastness and the hold on tight spirit of my great-great grandparents and their children and those who came after them that I am allowed the chance for a different life out here. A chance to stand on my favorite hill and see the world they called home and work through a different lens.
Oh, I see the work too. I see the reality of my plans, the fences that need to be fixed, the buildings that should be torn down, the roofs that need to be repaired–but that doesn’t have to consume me right now, in the middle of the winter.
Don’t get me wrong, the ranching and farming lifestyle our here exists in full force. We dig out hay bales to tend to the cattle in the winter, we break the ice the same way, we bundle up against the wind to feed the horses. They coyotes still howl at night, the calves continue to be born in snowstorms and have to be warmed up in the basement. Some things don’t change.
But much has. Now we have big o’l tractors with heated cabs, 4-wheel drive pickups we can plug in to an outlet to be sure they start, warm outbuildings and shops to repair our modern equipment and the lucky ones have snowmobiles. The drive to town takes a half an hour if the plow’s gone through, we have computers that link us to the rest of the world and provide us with access to information, weather warnings and a chance to make money from the comfort of our homes if we so chose.
Because these days, we have a choice.
I wonder if the ghosts of winters past ever saw this coming. I wonder what they would think about the fact that if they were alive right now they might have the time to take a moment, like I do some days, to dig out from underneath the work and demands and stand with hands on hips, cold wind at their face, and instead of racing the sun, take a moment to watch it dip down and set below the horizon…
…and be captivated.
Ok, so winter has settled in, leaving in its trail a thick blanket of sparkly snow that I am pretty sure is going to stay for a while. And now that it is December, this snow is perfectly acceptable to most people around here. So on winter mornings, eyes on the thermostat I mill around the house in my ugly slippers, working on various projects and looking out the window all too frequently to see if I can spot those three blue jays that have been hanging around.
Do you see them? They are in that tree, all three. And they won't let me get any closer than this, no matter how slowly and quietly I sneak.
Oh, this weather makes me feel pretty damn cozy, and apparently turns me into a bird watcher…
Last night and this morning a fog settled in and it has created the most beautiful and interesting glaze on anything it can cling to: tree branches, fences and the backs of beasts milling around the landscape, pawing at the frozen earth looking for another bite. The sneaky frost makes you see things you haven’t seen before, like this horsehair on the barbed wire fence I noticed when I came home from work last night:
Isn’t it spectacular?
Anyway, so here I am, 30 miles from the nearest town, alone with my thoughts in this cozy house with no milk and a freezer full of frozen apple pies (husband got a hold of the Schwan’s man …I guess there was a special).
Yup. And I actually thought I had a chance of getting out of the yard today, until I actually tried. After about five solid straight hours of snowfall I quickly realized that nobody needs milk THIS bad. I’ll drink diet coke thanks very much. That’s just fine with me, really.
A similar thing happened on Tuesday. Tuesday I was stuck here with the apple pies because my car would not make it up the hill and around the curve where the snow had drifted in over a nice layer of ice –precisely the location where I slipped and acquired a big purple bruise on my right knee the other day. And unless I strapped on the snowshoes I do not own (yet) and took the trek on foot, home is where I would remain.
But thank goodness for tractors and people that know how to use them, cause as soon as the sun went down, I was dug out. Free! Just in time to make some soup and go to bed.
And I didn’t mind at all.
Because as much as I could curse the snow and all of the annoying inconveniences it brings with it, like hat head and the necessity of ice scrapers, I love it.
I love it because it looks like this in the morning…
…and this in the evening…
…and this when the sun shines….
…and this on my snowsuit….
I love it. And I don’t even own a snowmobile. Or skis. Or snowshoes! I do have a sled however, but I think I already told you that…
Yup, I said it. I love it despite my very limited collection of snow toys.
Anyway, maybe you have to have been born where the palm trees don’t grow to understand, but I have always been captivated by winter’s form of precipitation. I have been charmed by the way it falls so gracefully and quietly from the sky and gives the entire world an extreme makeover. It’s really good at makeovers, turning everything a different shade of gray and white and black and creating such drama, casting long shadows that catch us off guard in the middle of the day.
On the ground where cactus and thorns once grew, the topography is now transformed, soft, radiant and inviting, covering up our summer paths so we must begin again creating a landscape where we are never lost and can’t get away with anything because every move leaves a trail, evidence of where we have been.
And I love it when the flakes pile up and, with the help of the wind, they morph themselves into sculpted masterpieces, drifts resembling ocean waves…
…or small mountain peaks
…then mini-avalanches…
And when the sun shines, out comes the glitter and our houses look like they’re covered in sugar with frosting settled on our roofs and in our windowsills and the delicious, sugary icicles hanging from the eaves makes us want to stick out our tongues, or flop down on the ground, or jump and scream just to shatter something, to move something, to break the spooky silence the frost creates.
It sends us bright blue hats and fluffy sweaters and turns our skin from pale to bright red and back again. It makes us hungry for spices and warm liquids and dishes that boil and simmer and slide down our throats.
It makes us turn on the oven and make things from scratch that smell like cinnamon and butter. (Well, maybe some people do this…I think I’ll just take out one of those pies…)
So we move in close and then the season surprises us with its sudden darkness and reminds us that we don’t have control. And if we were thinking we were prepared, we most certainly are not.
Because no winter has been the same. No winter has created the same drifts, the same shadows, the same snowflakes and banks.
And no winter will be the same again.
So we close our eyes, snuggle down tight and our memories of a landscape so green and bright and baking, when we were rowdy and brown and sweaty and half-naked remind us of a foreign land, so far away.
Then we wake to find, socked in from the storm, our bodies softer, slower, more fair and crisp and realize that we too have been transformed. So we slide on our boots and pull our caps over our ears and go out to discover an entirely different world—showing off in his brand new, fabulous outfit.
And because I, like most girls, am a big fan of makeovers, I present to you North Dakota’s winter makeover–before and after:
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Thank you.
I raise my head and say these words to the sky, to the stars above hidden by the clouds and the snow falling down.
To the man beside me, deep in a dream, chest rising and falling with the rhythm of this night.
To the wild earth beneath my feet, frozen and hard and strong and sleeping too.
To the music that brings a song to my voice and the passion to sing it out loud.
To the coyotes that howl and take in the air and remind me what lonesome really is…
…to a family who shows me, every day, what lonesome is not.
To a world that holds darkness to help us know the beauty of the light…
…and the fragile purpose of a life well lived…
Thankful—I’m alive.
Thank you—you’re alive.
Give thanks—we’re alive…
…and together in another day.
I have been home alone all week, out here, thirty miles from the nearest gas station, the nearest place to purchase a diet coke or a donut or a new pair of mittens. Oh, I could jump in my car and drive that thirty miles and visit my friends, sit down and work in town, but the new winter wind has been pushing its way through the cracks in my old house and I want to be here to greet it.
See, it has been threatening snow, threatening winter for a few days and the North Dakota weatherman loves this. He loves the drama of it all. He loves to tell us to stay indoors, to hunker down. He laughs. He banters through the green and yellow storm system on his map.
He tells us what it is going to be like.
Gusting wind. Three to four inches of white stuff. Chilly. 20-30 degrees. Cold.
And of course, when the sun will set. Approximately 6:15 pm and then you’re on your own in this little house, girl.
Just you and the cats and dogs.
And I should be afraid, after a summer filled with warm sunshine, plans for the future, long hot days with work to be done.
I should be nervous about the next four to five months where I might be forced to be cooped up, thinking, writing, planning, worrying about the future. Hunkering down.
This is what winter tends to do to people around here. Make them worry.
And those things, the solitary, the chill that sets in about now used to scare me. I used to panic and wish for the sun to return while I wrote melancholy music all winter and cursed the sky.
But this week a sort of satisfied, full, accepting calm has drifted over me and when I woke up yesterday morning to a dusting of fresh snow I fully expected the panic. I fully expected the dread to set in.
But with coffee cup in hand, I surprised myself as I sat all day by my drafty window fixated by the patterns the snow made in the lawn, by the way the wind whistled, by how, just like that, the morning, the landscape, the world was cleaned up and put to sleep under this sparkling, cold blanket.
So I stepped out in it, bundled from head to toe in layers of wool and cotton and down and knit and was struck again for the first time since my childhood at the absolute peace and tranquility winter brings.
The wind changes tune, the grass makes muffled noises as you walk through, as if to say “shhh, shhh, everything’s sleeping.” The leaves no longer crunch, the trees are bare and each species seems to blend into the next, holding on to one another, coming together for the greater good of the chilly season.
I found myself holding my breath as I crept up toward the horses who were cutting trails through the pasture, pushing aside the white with their noses and looking for the next, silent bite. They snorted and nuzzled and their hot breath warmed my chilled face, their fur now ragged and thick catching snowflakes and protecting their backs from the climate.
They are always prepared.
Nature is always prepared.
And the geese above my head yelled down, making their brief presence known on their fast flight south. A bittersweet sound. A sound that cut the crisp air.
Oh weatherman. You don’t know where I am, what this season really feels like. You would not be smirking if you did. You would not be so full of pride at your declaration, so full of hate for the wind.
Because you have never been here. You have never been so far away, so cold and so full of peace out here in this white, mysterious horizon.
But I have. I’m here. I have found a season you never will.
It’s a long way from Texas to North Dakota.
And it turns out, an entirely different world once we made it home.
See, I wanted to tell you all about my trip down south today. I wanted to give you the details about how it felt to see one of the younger members of the Kitten Caboodle Club get married to her best friend and how much we laughed and cried and how the warm Texas sun shone on our faces and life was great and warm and green.
But in true North Dakotan fashion, this urgent weather report gets precedence over any other topic of conversation. I’ll save that story for tomorrow…
and hold that memory of 80+ weather with me for a few months, because it’s a long way from 80 here.
We touched down in North Dakota yesterday afternoon and the first full on blizzard of the year greeted us with open arms.
“Welcome Home!” said the weather as it pelted ice chunks at our exposed, tender Texas kissed flesh and we ran with heads down to our car and shivered and said things like,
“Wow, it’s freezing”
“Holy shit.”
“I almost blew over.”
“This sucks.”
That’s the thing about North Dakota. The snow alone is not so bad. In fact the snow alone is pleasant and peaceful and turns the landscape into a lovely snow globe as we put our arms around one another and let the light of the fireplace (or, if you roll like us, the TV flickering one of our favorite westerns) lull us to a blissful, cozy sleep wrapped up warm in our homes.
Yes, snow is accepted and welcomed in this form.
But sometimes it brings its BFF along for the ride (Wind. You heard of him?) You know, just for theatrical effect. And then all hell breaks loose.
Hold on to your tails!
That is what’s going on outside my window today as I sent husband out on the roads to work— a few pounds heavier due to the seventeen pieces of clothing he pulled over his body.
And for the sake of drama, which I clearly know something about, let’s count the items of clothing that made up his work outfit here, just to be sure:
1. underwear
2. long underwear pants
3. long underwear turtleneck shirt
4. socks
5. work pants
6. long sleeved shirt
7. buttoned up work shirt
8. vest
9. winter coat
10. Carhart coveralls
11. scarf
12. beanie (we call winter caps beanies. Is that weird?)
13. hard hat
14. gloves
15. boots resembling those that Buzz Aldrin wore on his quest to the moon
16. face mask
and
17. a big, goofy smile (cause he likes the drama of the storm too…and I wanted to make it to my estimated 17 items)
Yes, this outfit may sound excessive and it may bring to mind Ralphie’s little brother in “A Christmas Story.” But I tell you what, I bet husband is still cold with a wind that is shaking this tiny house this morning and working really hard to “sting the toes and bite the nose…” I mean, sitting here I am tempted to put on my beanie and mittens just out of sympathy.
I can guarantee every farmer, every rancher, every oilfield worker and every mom with kids who actually got to stay home from school today (because this is the first storm of the season and we’re not used to it yet) every office worker and every retiree is glued to the weather report today.
And thanks to the Internet, we don’t have to wait for the noon news to get the updates. We can obsess minute by minute and watch the storm pass over us in the form of a little green blob on our computer screen.
For example:
A weather update taken from www.wunderground.com
Mostly cloudy. Snow likely in the morning…then slight chance of snow in the afternoon. Blowing and drifting snow in the morning…then areas of blowing and drifting snow in the afternoon. Visibility one quarter mile or less at times. Windy. Snow accumulation up to 1 inch. Total snow accumulation 2 to 5 inches. Highs in the mid 30s. Northwest winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts to around 55 mph. Chance of snow 60 percent
Keep it together man!
And one from www.weather.com
A Blizzard Warning has been issued.
Expect low temperatures (below 20°F) and winds of 35+ mph. Also expect sufficient falling and/or blowing snow that reduces visibility to 1/4 mile or less.
And just to add salt to the wound, they have added this cute little “Climate Comparison” application on The Weather Channel website that features the 80 degree temperature in Acapulco, Mexico today.
Bitches.
Anyway, I could go on and on about what it feels like here as I sip hot coffee from my favorite cup, wrap up in a blanket and blow on my hands to thaw them out, but I think you need to see this for yourself.
So I have risked my life for you lovely readers. I have braved the blizzard to give you the promised play by play of life at the ranch.
Bring it on winter. Bring. It. On.
Because I love you.
But for those of you who are looking at this and thinking:
Why...
...oh why...
...oh why?
...oh sweet kibble why?
I have to tell you there is something about the remarkable weather changes that we experience here in the north that we all secretly love. Because it is so over-the-top. Because it is so predictably unpredictable. Because we know that now we have a perfect excuse to get together and snuggle up and hunker down under one roof and eat our soups and plan for Thanksgiving and then Christmas and wait it out with the people who we have in our lives for this very purpose.
To keep us warm on cold days.
Then we can count on them to fall in right behind our fresh footprints in the snow when the wind dies and the sledding and snowman and snow angel making is perfect.
And we know they won’t be mad when we throw a snowball at their head.
In fact, we can expect to get a bigger one smashed back at ours.
And we will laugh together knowing that we’ll be warm again soon, because in North Dakota, the only thing you can count on is a change of weather.
See, I just heard the weatherman say pleasant weather tomorrow.
Sunshine.
It will probably be 70 degrees, or at least 50, and it will take us three minutes to forget this.
Because that’s how we roll in NoDak. If it doesn’t kill ya, it’s just another story of survival to tell at coffee.
Can we go inside now?
So I have spent a great deal of my life, especially in my musical career, talking to people about North Dakota. I love to tell its story to the unsuspecting who think there is nothing up here but a couple horses and some fields.
“You have running water up there?” ”
“Electricity?”
“Damn, it sure is cold up there isn’t it?”
Yes. Yes. And Yes are the answers.
But I love to find those people pleasantly surprised when they get to really hear about this place—about the badlands, the economy, the people, the beautiful weather and the fact that we may not have everything, but we know exactly who we are.
I’ve said this before, but I truly have a love affair with Western North Dakota. So when I moved back to the ranch for the second time in my life I felt like a kid again. It was like I was rediscovering this wonderland that I somehow forgot about when I was out on my own trying to discover myself. After traveling the country singing for my supper, I saw this place with fresh eyes and for what it was to me when I was eight or nine or ten–natural, raw, adventurous, beautiful, wild, cowboy country. I immersed myself in it. And don’t plan to stop.
Because when I was seventeen I left the comfort of this little oasis with a couple songs in my pocket and a dream of an education and coming back to the ranch to make a living and start a family and write and love and live and create and sing and keep the place alive.
And now my dreams are coming true. And I am so thankful.
Hense all the photographs, all the musings…all the plans.
And it seems like others are intrigued as well, because in my enthusiasm about my new found old life, I submitted one of my many photographs to the North Dakota Governor’s Photo Contest in an attempt to share my point of view and take a look at others’.
And I won.
I won a contest.
What the heck?
But I’m pretty damn thrilled.
And it turns out others are thrilled for me and are spreading the word.
So I’d like to give a shout out to Grand Forks, the community of my alma mater, the University of North Dakota, for giving me get the guts and brains to go out in this world and do what I want on my terms. And thanks for claiming me to this day.
Thanks Watford City for growing me up, sending me off, and taking me back. No matter what.
And thanks North Dakota for letting me love you so.
And loving me back.
Sharing a snapshot of life on the ranch
Jessie Veeder Scofield’s photo, which is part of a larger plan for the future of the family ranch, wins state contest
October 21, 2010. Grand Forks Herald
North Dakota Governor's Contest Winning Photograph
Jessie Veeder Scofield is in love with western North Dakota. It’s her home, and for years, she’s been singing and writing about it. After earning a degree at UND, touring as a musician and marrying her cowboy, she’s back on her family ranch 30 miles south of Watford City.
And she’s won the top prize in the North Dakota Governor’s Photo Contest with a picture of her cowboy husband on one of the west’s most treasured landmarks, the Maah Daah Hey Trail. A favorite of horseback riders, hikers and bicyclists, it winds 97 miles, beginning 20 miles south of Watford City, through the Badlands and gently rolling prairie, to Sully Creek State Park south of Medora, N.D.
Veeder Scofield said she snapped the photo of her husband, Chad Scofield, during a trail ride on Chad’s birthday. In the snapshot, a horse waits in the background as Chad leans against a fencepost, head down, smiling, in his cowboy hat and chaps.
“He has this natural laid-back vibe about him, and he just photographs well,” Jessie said. “I think that’s why it worked really well.”
The North Dakota Department of Tourism will take Jessie’s photo and the others from the annual contest for amateur photographers, and use them to promote North Dakota.
That is fitting because Jessie has picked up a camera in recent months to illustrate her blog, which is one way she’s promoting the establishment of a ranch vacation property on her family’s 3,000-acre ranch, homesteaded by her great-great-grandfather, Ben Veeder, in 1915.
Jessie and Chad want to make a life and a living in western North Dakota. They see the ranch and the beauty that surrounds it as their heritage and their future, she said.
“I’ve been in love with it all my life,” she said, “taking so many pictures and writing about it and singing about it. I grew up helping on the ranch, riding horses. I was lucky enough to marry someone who has the same interests.”
Jessie may be best known in the Grand Forks area as a singer/songwriter. During her years at UND, she often performed in public. She recorded her first CD, “This Road” in 2000 when she was 16. Her other recordings, “A Place to Belong” (2005) and “Jessie Veeder Live at Outlaws” (2007) are available on iTunes. (For more about her music, go to www.sonicbids.com/jessieveeder/.)
As a young girl, Jessie attended a rural school about 15 miles from her home. She went to Watford City occasionally for band practice, and that’s when she met Chad. They dated in high school, attended UND together and married in 2006.
She grew up performing with her father, rancher Gene Veeder, a folk singer. By the time she was 10, she was playing the guitar and doing some soloing. At UND, she took marketing and public relations classes, and kept singing, getting picked up by a music agent in Nashville, Tenn., and touring colleges all over the Midwest. After graduation in 2005 with a communications degree through the honors program, she toured full time. Chad finished his psychology degree at University of Montana.
After their marriage, they lived at the ranch, technically anyway. She spent most of her time touring and Chad worked in the oilfields. Jessie said she loved being on the road and met many great people there.
“But it was one of those gigs where you could have gone on and on with that lifestyle for a good number of years, and it’s hard to make a living like that,” she said. “There were other things that I wanted to do as well, more than be on the road by myself all the time.”
She and her father still perform from time to time, including at Medora, but her focus is on the family ranch. After living in Dickinson, N.D., for a time, she and Chad are living in a little house her grandfather built, about a mile down the road from her parents,
Watford City is a growing community with lots of opportunity, she said.
“A lot of my girlfriends are moving back and starting their families, so it’s a great time to come back,” she said.
She’s taking a lot of photos these days for the website and blog about the ranch vacation property, which she envisions with cabins for visitors, offering riding, hiking and biking trails. She hopes to use music, hers and others, as another way to draw visitors. But what she’s put online already is drawing a lot of interest, she said.
“With that blog, I started documenting a lot of our lifestyle and what is around me. It really got me into photography again. I’ve had interest from people all over the world. They’re really following what we’re doing and interested in it, which is really encouraging,” she said.
Veeder Scofield said she hopes to have a visitor cabin open on the ranch by next summer, depending on how things go.
“We’re just happy to be living in the place we’re living and I just like to celebrate it and sing about it, and I’m glad other people like it as well,” she said.
Reach Tobin at (701) 780-1134; (800) 477-6572, ext. 134; or send e-mail to ptobin@gfherald.com.
Link to the above article: Grand Forks Herald Article
Link to my hometown newspaper: McKenzie County Farmer
Discover my great state: North Dakota Tourism
Love Ya!
The night.
Slowly it sweeps over us, peeking out from behind the horizon, warning that another day will soon be gone–that time has passed us once again.
That it always wins.
We scramble to get the chores done, our dinners served and dishes cleaned.
Our babies bathed and tucked in tight.
And as we sing the first few lines of a familiar lullaby, the black cloak is draped and the moon rises outside our windows so humble, so unassuming that we often miss it as our eyes grow heavy and our breath evens out and the weight of the darkness creeps over our roofs.
And when the moon makes its way up to center sky, the wind grows calm under its rays, the grass stoops low and the night creatures with eyes that flash from the hillsides and from deep in the brush make plans for an unnoticed life.
So the civilized turn in, shut doors, move locks and draw curtains, hoping this time, tonight, to keep the quiet out.
But out here the quiet is loud…
…so loud…
Because once the last of the coyotes finish their star serenade, they laugh as they leave us with nothing.
Nothing but the silence that envelops us and screams the things we cannot be, the places we will never go, the people we will never hold, the words we should have never said…
..the words we should have delivered instead.
So we reach for our loves, pull covers up tight, curse at the clocks and turn on our TVs to drown out the calm…the silence.
We whisper.
Our words prick the air.
We squeeze our eyes tight against it.
And under this blanket of black we lay on our backs and fight the dark with thoughs of the morning…
…and dream of the things we could be…
…if only the night would wait.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 