Category Archives: Ranch Life

A look at what this really means.

October Rain

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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.

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.


Margaritas/mimosa…and get me on a horse…

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type type type type, click, click, type, click (a sound effect to set the stage for the following Facebook conversation that occurred a few weeks ago)

Me: “Looking forward to your visit to the ranch. List three things you MUST do when you get here.”

J:          “1. Margaritas/Mimosa
2. Cowboy Photo Shoot
3. Get me on a horse”

That’s my friend J. And that’s why I love him…our list of priorities seem to always match up. That and the fact that he made sure to include a ranch visit in the time he took off after running a MARATHON in the Twin Cities just days before. He chose this as his relaxing place…and I wasn’t about to disappoint, seeing as I am a professional relaxer myself.

J, at the ranch!

So I stocked up on wine, tequila and dark beers, pulled the burs from our trusty trail horse’s mane and tuned up my camera…and then proceeded to make a grocery list that had a front and a back side full of important ingredients like cream cheese, avocados, butter, heavy whipping cream, bacon, eggs, biscuits, tortilla chips, and a question mark next to the word “apple pie?”

I was pumped. I love hosting friends who appreciate the adventure of taking a trip out to the middle of nowhere to hike the hills, learn to cowboy and sit close at the kitchen table in this small house and tell and hear stories from my family and neighbors, eat and drink and fill the space and the barnyard with laughter, just the way life was intended to be spent.

J understands this. I haven’t known him to take a single moment for granted. But he’s not the type to preach about it, it’s not an action taken from the pages of a self-help book or from the trauma of a loss. It’s just his mentality. Live…really live. So when I met him in town I was not surprised to find that I could check the “make pie?” item off my list. Because J had already made one. A serious homemade, Martha Stewart looking pastry made with the freshly picked apples from his mom and dad’s backyard.

Yup. That’s J. He just whipped it up, no problem. No real recipe really and no big dramatic statement to the world screaming from the rooftop “hey world, I’m making a ppiiieeee…home made crruusstt…filled with juicy aaapppllleeess…my own rrecciippeee…” Not that anyone I know would ever make such a big deal about a baking attempt…

ahem.


Anyway, I gladly took the pie in its perfect little pie box and then drove my guest and longtime friend to the badlands to hike up some buttes and show him the North Unit, a National Park he had yet to see from the top.

It was no problem that he had just run 26 point whatever miles a few days before. No problem at all…he was happy to lead the way up the trail to the top of the world with me. He’s got this under control. I mean, just a few month’s earlier he completed a 500 mile bike race and then went on to some sort of 100 + mile running relay in Colorado a few days later (I can’t remember the exact details because I was too busy trying to catch my breath on the way to the top of our destination…I’m not sure, but I could have blacked out and started dreaming of what I was going to make with cream cheese and biscuits…anyway…) what was a little hike in the uncharacteristically warm and characteristically windy ND weather?

Physically it was nothing for him, but what it meant to him to experience this with a friend I know was as priceless to him as it was to me.

And along the way we caught up. I hadn’t seen him since we met up in Minnesota to listen to music and ski down mountains in sub zero temperatures. I caught him up on my plans and he informed me that his goals for the year included getting in shape, and taking on new physical challenges…which explains the marathon and camping out on a mountain under the stars in the chill of the winter.

The man really follows through.

And I was so proud of him as I huffed and puffed along, back down to the car, explaining that Cowboy’s cooking has been pretty divine lately and I have settled into a comfortable life of eating and milling around the homestead coulees taking photos and thinking about things.

He said he knows, he’s been keeping up with me here and sharing what I’ve been doing with others.

And so we drove out of the park, stopping to discuss the impractical composition of bison, with their tiny tails, big shoulders and flat faces, along the way.

Then it was off to the ranch (with one stop for vodka and ice on the way) where I didn’t have to apologize to J for the lumpy yard, a result of the cow volleyball tournament. He didn’t care, he was too busy mixing up Jameson ginger ales and settling in. And then husband came home to whip up a batch of his famous knoephla as we sat around the kitchen table and munched on appetizers that, you guessed it, featured cream cheese as the main event.

Because we needed to get nice and fed and warmed up for our long day of exploring the ranch. So after supper we loaded up in the pickup, I squeezed my cheese loving ass into a bathing suit and we gazed at the stars as we soaked in the hot tub and made our plans for the next day…

which included waffles, homemade chokecherry syrup, mimosa, coffee and a walk along the creek that runs between the two places only to run into pops who had come home early to take us on a ride out east…

and the rest of the week went as follows…

more dip, roast beef, saddle up the trail horse, battle with my mare who has now decided she is absolutely uncatchable, but that’s ok, because I could show off my running and cowboy skills to my guest, go riding with pops, meander through the fall pastures, look back at J’s huge smile when his horse broke into a trot…

come home to guacamole, chips, more Jameson ginger ales, wine. Greet my momma at the door, pour her a glass, put on the steaks, welcome the neighbors, put a leaf in the table and bring up the folding chairs, put the bread in the oven and heat up the soup, take the potatoes and steaks off the grill, think that we should probably have vegetables and whip up a salad, pour some more wine, make a vodka tonic for the new guest, make sure we aren’t missing a food group, sit down behind our plates and tell stories, ask questions, laugh and don’t turn in until we have a slice of that pie with coffee…

go to bed full and happy, wake up for caramel rolls, coffee, another ride…

and then come home in time to get in on the end result of an elk hunt, which meant riding in the back of a flatbed trailer attached to a 4-wheeler and trying to avoid permanent damage to your rear end while pops drove at a reasonable speed over some unreasonable terrain….

…because it wouldn’t be a visit to the ranch without at least one genuine redneck experience…

Come home laughing, hug one another goodbye and make plans for our next adventure…

and be thankful your good friend, the one who drives 12 hours after a marathon to the land of cockleburs, mud and an uncatchable horse just to spend time with you and husband, is the kind of man who would leave you the rest of his pie…

We’re so thankful we have a friend like that.


A moment with Pops…

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On this Sunday evening I would like to share with you a few moments in the life of my pops. It’s a scene I’ve witnessed a few times before, but I imagine it hardly ever occurs as he’s out traipsing the pastures, working, making sure nothing is amiss…

But when it appears all is well, the garbage has been taken out, the cows are in the proper coulees, the horses are watered and fed and the dogs are taking a break from terrorizing the above animals, pops finds himself a quiet spot to rest…

just for a minute…

just to examine the back of his eyelids…

Really. You understand don’t you? It takes energy to lean against this autumn wind.

I knew you’d agree.

So while we are all at home thinking, “Man, pops has been gone a while…he must be working hard…fencing maybe…cows must be out…wonder if he needs help…he must be hungry…or chilled on this brisk fall day…I’ll put on some coffee for when he gets in. He’ll like that. Poor guy, working overtime all the time out on this rough landscape in this harsh weather…he’ll need a nap when he gets in…”

…maybe…

Yup.

Hope your weekend had some moments like these…
And these…

‘Cause  it was a rough couple of days at the Veeder Ranch.

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:

Why you shouldn’t wear ball gowns in the barnyard…

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Ahh, autumn’s beauty. Serene. Peaceful, golden hues, warm setting sun, a light breeze, one perfect horse grazing on the hillside.

From here it looks like I exist in a damn painting. From here it looks like something in a coffee table book.

Or a page in the Western Horseman, Cowboys and Indians, the photo that goes with October in an outdoors calendars,  or the art that I imagine hangs on the wall of one of those fancy ranch houses in Texas.

Only this is real life people. You know it. This is no painting. No sir. At this distance our horses are sleek and groomed, with slick, shiny coats glistening in the bug free air.

True rugged beauty.

Unbelievable.

Yes.

Unbelievable.

Oh, come a little closer pretty boys. Let us run our hands through your manes, bury our faces in your coat, ride like the wind as the autumn air whips through our gorgeous hair…just like that woman on her steed in the clothing poster in the dressing room.

Yes, come closer, I’ll be her…let me get my long, flowing dress and giant earrings…


Oh, pretty boys yes, I’ll take your photo. We’ll show them what it’s like out here in the wild west of North Dakota. You are specimens. You are what those stable horses dream to be.

Free.

Agile.

Spirited.

Untamed.

Wild.

And….

well….

umm….

ah shit…

I weep.

I twitch.

I scratch.

And then fall to my knees and ask the sweet Lord to have a chat with the Devil himself. Because the Lord that I believe in created  all things indeed. The worms for the birds, the mosquitos for the frogs, the mice for the snakes, the snakes for the hawks, the weeds for the goats. I get it. I know how the chain works. I see the big picture. Lord, I do indeed.

But burs?

I just don’t get it. The only answer to the riddle of why these beastly, nasty, gnarly, poky, sticky, velcro-esk, buds of torture exist has to be this…bare with me here: While the sweet Lord was busily and happily creating things, he had mercy on the Devil and gave in to his plea to let him have a chance at inventing something. And the Lord, ever trusting, always willing to give second chances, thought to himself, “Ah, what the heck, maybe the Devil has turned himself around” and then suggested that the King of the Underworld start off with something small, like a nice little green plant, maybe a pretty insect or a flower. So the Devil rubbed his spindly little hands together, swished his tail and snickered with glee as he concocted a plan for a plant to take over barnyards everywhere.

“It will start out innocently enough,” he growled to himself while God had his back turned, busily inventing baby ducks. “Some people will mistake it for rhubarb and happily collect it to bake in pies for unsuspecting neighbors. Bwahahahah….cough cough” (the Devil coughs, you know, because of all that smoke inhalation).

“Wheeeze…ahem…and then it will grow. It will grow tall and strong in the most inconvenient places, like in front of the barn, and along the water tank, or the edges of creeks and under shady trees, you know, everywhere a beautiful horse with a long luscious mane might want to wander,” the Devil snorted.


God moved onto lilypads with those pretty little yellow flowers and then finished out his day with penguins and cotton-balls, all the while trusting the Devil to do the right thing, like go along with the useful insect idea. But no. The Devil had plans…

“It won’t need sun,” he was pacing now. “Oh, no. In fact, being the spawn of the devil, this “plant” (the Devil loves to use air quotes…it’s so annoying) it will prefer the dark places. But when the sun does hit it, no worries. It will just sprout the best part, the best part of it all…poky, sticky, scratchy little balls that will jump off the plant and stick to anything remotely fuzzy, kinda like how the velcro on your baby cousin’s shoes collect lint…only worse…WORSE I TELL YOU!!”

He laughed, he roared, he used his pitchfork thing to strike the new earth while he declared… 

“This is good…I mean bad…because sticking on tightly to anything and everything that moves about the place will allow my weed to spread to every corner of the prairie. And it will multiply and grow and thrive! Mwahahaaa…Why you ask?! Because nothing. NOThing. NOTHING WILL EAT IT!”

And with that, and a swipe of his red hot pitchfork thing, burdock was invented…

And there aren’t enough chainsaws in the world to remove it completely from the ranch.

Now I wish I wouldn’t have put on this long, flowing, ball-gown for this horse frolic photo shoot, because I am pretty sure I have a bur stuck to my butt…

Oh Lord, grant me the strength, proper equipment, cosmetics and attire to deal with ten horses who have been convinced by an evil man with pointy horns, red tights and a tail that the best grass is the grass growing underneath a cocklebur bush.

Scratch. Scratch.

Sniffle.

Sob.

Waahh…


67 minutes, a half bottle of Show-Sheen, twenty newly invented cuss-words and a broken comb later…

Yawn...

Ready…

For your…

Close up…

Ok. That’s better.

And I’d like to tell you that will be the first and last time I post a photo of a horse’s butt, but I just can’t make any promises…

Take that Devil…now I think it’s time we  have a chat about wood ticks….

DAAAMMMAAAIITTT!

Thank God for Cowboys…

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I’m in cowboy country out here.

Yes indeed.

Cowboy country.

A classic American icon. Songs are written about them, movies have been made about the ones in white hats standing up for what’s right, epic novels follow characters on the back of wild horses, on cattle drives and shootouts, sleeping under the stars and opening doors for women.


I grew up out here surrounded by men like these. Men who would rope a 3,000 pound bull off the back of a half broke horse (because there was no other choice) in the early morning hours and then go home to rock their babies to sleep or to teach their preschooler how to ride a bike. Men who would drop everything for a neighbor in need of some extra hands or an extra horse. Men who had stories they would share over coffee or a beer about their rodeo days, having a buddy’s back in a fight, being stepped on, kicked, bucked off and bruised in the name of horsemanship and a living.

To me no other man existed. As a teenager I had posters and magazine pages I pulled out of the Western Horseman plastered all over my walls. They were handsome, mysterious and capable of fixing anything…just give them a wrench and some wire. They were fearless and light hearted but serious about their work and their animals. They all wore boots and hats and a clean shirt when they went to town. They didn’t own a pair of loafers or a polo shirt…wouldn’t be caught dead in them, not even if one of their wives finally got them to stop working for a week and join her on a Caribbean Cruise.

I was just certain all men had this in them. I was certain the market for khaki pants was a small one. I was convinced cowboys, intense as they can be, were the only ones worth marrying, the only ones to teach your babies things, the only ones to feed around a dinner table.

Certain.

And as I grew up around these young cowboys who were working on becoming the real deal, I watched as they learned lesson after lesson about what it meant to hold the title. The true title.

It was more than the outfit. It was the attitude. The confidence, the fearlessness, the quiet calm, the quick-wit, the ability to keep their composure while faced with challenges like staying on a bucking bronc for 8 seconds, jumping off a horse running wide open and wrestling a steer to the ground or working to save a sick calf. And when they failed, which every cowboy in training did, it was brushing themselves off and walking proud out of the gate. When their buddy beat them, it was a handshake, a hug, a good job brother.



And then I moved away, where there were fewer cows, less dirt and more pavement…buildings between the trees.

I missed a lot of things about the place I grew up when I was away. I missed the coulees and the bluffs and the sage and the crickets chirping through open windows at night. But it wasn’t long before I got used to being away, before I got used to the sidewalks and the men in sneakers and neckties. I was beginning to become convinced that maybe there weren’t many cowboys in the world, really. Maybe they were just contained in a few small places like western North Dakota, Texas and Montana. Maybe they were tucked away in those far away, wide open spaces…the spaces where cowboys go.

But every once in a while I would find one. He’d be at a bar in a baseball cap wearing Cinch jeans and boots. He’d be playing pool and joking with his buddies, he’d buy a girl a drink, he’d lean on the table waiting for his turn in the relaxed and cool way only a cowboy can. Or he’d be in class with me, studying to become a banker, an agriculturalist, a teacher, something to earn a living so maybe he could move back to the ranch someday. Every once in a while he’d kinda gaze in the distance, the way I would find myself doing when I was thinking of home, thinking of the horses, thinking of the sage, and I’d imagine where he might be from and understand that kind of loneliness.

Yes, they were out there. Because times are changing, it’s not the wild west anymore, there isn’t thousands of acres for the picking. Family ranches are bigger and further between…and sometimes, cowboys have to move to town.

And to me there couldn’t be anything sadder really-a cowboy in the suburbs or between skyscrapers. And I worry for my young sisters that maybe the real cowboys are a dying breed. That maybe with the changing times, our fast paced world, the ease of which we can get things fixed, be entertained, make a living with computers and machines, that the cowboy culture is becoming extinct.


I worry until I find myself in my hometown on a Friday night watching some of the best cowboys and cowgirls in the nation rope steers, ride broncs, fight bulls and then go out back to their trailers to hug their kids in cowboy hats and jeans who are practicing roping on the dummy.

I worry until I witness the little girl I used to babysit from down in the badlands, the little girl who’s not so little anymore,  bust out after a calf at full speed as a teenager competing against the toughest women who’ve been at this for years longer.

I am concerned until I see my uncle, one of the greatest horsemen and all around spirits I know, out there in the arena judging the events, cheering on the contestants, taking this tough job seriously only to wake up the next morning to make time for a nice long ride with my pops through fall pastures.

I worry until I take a ride with my pops and and my neighbor who wear the years of rough-stock and friendship and ranching out here in the badlands on their weathered faces and callused hands. The two men who grew up together, who remain neighbors and who have taught husband and I everything we know about cowboy so that someday we might pass it along to our children.

And so I am reminded that there are cowboys around every corner. Good men. Hard working, sacrificing men making the world an adventure, noticing the stars and the Northern Lights, feeding our families and keeping our land healthy…staying strong.

I say thank God for them.

Thank God for Cowboys.


A horse with no name (Prize alert!)

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Good morning. I need your help.

I don’t have time to talk about this beautiful weather we’ve been having, or how summer is slowly and in a lovely way turning into fall. Or how I have been procrastinating my chokecherry syrup project for riding every evening.

No. I can’t talk about that.

This shit is urgent.

My horse needs a name.

Here she is, I think you’ve seen her before.

The mare.

The paint mare.

Girly girl.

Miss Piggy.

Mohawk.

Jessie’s horse.

Cause I’ve claimed her. Yup. Put my name all over her after pops brought her back to the ranch for the second time in my life. Maybe I should take some time to explain this so you can get a general idea about what I’m dealing with here.

See pops is a horse trainer, horse whisperer, horse fanatic, horse lover, damn horse crazy man. He admits it.

This would be his heaven. Living, sleeping and eating pie with the horses...

And he admits there hasn’t been a horse in the universe that he has met that he didn’t love. Even the one’s that bucked with him repeatedly for no apparent reason, the ones that will run around the round pen for an hour before they’ll give in and be caught, the ones whose feet are always tender, the ones that walk too slow, the ones that only want to run, the ones that knocked the wind out of his lovely middle daughter time and time again as she found herself launched out of the saddle and whimpering on the hard, clay ground, unable to feel her entire right side.

Nope. Dad liked that horse too. Just not the behavior…of horse or rider I must add. Because in the Horse Whisperer’s eye it is rarely solely the horse’s fault. I suppose Ceasar the dog whisperer has the same theory–it’s misunderstanding. Miscommunication that causes the issues.

And its pops mission in life to talk to the horses, you know, let them know that there is at least one man in the world who will try to understand where the beasts are coming from.

I think he’s been this way since birth.

Which brings me to the reason this ranch has been home to hundreds of horses in his lifetime. They find their way here when someone is having trouble with them. It could be a young colt that needs a start, an older animal with a stubborn streak, a temper, fear or anything in between. Horse owners and friends and friends of friends will somehow find their way to pops who rarely ever says no to giving it a try.

And after a few turns around the corral he always falls in love and either offers to buy the horse or to ride it until the owner would like it back.

That’s the first scenario.

The second scenario is how my-mare-who-remains-nameless found her way to our house the first time–because pops went a looking.

Yup, he found himself at a horse sale watching the hand me down animals come through the ring. Horses that others may have given up on, or didn’t have time or room for. He can’t help himself, even when he swears he’s just going to look, he brings his trailer along just in case. And so, about three years ago when I was working in the big town with the horse sale, pops shows up at my office with the trailer. I walked out across the parking lot, stood up on the tire of the rig in my fancy shoes and slacks and peered in to meet two paint mares that would have likely gone to the land of no return.

How lucky they were that pops was there with his horse selecting technique: jumping on them bareback with a halter to test their reaction.

Well they lived up to the test and so we had a couple new mares, one, the one I call mine, happened to be at the prime of her life. 8 or 9 years old, cowy, quick, sound, calm with just the right amount of energy. Yup. A great little horse. Pops was thrilled. But this is where it gets a little complicated, so hang in there with me.

Pops is like personal shopper when it comes to picking out equines. He was so thrilled with this purchase, but at the time he was the only one riding horses on the place and what he really wanted was his buckskin back. So he called his buddy in the badlands. The buddy who currently owned his beloved buckskin horse, acquired through a previous horse trading deal (there have been multiple in this friendship). He said “buddy, I have a horse for you. You’ll love her. She fantastic. Wanna trade back?”

And his buddy did.

So pops had the buckskin and his badlands buddy had the mare. The mare he titled “Left’er,” claiming that pops had just come around one day and, well..left ‘er. Apparently that horse trade story didn’t sound the same when badlands buddy told it.

Anyway, so there pops sat for three years with his beloved buckskin whose sore feet deem him ridable about three times out of these summer. No worries, there are plenty more horses to ride. Horses that have come to the Veeder Ranch in the wake of a major meltdown only to be coaxed back to life, pops tolerant of their quirks in the end.

And badlands buddy, he was loving the mare. Riding her on mountain trail packing trips, through the badlands, herding cattle. That mare had his heart indeed. But badlands buddy is a wandering cowboy and when he made plans for a year-long trip to the mountains where he would be responsible for maintaing trails, he called pops.

And I came home at the end of June to find the mare munching oak leaves in the horse pasture below our house.

So I saddled her up and, well, I will not ride another I say.

I will not ride another.

She’s gentle, but not overly friendly. She’s got a little attitude and is hard to catch unless you have treats or a bucket of anything really. Because sister loves to eat. If we are running through clover field at top speed I swear she just opens her mouth to catch what ever plant might be at the proper height. The girl is hungry.

I can relate.

And when it comes to cows you might as well just take a seat, because she’s got it under control.

I’ve been riding her for a good two months now and I am more convinced every day that she’s the best horse I’ve ridden. Other’s may not agree, but that’s my story and we’re sticking to it, her and I. She makes this ranch woman’s life a little easier…and I don’t even mind her mohawk really because it means less time spent plucking burrs from her hair and more time spent getting business done.


Which brings me, the long way (as usual) to my point.

Girlfriend needs a name.

And I need your help.

Now that you know our story it should be easy right? Oh, and I have incentives! If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been working on putting some of my photographs from this site up for sale on my Etsy site. See that tab up there that says “Store”? Yup. You pick a name that suits her and you can pick any print or necklace you want from there and I’ll send it to your door, a thank you for fixing this little predicament I have found myself in with no name to call out when heading to the pasture looking for her.


You are all creative, intuitive, smart people. I know you can come up with an appropriate title for her. 

Thank you.

Love you.

We’ll be out riding if you need us.

P.S. I am constantly adding photos and gifts to my Etsy site. I also have photos for sale in the Visitor’s Center in Watford City. If you see a photo here you would like in a print, canvas, barnwood frame, anything, I would love to fill your order. Just shoot me an email at jessieveeder@gmail.com. These photos make great gifts for the North Dakota lover you know (especially if that North Dakota lover is, you know, yourself). 

Christmas is coming. 

And that’s my shameless plug. 

This is 29…

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This man got older yesterday. Yes. This is what 29 looks like after a day of waffles, neighbor visiting, gun shooting, chokecherry boiling, horse saddling, campfire cooking, exploring with a 3 year old and riding home at dark.

I think he pulls it off, don’t you?

Yes, this is what 29 looks like. The one on the right…the one on the left has a few years to go to catch up …

And if you were looking for husband yesterday you might have rolled into the yard to see him milling around the farmstead tinkering with his new gun, the one he has been dreaming of for three years, the one from “Quigley Down Under.”  Or you might have caught him helping to hold my pot of boiling hot chokecherries as I worked at straining the juice only to accidentally dump half of my work down the sink.

Then you would have seen me stomp to my room and lay face down on the bed and whimper while he slowly and patiently walked in behind me to laugh (not too hard) and tell me that we had plenty of juice, don’t worry…we didn’t need the stuff that went down the drain anyway…

Yeah, if you came at the right time you would have witnessed this act of cool collectedness from the strong and stoic half of the relationship. Or maybe you would have tried to call only to get the answering machine as he was out making plans at the new house site, driving his pickup down the road to see what pops was up to, saddling his favorite bay horse and taking a long ride to the badlands to have dinner with the neighbors, catching a frog so our three year old friend could get a closer look and then pointing out an ant pile and racing her back to camp.

It was my husband’s 29th birthday yesterday and all day long I followed this man around as he carved out his day. I listened as he talked hunting with my cousin who came knocking on the door, watched as he graciously thanked the neighbors for supper, rode beside him as he rode proud and strong on that horse he has been working on for years and sat snuggled in close as we watched “The Man from Snowy River” as the day came to a close. And the entire day I kept thinking…29. 29. 29. I’ve known this kid, this man, for nearly twenty years, he has been holding my hand for nearly fifteen, we have been married for five and we have a lifetime ahead of us…but still, I wish I could have known him from the beginning of it all.

Does that make sense?

Maybe not. I mean, what more could I want than to have grown up with a boy only to watch him change into a man I am so proud to call my family. Maybe it’s selfish, but look at him here. Where was I when he tried to carry this fish away?

Where was I? I wanted to be there to hear his small voice and the excitement as the fish flopped and he struggled and learned to be a sportsman, a hunter.

I was probably riding shotgun in my father’s pickup on the way to the ranch. Or sledding down the hills outside this very door oblivious to the young boy in town learning how to hold a bow and arrow. Unaware that the kid in the Batman pajamas sword- fighting with his little brother would one day become my whole world.

I just didn’t want to miss that. I didn’t want to miss the look on his face when he got his first puppy for his eleventh birthday or the cake his father made for him…I wanted to be there to taste it with him.

But I was busy making my own way, my own memories, my own experiences which somehow prepared me for catching this boy’s attention. This boy who wanted to be a mountain man, a cowboy, a trapper, a ninja, a wrestler and football player. I wonder while he was reaching for those dreams if he imagined himself out here with a girl like me? I girl who was so nervous when he first came to visit her on the ranch that while attempting to get on her sorrel horse she jumped right on over the horse’s bare back and landed in a heap on the other side. A girl who showed him all of her favorite places in the coulees, hoping he was the right one to show them to. 

A girl who wrote songs about him, got her heart broke by him only to live through it and start again…

a girl who never planned on being married at all…who was content, really, with being alone out here, thank you very much…but who is so grateful now that she isn’t.

So yes, this man has been on this earth 29 years and although I may have missed some of the best memories he holds, I am content knowing that I was there for some of them and will be there for more to come.  29 years and in his lifetime he may not have climbed the biggest mountains like he planned, shot the biggest deer, learned to ride eight seconds on a bucking bull, won the nation on the wrestling mat…

But he has changed the world. Because simply by living an authentic life he has helped me tackle mine with more confidence and conquerable force, by loving this land with passion and a capable energy  he has provided my family with trust and support, and by holding true to that spirit that he has been filling up with experiences, good things, difficult things, true things, he becomes more capable, more himself, more of the man he wanted to be every day.

And I am just so damn happy that he grabbed my hand when he did so I could be there to watch him become the man I’ve loved all along…

Happy Birthday Cowboy…to the moon and back…


The last of the old automobiles…

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Well happy September to you. It sure came in with a chill around here as a storm turned the air from hot and muggy to crisp and dry overnight with a powerful storm that knocked out the power right as I was finishing my last freezy pop and the end of a chick flick.

Let me know how “Easy A” ends will ya?

Anyway, enough with the weather because I tell you, the dog days of summer are moving on out and shit is happening around here.

See I am not what you call a patient woman. Not at all. When I get an idea in my head this girl wants to see its pretty little face…like NOW! Which is the very reason I find myself in situations where I am waist deep in rhubarb jelly with not one canning jar in sight. It seems I am not much of a fan of the preparation phase. Idea phase? I’ve got plenty experience in that. Planning phase? Oh, I have plans. Finished product? Yes please.

Preparation? Well, I guess that’s why I married this guy. I mean, he looks like he can handle it.

Anyway, I know this about myself because I’ve had practice. And as our new plans are coming to fruition, I was reminded that it was at this time last year that we were finishing up a major remodeling project in order to get the first house we’ve ever owned out on the market. I was also reminded that we haven’t been leaving much space between major life decisions in the past five years of our marriage.

“Oh well!” says the impatient maiden to her noble and ever so patient husband.

“Onward!” (I envision the maiden with a whip).

So we ordered our new house last week. And I know we are technically just a little under schedule, but this maiden is jumping around in her stretchy pants singing some sort of rock version of a song she made up titled “Finally!”

Big. Sigh. Of. Relief.

followed by.

One. Thousand. Calls. To:  insurance lady, bank lady, electric lady, propane guy, dirt guy, basement guy, road guy,

and junk removal guy…

Yup. He’s one of our guys.

Because you know how on every farm or ranch there is an old car graveyard? You didn’t? Oh, well on every farm or ranch there is a place where old cars, pickups, tractors, augers and lawnmowers go to their semi-final resting place.

And I say semi-final because eventually, even if it is nearly sixty years later, some naive relative of the home place will want to build a house in that grave yard…and then, if they don’t want old car lawn ornaments, it is their responsibility to find them a forever home.

So in between frolicking, chasing cows, thinking about flooring, working, eating freezy pops and watching bad chick flicks, a made a few calls…

Turns out it’s not so easy finding someone to drive to the middle of nowhere to pick up old stuff you don’t want anymore. But I found someone. He’s coming on Monday.

And in the meantime we had to clear way for the road.

So out came the old red tractor, that, by some miracle has avoided the junk pile yet another year…and out came the nostalgia.

Goodbye old brown Dodge Ram. I remember when pops brought you home. I remember when you were our fancy pickup. I remember how I used to scream in frustration at your sticky gears as pops walked away from our red faced stick-shift driving lesson. I hated you then.

But loved you so when you took me to my first high school rodeo, the one where I rode pops’ ranch horse through the barrel pattern and then tied her up to the trailer only to find she got loose and was running down the highway. I remember when pops retired you to bale-loader pickup when he purchased his fancy blue and white Ford with the tiny back seat. I remember when he took the box off you, geared you up with a winch and took you off road to feed calves and go fencing. I left for college and you were running like a champ.

I came back and you were here.

Rest easy brother.

Goodbye replacement Dodge. In my life you never really did run very well. I remember watching as pops’ head popped up over the hill, walking home after you stranded him in the field. He was determined to get you running, but somehow the only way was to keep you revved, floored, and never stop.

Pops would get your motor started again by some act of God and take off over the bumps and clay buttes whooping and hollering with the windows rolled down, only to find that you failed to start the next morning. You brought him to such lows and such highs, but I see it didn’t end well for you. You will be taking your last trip up the hill tonight.

And you. The old International. You are from a different time.

I never heard your gears grind or your engine rev. I never saw the way  you could dump a load with a switch from inside the cab. I only knew you as a relic, a symbol of my great grandfather’s presence on this place, a load of wood waiting in your box, as if someone was sure to come back for you, to finish their work for the day and put you back in the shop. I find it hard to part with you, in fact, I haven’t quite decided if I will. It seems you’ve earned your place here. Maybe one day I’ll find someone to fix you up. Maybe one day you could run again?

Maybe.

Oh, and I guess I could talk here about pop’s first riding lawnmower and how he was so excited about it that he tried to mow the entire coulee in front of his house. I could tell you how funny he looked sitting on that thing in his cowboy hat among the grass that reached up over his head. No wonder that little machine died before its time. That will be leaving us too. Along with the old augers my cousins and I used to pretend were dinosaurs, the combines that acted as ships on a sea of clover, the car with wings…

But what really struck me that night as we hauled the last of the old automobiles, my grandparent’s old town car, up to the top of the hill to await their destiny was this:

Here we are taking little pieces of this place, the history and stories, up from the coulee where they might have sat until they rusted away and got lost in the grass and mangle of brush, up and out over the hill. Here we are making changes, making new roads, making decisions and promises to ourselves…making  room for our forever home…

I am not worried. I am not wondering what we are going to do next, where we’re going to be, how long this is going to last. I’m making plans, yes. But plans to stay, like those old cars, through blinding winters and scorching summers and clover and burdock that reach up to my ears. We will stay. Through rusty gears and chipped paint and plans that fail I will plan to stay.

Because it’s my semi-final resting place too.

I just hope I weather time as well as these old beasts…