What I see on my walks around this place. I have been trying to snap a photo of the yellow and blue birds outside my window, they are loving bathing in the puddles on the road after last night’s thunderstorm, but my old digital camera, limited photography and sneaking skills leave something to be desired. Enjoy this beautiful day!
Clover blooming in the pasture outside my house.
It’s hot today at the Veeder Ranch. Not a smoldering heat, but the sun is beating on the scoria road outside my house and quite unexpectedly, the trees are standing relatively still due to the lack of push by the usually relentless wind. Which entices the flies to buzz confidently at my front door and around our horses’ noses, sending them into a some sort of trance, bobbing their heads like a metronome in an attempt to keep the persistent insects away. They head for the hill tops to find a breeze.
The cows also have a ritual, which I’ve only noticed, but haven’t studied (as I don’t claim to be, at the present time, a cow expert. I am however, to my husband’s dismay, hoping to become a pig expert, but we won’t go there today). They gather together in a cluster, maybe near the corner of a pasture, or on a side hill, and at a sporadic pace, switch their wiry tails, slapping each other over backs, on faces, under bellies, forming a sort of jumbled up assembly of “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine.” I imagine them saying to each other on these days, after a long winter of trudging through the snow, “Really? We just can’t catch a break here can we?”.
These instinctual methods for dealing with the mites that come with the short North Dakota summer seem a bit more methodical than my form of extermination, which is cussing mostly, and a flyswatter made available on every table in the house. Oh, and Raid.
But the pastures are green. Like neon green. After a couple days of rains that poured down from the sky like God was
The paint catching a breeze on a hilltop.
throwing out his bathwater (and God, I imagine, has quite the large tub), the sunshine is working on drying the puddles and putting a nice crust on the gumbo buttes of the badlands and the ruts created in the gravel roads around here.
So I roll up my sleeves and my pants legs and, with my flyswatter in tow, I sprawl out on the porch. Because of course I love the warm sunshine. It is what I have been waiting for since it left us last September. I welcome it to come and brown my skin and entice the sweat-beads on my forehead and chest. I tilt my head upwards, squint my eyes and say “bring it on!” Because, in my sun-worshiping opinion, we don’t get enough of these kinds of days up here. And when we do, unfortunately for the office bound and car bound and truck bound and shovel bound North Dakota employees, they do usually land on a Monday or Wednesday, followed up with a nice rainy weekend, which doesn’t stop the hearty residents from loading up their fishing boats and digging out their Bermuda shorts anyway, because dammit, the summer is short.
Clay butte outside my window baking in the summer sun.
I found in my days touring the Great Plains as a musician that there are two things people want to talk about when you tell them you are from North Dakota (as if they didn’t already figure it out as soon as I open my mouth): your accent (say “You Know”) and the weather. And as soon as I got done explaining that yes, I know I have an accent, and that I blame it on my Lutheran Church Lady heritage, and yes, I know I say “Dakoota” funny, and haha, yes, I wish I talked more like you and said “ant” instead of “aunt” and “yes” instead of “yah,” the conversation always turns to weather.
“It’s cold up there isn’t it?”
“Yah, sure is”
“How cold does it get”
“Pretty cold. Sometimes like 30 below zero” *
“Holy Shit”
“Yah”
Yes, we talk about the weather. Ask us and we will proudly declare that it takes a certain type of person to live here.
Cows switching their tails near the water tanks.
That the winters keep the riff-raff out. That we hunker down and deal with it.
But we, from the humble stock we sprang, rarely talk about the summers here. Maybe because, in our minds, they are not so dramatic. They don’t incline us to use as many puns and metaphors and exaggerated stories about the neighbors nearly freezing to death in a blizzard or almost dying walking across campus at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (which is the coldest place on earth I am sure of it), or how the wind could blow the snow in a flurry one thousand miles an hour over roads coated with sheets of ice and North Dakota schools would not think of shutting down. No, North Dakota summers could not possibly be that dramatic.
But I think we are wrong here. The summers here are not to be skipped over on your way to explaining yourself out of why we endure the bitter cold. I believe there is something to be said, I mean, really be said, about the season that was sent here to save us.
Hondo cools off in the dam
Because graciously summer unfurls itself from its cocoon ever so slowly for us, year after year, revealing its colors in soft buds of green on the trees, allowing the sun to shine for just a few more minutes every day, enticing the crocuses to poke through the earth on the sides of hills. It gently whispers to us to open our windows, to let the winter air out of our houses, to let the dirt creep in on the bottom of our shoes, to water our lawns and watch the blades grow, to throw something on the grill. To warm up already!
It eases us into the new, refreshing sensation, like a mother coaxing her child to get his feet wet in the pool, to come in a little further, until he finally, after giddy squeals and nervous shakes, dunks his head under the water.
And although most North Dakotans don’t truly believe it’s summer until it’s half-way over, until we have complained
Pearl the mule going in for a drink.
enough about the rain and the wind and the tornado warnings, it is days like today we jump right in. We say to each other as we walk down the street “What a beautiful day!” “It’s gorgeous out there.” “Finally! The sun!” And we plop down in our gardens, and jump into the chilly lakes, and take our sandwiches to the park, and tend to our flowers. Because days like these allow us to completely and utterly forget about the long, frigid January, the snow we shoveled through to get to our garages and the white out blizzard on the highway we were stuck in during Christmas. We finally get a chance to thaw out enough to suck on a popsicle from the Shwan’s man.
In fact, show us a photo of the previous winter and it would be unrecognizable on a day like today when the sky is so blue and the birds are chirping and the dogs are panting and our children are covered in sunscreen and sweat. Those snow drenched houses were another lifetime. Another world.
My summer fly.
Because it is hot today at the ranch and North Dakotans everywhere are turning on sprinklers, nursing their first sunburns, opening their windows and feeling at least a little grateful for the flies.
And that takes a special type of person.
*just a note for those of you looking to take a visit, and don’t know me personally–I do tend to exaggerate, especially when it comes to the weather. 30 below zero has probably never occurred here. I am included in the dramatic bunch.
Happy first day of summer you crazies!
The Old Red Veeder barn where the reunion will take place.
So the Veeders are coming home. All of them. (Or as many of them who can fit in the time, take the drive, plan the flight and find it worth while).
It’s reunion season after all and that is what the Veeders intend to do. Reunite. Over casserole, bad lemonade, bars, jello salad and coffee and coffee and coffee.
My dad has been helping to plan this reunion for the past year. I mean of course. He is an important link in all of this as he has chosen, or has been charged with, or blessed, or just stupid enough to serve as the steward of this home place since his dad died nearly 20 years ago.
So, upon our official and gradual move from the city of Dickinson to our permanent residence at the ranch house, I have been helping a bit to get the place ready. Because, did I mention this house we have moved into has been vacant a good 10 years off and on? It turns out it needs some maintenance. (For those of you who have ever set up shop in an old house, I know you are nodding your head while recalling that lovely must-like scent.) Anyway, I spent most of my day yesterday in the basement, cleaning out some goodies and numerous spider webs.
Now I must mention here, that I am no stranger to this place. I basically grew up here. It wasn’t my childhood house, but it was my grandma’s home. Which meant that I spent many holidays, sleepovers, weekends and weekdays playing and reuniting with my cousins and aunts and uncles from across the country. It was our 600 square foot meeting place. Our stomping grounds.
The Veeder cousins with Grandma Edie during Easter at the Veeder House. I'm directly next to my grandma in the striped jumpsuit, always a good choice in the early 90s.
So there I was yesterday, in the depths of the basement, waist deep in boxes filled with other people’s stuff. Because over the years, this place has become the unofficial hiding spot for pottery, homemade doilies, ill-fitting clothing, and as it turns out, that sunflower latch-hook pillow I may have mentioned earlier. These boxes are full of the important things that people on both sides of my family, myself included, are just not quite ready to release their grip on. And this got me thinking. On the eve of family infiltrating the landscape, what, really, are we saving?
See, to me the act of organizing stuff in this particular basement was a little unnerving. Because this basement was the location of the wonderment of my youth. It is where my cousins and I performed faux marriage ceremonies, established the “Kitten Caboodle Club” to help save stray cats all over the farm-yard, and played “don’t fall in the hot lava” (the flaming red, orange and yellow carpet may have served as inspiration). It is where I performed my first interpretive dance to “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” learned, with regret, that the Easter Bunny does not exist (and just to help me out, neither does Santa Clause), and was informed that some of us were moving far away to Texas. According to me (and I’ll speak for my sisters and my cousins) nothing that was currently in this room really belonged there.
Old butter, canning and milk jars found in the basement of the Veeder house.
I raised up my hands in frustration (and consequently swiped up a cob-web).
Then my dad came over and we found, under the bed, a collection of his old albums and we went through them one by one. With each Neil Young and Emmylou Harris and Bruce Springsteen record came flooding back to my father a memory, an image, of who he was at the time he played it, over and over and over. He flipped to the back and read off, out-loud, the titles of the songs. Not surprisingly, many of them were familiar to me, because many of them he sings to this day. It was an exhilarating experience for him, to show someone else something that meant so much to him, to have his memory sparked enough to tell a few stories. We laid them all out on the bunk bed where I used to sleep. We laid all of them out.
But now what? I mean, I was working on cleaning this place out, to make room for the next batch of things I am not ready to release. What are we doing with these physical things and what does it say about the human condition that we insist on holding on so long? I mean, really, did my dad need to run hands over the covers of these albums to remember that he was once an afro donning, hippie-style ranch kid, in touch with his creativity and the front man and member of a traveling band? Do I really need to physically put on the mint green, 1960’s bridesmaid’s dress my grandma had in her dress-up drawer to remember that I once dramatically danced to Bette Midler in front of my entire extended family in the living room of this very house? I am not sure. I really am not sure.
I remember going through this house with my family, aunts, uncles and cousins after my grandmother died when I was
Veeder Cousins outside the Veeder house. Probably after one of our "Kitten Caboodle" meetings. Im am wearing the leotard and tights and carrying the blanket. That is a story for another day.
eleven. I remember there was an agreement that the grandkids each got a pair of her reading glasses (which she left all over her house, even though she usually had a pair strung around her neck) and we got to pick a few things that meant something to us individually. Something to remind us of her. I took one of her lipsticks. The kind that was blue or green and changed color on your lips. Mood lipstick I think they called it and it was always bright fuschia on her mouth. And also a Norwegean doll, who she referred to as “bestemor,” or “grandmother.” I am sure I found a couple other things, but I don’t remember. What I do remember was the stillness in the house that day– so quiet, even with all of us kids roaming around. I remember the smell of the grass softly seeping in through the open windows. I remember not giving a shit about her eyeglasses or her doll or her handkerchiefs. I wanted her voice, her laugh, her hands, her smell, her bread dough and homemade pickles. When I grew up, I wanted to ask her things and compare our features and understand why I may have turned out like her. And none of her things that I would put on my shelf could keep that from going away. Not when I lost her at eleven years old.
Wagon Wheel outside the Veeder House
The funny thing is, that here I am. In her house. Wanting so bad to keep the bricks and mortar in tact. Wanting to keep the windows clean and the floors swept. For her. For her family.
What am I holding on to?
My friend recently wrote that she too has been tempted to move back to her family farm to help make it “alive again.”
Maybe that’s what we’re doing here. All of the careful collections of things are set on shelves or in boxes to remind us about the spirit of the place, about ourselves. Because these relatives, my relatives, are not coming back for the noodle salad and family gossip. No. They are coming to touch the soil where my great-grandfather built his first home, to walk the hills they once rolled down as children, to stand on a familiar landmark, to breathe the air their great aunt sucked her last breath in, to visit the spot she once had a garden, to gather in the old barn. They are coming to remember and to celebrate the spirt of the place and the souls that rejoiced, wept and cussed here. Because we can’t hold on to the flesh and bone, the voices, the pain and the triumph, but we can preserve a tea-pot. And that helps us remember that we came from something. From something quite great.
Cornelia's Roses getting ready to bloom.
Which brings me to the roses.
I was told that below our house is a patch of yellow roses that my great-grandmother planted before she died early and suddenly in 1932. Cornelia’s roses. My great-grandfather, Eddy, tended to these flowers every day during the summers after her death, making sure they had water, sunshine, and were free of weeds. Since his death I am not sure that anyone has hoed or weeded or fed those roses. Yesterday, after emerging from the basement flushed and searching for air, I walked down to where her garden used to be and found, that after over 80 years, those roses were holding on too.
My dad emailed me these photos this morning after we visited last night about where the old homestead was located-just below the house where we are currently living. This house, my house, where my dad and his brother and sister grew up, was actually moved from its original location to its current location on a basement when my dad was 10 years old (so 45 years ago dad? Give or take a few). It was only then they had running water and a toilet in the house. He told me that he was so upset to have to move from an area with plenty of trees that he took it upon himself to work on landscaping, hauling trees in a bucket from nearby pastures (quite revealing of his character, even at that age). He’s proud to say that many of his transplant trees are thriving today.
The photos and his message:
“The first picture is your great grandpa Eddy standing in the door of his tarpaper shack below your house where I pointed out last night. He eventually built a house around that. It had a cool porch that a milk cow chased me into one day when when I went to get the milk cows. Kerry (sister) and I got chased home. The cow’s name was appropriately “Dummy”. Kerry would remember this, as she outran me!
The second pic is Grandpa Pete, you can see the butte east of him so it was taken close to the lilac bushes.”
When I was 10 or 11 I was obsessed with wildflowers. Obsessed.
Coincidentally, I was also obsessed with 4-H.
See the 4 H’s (head, hands, health, heart…pretty sure that’s right…funny how those logistics kinda slip the mind ) was a country girl’s lifeline to the rest of the world. It meant to me, not only PROJECTS (which I LOVED, and devoted my entire summer to), but also that I had one glorious weekend to spend in town with my almost equally nerdy friends comparing creations, eating fair burgers and flexing our flirting skills in the stands at the rodeo.
Yes, the county fair was a big damn deal people. Because my almost equally nerdy friends were from little and big farms dotted in a 30 to 50 mile radius from where I was headquartered, the fair provided the only time I actually got to see them the entire summer. A typical bike ride to meet half way would have surely killed us both.
Yeah, the seeing the friends thing I did not take for granted. But given my
athletic ability and the fact that the outlook of a successful sporting and rodeo career seemed pretty grim even at 10 or 11, the real reason for my devotion to the sport of 4-H was its trophy potential.
Trophy Potential.
(I feel compelled to mention here that I was the kid who followed 4-H dress code to annoying perfection. White pressed collared shirt buttoned up to the very top, strategically placed four leaf clover badge over my heart, tight wrangler blue jeans and polished boots. I was the epitome of 4-H, a model member, a spokes person. I should have been on the cover of “4-H Weekly” really. And if that magazine doesn’t exist, it should. Call me and I’ll make it happen).
Over the summers I had tried my hand at various activities. Like latch-hooking.
Does anyone even do this anymore?
I spent my evenings hunched over on the living room floor hooking yarn piece after yarn piece onto a pattern of a sunflower, cow, or horse. I would then commission the help of a third party to actually make the creation functional as well as decretive. My sunflower became a pillow, the two animals were rustic wall hangings…now that I think of it, I wonder what ever happened to those works of art? I mean, they weren’t tacky at all.
Anyway, latch-hooking was the only activity that even resembled girly that I decided to try. I refused baking and wasn’t going to kid myself in the sewing department, considering my mother had once sewn a pair of my sister’s pants together at the hem, and she was my sewing role model.
So I tried my hand at things like wood-burning, which always turned into an inspirational piece about the heartland or living your life to the fullest. I also did educational projects on gardening, beavers and beaver dams, tried my hand at drawing my favorite stuffed animal and took countless photos of my cats, dogs and horizons.
All of these projects I would present to the judges with pride. Even though I knew it was going to be tough to compete with my friend who would pick a needlepoint project off of her grandmother’s wall the night before the fair and make up a great story about how she had learned so much working alongside her dear granny. (I have always been freakishly honest, so I knew I didn’t stand a chance if I tried that shenanigan. That, and no one related to me actually knew the definition of needlepoint). Regardless, that friend and I would usually walk out with a respectable blue or red ribbon and a couple dollars in our pockets.
But let’s get real here. I generally do not have a competitive nature, but when it came to 4-H, I was out for blood. A 
hundred blue ribbons meant nothing. I wanted the grand. The purple. The TROPHY!
Which leads me to my wildflower obsession. I can’t remember, but I imagine it had been a long winter, giving me the time to consider inspiring projects that would surely land me a top spot at the State Fair (the county fair on steroids). I’m not sure what exactly gave me the idea to set out on a quest to hunt, gather and identify every living wildflower in McKenzie County, but it really was genius. It really carried massive potential. And it is exactly what I did.
As soon as the last pile of snow disappeared and first spring rain hit the earth, I hit the hills with my “Wildflowers of North Dakota” guide book and a whole lot of ambition. I became a hunter, a wild woman with a hawk’s eye for a splash of new color on the landscape. I would make my parents pull the car over if I thought I saw a semblance of a species I hadn’t collected yet. I was a seeker of the rare, fragile flower. It was a big day when I came across an in tact gumbo flower or perfectly assembled tiger lily. I remember taking my best friend out with me into the woods on our bikes with gloves and scissors because I NEEDED to collect a sample of Canadian thistle, which poked the shit out of your hands when you tried to pluck it from the ground. It is funny to me now that this became such a sought after specimen, considering every rancher would strongly disagree that this should be considered a wild flower. Wild yes. Flower no. But it had color and zest and, to me, it was beautiful as far as flowers go. I NEEDED it.
I would like to tell you that at the end of the summer, I took this project into town, stood proudly in front of the judges and confidently explained what I knew about the purple prairie cone flower and the blue flax. I would like to say that I had a worthy declaration of why I chose to include the creeping jenny and the Canadian thistle into a flower project. I am sure I was brilliant. And I’m pretty sure I got a purple ribbon, which prompted me to march my butt to the State Fair and receive the same result. I am pretty sure that is what happened.
But if I were to tell you the truth, which I aim to do here, (it’s that freakishly honest thing again), I would tell you that I guess I don’t really remember that part. What I remember is the sheer wonder I felt that summer in discovering the little gems in my surroundings. It was like searching for gold or diamonds out there in the landscape. Each yellow daisy I came across, each lady slipper I pressed and put in my book, gave me such a sense of accomplishment, such a sense of pride. I was in complete awe at the fact that the rough landscape, littered with rocks, clay and cactus could produce and sustain a vivid, fragrant, magenta flower that was so fragile that it only lived a couple days. It was the juxtaposition of it all.
This could be a brutal place, I heard stories about draughts, and how my grandparents had struggled on this
landscape. But I just couldn’t believe it when I literally found myself frolicking in rolling hills of crocuses and sweet peas. Little rays of sunshine pushing through the earth. I became so engrossed, that at times, I felt like one of the flowers myself.
This came to mind again to me so vividly last night. 16 years after that monumental project I found myself walking out in the June evening air with my camera, ready to take photos of the horses, or the dogs or some form of exciting wildlife. But I continued to point my camera to the ground, snapping photos of these flowers sprouting out yellow as a single stem from between a rock, growing in flocks across the peak of a hill or in a coulee, scattered like heaven’s perfect garden along the landscape. I became fascinated again.
And I was downright giddy. Because that girl I had been looking to find again–on the road, in books, at work, in crowded bars–was finally at home with her flowers.
A Dog’s Life
It seems to be fitting that my first real pondering of this back home experience would be about dogs. Considering I have found myself at times (against my better judgement and all things I learned to love and respect about animals in my childhood) one of those borderline annoying pet owners who tries to relate to my friends who have actual, human children, with a story about my dogs that is in no way comparable, because they of course have four paws, no real ability to speak and are always happy to see me. I have also been known to put my two dogs next to the Christmas tree and make them pose for a photo to be sent to relatives. But in my defense, it is only because I knew I couldn’t get my husband to cooperate. I mean, they are dogs. Not children. I know this, but sometimes I slip.
Anyway, now that I am out here, the idea of being a pet owner has shifted back to reality a bit. Because when you are a pet owner at the ranch, there are some things you’ve got to get used to. I never did give this much thought when I was growing up here. I never had a house dog–just a cat who lived inside, but she was obsessed with my little sister, so we didn’t talk much (the cat, not my sister).
I was always a dog person anyway (and a turtle person, rabbit person, snake person, fish person and lizard person–which didn’t end well–but that is a story for another day).
My family had quite the collection of dogs over the years. All of them loved for their quirky traits and personalities, and all of them with a purpose–to help us in this wild place. To chase cows out of the brush, fight the bull that turned on us in the pasture, keep the raccoons and snakes and an unfortunate porcupine out of our yard and out of our way.
I became attached to all of my family’s four legged members. There was Patch, the ankle biting Blue Healer we got as a puppy when I was ten years old. My little sister wasn’t too fond of him considering he would take every opportunity when she was swinging innocently on the tire swing to latch on to her pant leg or her sock and catch a ride. But he was a damn good cow dog.
And there was P.V., my grandparent’s Border-collie who began her life with my grandma and grandpa and ended her life without them both. After that I swear you could tell that she missed them. She got sadder and sadder and was the
only dog on the place that I know of to have died of old age and not a heroic or adventurous cause. But despite her sadness, P.V. was a good cow dog.
Let’s not forget, of course, P.V.’s pup Colonel, named in honor of my grandpa who always lost the name game with that suggestion. Colonel was a thick skinned collie with a lovely coat of hair who would accompany me during my treks to take photos and sing at the top of my lungs in the hills around the place. He was such a lover of human attention that his overzealous attempts at being the first to greet you as you pulled into the drive landed him in the way of an SUV tire. He survived the impact, but his hearing and sight did not. He used to be a good cow dog.
Which leads me to my predicament here in my second week living full time back at the ranch. As a girl I appreciated these rustic and rugged animals for what they were bred to do. They loved, loved, loved to be free to roam the hills, chasing rodents and the occasional cat, drinking out of the puddles and swimming in the stock dams. In my opinion, there was no better life for a dog really. I mean, some people would disagree, but then I would have to disagree with pushing a shitzu donning a sweater vest in a stroller down the street. I would argue that that is one pissed off shitzu.
Anyway, I digress.
During nearly ten years of being away from this rustic place, you couldn’t expect I would have gone all those years without accumulating some furry friends of my own. So now, as you have already heard, I have come home with a labrador and a pug. Home to the 3,000 acres of tick, snake, dirt, cow poop infested glorious spot of nature with two somewhat (minus the sweater vests) citified animals. I mean, yes, the lab, he was bred for something worth while and helpful to man. My husband has taken him on many successful bird hunting trips and he’s really good at it (the dog, not my husband particularly). You know, good at it, minus the whole “get your ass back over here” thing, which is also coincidentally causing some chaos around here as well with all the fun cows and deer and rabbits to chase–it impairs the hearing.
But the pug, ah the pug. Acquired last summer, after a particular slump in life’s progress, my judgement was blinded. It seemed like a good idea at the time. So here we are, the pug, well puggle actually–a cross between a beagle and a pug for those of you who need a visual. The beagle in him, is in fact his redeeming quality out here actually. That 1/4 blend appears to equip him for adventures that were not meant for dogs of his caliber. Other than that, there is nothing practical about him. A smooshed in nose causes issues when running for his life after horses he has been screamed at to stay away from. That curly tail is cute, but I have no doubt that the ranch dogs are mocking him behind his back. The short legs and small stout body do not propel him with ease across this landscape–they in fact make it so that he’s closer to the ground to sweep up the wood-ticks before they can get to any other living thing (I guess that is kinda handy).
But for all of these disqualifications, frankly, Chug the pug doesn’t give a shit and neither does Hondo, the 4-year old
chocolate lab with a hip problem and premature aging. See, these animals, in a different life, had they not been picked up by an eccentric, animal obsessed ranch girl, may have wound up in a neighborhood backyard kennel, tied out in a lawn somewhere, traveling the U.S. on the lap of a retiree in an R.V., or heaven forbid, in a turtleneck sweater in a stroller in Seattle.
But I’m not here to judge. All scenarios are fine lives for dogs, full of love from owners who need them. But it may come as a surprise to some people that what dogs really want is to sniff each other’s asses, roll around in the grass, eat cow shit, (and their own shit for that matter) chase other critters and run until they collapse in the shade under a big oak tree…
Or something like that.
I think of this when I’m pondering what the hell I’m doing out here with my scrawny arms and sometimes nonspecific ideas on how I can acquire the muscles and brains it takes to re-invent the idea of making a living off of my family ranch. And as I pick off the twentieth wood-tick from my dogs and me, or find a surprise in the form of a remnant of some once living mammal at my front stoop, I cringe a little and then take a look around.
This life for me is the life for my dogs indeed.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 