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…

Search: “Pet Addicts Anonymous…”

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She’s climbed up my bare leg ten times this morning.

Her shrill voice pierces the quiet country air.

She makes weird growling noises when she eats.

She can jump three times her height.

She’s on the floor…

she’s on the chair…

she’s on the curtains…now she’s under the bed…on top of the bed…in the window…in the dog dish…in the bathtub…aahhhh, she’s biting my toes…now she’s drinking my coffee…what…now where’d she go?

The pug has given up, huffing on the couch, because not even a cat whisperer like him can tame her.

She takes no prisoners, hissing at husband’s attempt to keep her off the coffee table.

Because she will not stay off the coffee table…

or my shoulder…

or my head…

or my lap…

And right now I am whimpering, as she just took a playful swipe at my necklace, leaving my exposed skin scratched and bloody.

Oh, but she’s lovely, she really is.

Especially when she’s bouncing on my computer jfjldkuerm./la’o;//// keys….

Meet Pippi. Pippi the kitten I couldn’t resist.

Pippi the kitten I took from the loving arms of my three little nieces, begging me to give her a good home.

Pippi the kitten responsible for the reason I’m Googling  “pet addicts anonymous” this morning…

…and “how to say no to small, adorable, children…”

and stocking up on my supply of bandaids.

A few small things

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Around here it’s not too challenging to see the big picture–the buttes against the skyline, the cows in the pasture, the big brown dog in the dam, the fields of wheat and ditches full of yellow flowers, the oaks and birch trees reaching up toward the sky. I love standing on the top of the hills around our house and scanning the horizon and the pink ribbon of road below me, to see who might be coming or going–the sun, a neighbor, an oil field worker on his way home.

But often I feel like looking closer to see what’s happening down there in the grass, bushes and oak trees, in the shady cool places of the ranch. See, all those small pieces that make up the mosaic of this landscape fascinate me, so I pull on my walking shoes, take my camera and my husband if he’s willing and hit the coulees and the rolling pastures to have a look around–to immerse ourselves in the quiet places of the ranch.

We don’t talk much, to blend in, to make sure we see it all as we take turns leading one another through the cow and deer trails and notice how the dragonflies are in a frenzy, swooping and swerving and finding mates…

and how their delicate and transparent wings reflect the sun.

We stay silent as husband pushes a path with his boots along the side of the beaver dam and I take a moment to reflect on the signs of late summer, like the cattail that’s beginning to fuzz…

and the flowers that hang on down here in the shade, staying cool and crisp as they reach for small glimmers of sun peaking through the trees.

I kneel down to check out the mechanics, magic, motivation or science that allows the water bugs to stay rowing and afloat on the surface of the creek…

and husband is also looking closer, pointing out the school of minnows flashing their silver bellies in the hot sunlight warming the water.

I look at him, we look up at the birch tree branches.

He looks at me and I tell him to watch for mushrooms growing on trees…

and chokecherries and the plums in the draw where we picked bucket-fulls last summer…

or the thorns that could scrape through your long pants…

And we walk. Along that creek that runs between the two places and down to the neighbors’, through beaver dams and stock dams and ponds where the frogs croak wildly. We clear a path through bull-berry brush and dry clover up to our armpits. We jump over washouts and scramble up eroded banks and notice how some oak trees have fallen this summer, hollowed out and heavy with the weight of their age, the weight of a world that keeps changing, no matter what, no matter if a human eye ever sweeps past it or inspects it or theorizes about it, or tries to save it…it changes.

My wish is that he and I walk together in the coulees and off the paths in these acres for a lifetime with eyes wide to the small things that live and thrive and swim and crawl and grow outside our door.

My wish is that the small things will never lose their mystery and that the way husband and I move through those trees is the way we continue to move through life–switching leads, pointing out beauty and wonder, asking questions, being silent, stepping forward, taking time and loving the moment…

Sunflower touching the sky

and one another in it.

A letter from me.

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So here I am, 27 years ago on my first birthday getting ready to dig into some cake.

Last night I found myself in this same spot, in a house on the end of the same road, on the same day of the year, doing the same thing.

Yup. I turned 28 yesterday. And somewhere between digging into the angel food cake my momma bakes me each year, opening presents in my parent’s living room and reflecting on the past while thinking seriously (like I do on August 25th each year) about what I want to be when I grow up, I realized that really, in 28 years of life in this body, not much has changed about me, except for maybe the length of my limbs…

Please, allow me to reflect for a moment:

See, despite being thrust into a world with a big sister who liked frilly, pink, sparkly things…and ballet slippers…it was quite evident at a young age that being stuffed into a tutu was not where my pudgy body felt the most comfortable.

Oh, I will admit, I tested it a bit, having gone through a stage at about 2 or 3 where all I wore was leotards, tights, leg-warmers and velcro shoes. I am not sure whether or not to be thankful to my wonderful parents who obliged this trend, allowing me the freedom of expression, even though that freedom included spandex and a sweaty toddler.  Thank Martha that phase only stuck long enough for a few choice photos to exist.

Yes, soon I realized I was much more comfortable in outfits made out of denim and plaid.

That worked for me. Dance lessons be damned, I was going to be a gardener.

A gardener and a vet.

Oh, there was a moment, I think in the leotard phase, that I wanted to be a beauty shop.

Yes. A beauty shop. 

But I think that was tossed out of the equation as soon as I got on the back of my first horse.

Then I was for sure going to be a rodeo star. A singing professional horse trainer and barrel racer. That would make my life complete. That and living in a hollowed out tree like the kid in my favorite book “My Side of the Mountain.”

Yes, I would be a gardening vet and professional singing horse trainer who lived in a hollowed out tree and on Fridays I would attend county fairs and jump my amazing horses off of one-hundred foot towers and into tiny pools of water like the woman in the movie “Wild Hearts Can’t be Broken.” Only, I wouldn’t go blind.

I would need my eyesight to attend to the animals.

I remember it that way anyway, being young and full of magnificent ideas about the world I would create for myself once I was an adult. And then you hit about 15 and you start questioning everything that you had laid out so nice and neat in your imagination. And then you go to college and you experience mass confusion. And then you get your first job, ditch your first job, fall in love or out of love, get your own dog or goldfish and continue searching for a spot in this world…the spot you were pretty sure existed when you were four or five or six.

Where the hell did it go?

When I moved back here, to the ranch, a little over a year ago, I made a small promise to myself to do the things I remember loving so much as a kid. That explains the gumbo hill fiasco, you know? And I have. But now that the newness of this back at the ranch experience is wearing off, I have found myself losing sight of that promise, pushing it away to make more room for paperwork and plans.

Yes, paperwork and plans, they exist in an adult’s life. But they don’t have to move everything else–time spent watching the sunset, picking wildflower, exploring the coulees, or trying to catch a frog–out of the way. It’s hard to remind myself of that sometimes.

So when I received an email from one of my long-lost friends last month, a friend who really only knew Jessie Blain Veeder as a young kid in elementary school, I was excited to hear that she had found one of the letters I had written to her as a best friend forever who was left behind at the country school as she moved to the big town.

I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. And my long-lost best friend–who used to be as wild as I was, dirty knees, swinging from the branches of the small oaks, falling in creeks and exploring the barn– felt compelled to share that letter with me.

Word for word. Spelling error for spelling error.

As a gift for you all, dear readers, in the week of my birthday, I am going to share it with you now:

Dear Caroline (CBO):

I am writing to you from my school room. I heard that you invited me to your house this summer and I think that would be wonderful. I Miss you a whole bunch and I wish you still were at this school. I haven’t written or talked to you for a very long time. I have this friend and her name is Gwen she reminds Me of you. Thats why I like her. We are going to the Theodore Rosevelt National Park tomorrow for our field trip and it is supposed to be 80 outside. I herd that you are going to a horse camp. I am too. Are you in 4-H? I am. I am going to 4-H horse camp. I am going to Bible Camp and Youth Camp for 4-H. I have been riding horse alot this year. I am sooooooo glad winter is over. Rondee is substitute teaching today because my teacher is sick. She has been gone for four days. Friday Monday and Tuesday and Wednseday. We get out of school on the 20th of May. We have play day on the 20th too. I am doing the three legged race with Gwen. We have been practicing for a long time and we are going to Kick Mike and Dan’s Butt. For sure. They never practice and we are getting pretty good at it. Do you remember when we won the three legged race together? What are you going to be when you grow up. Ever since my runt Dog named Tiny died I have been thinking that there was something I could do to save her. So I have decided I want to be a vet. I love animals and I want to help them. I have been playing vet at recess alot and I have discovered that I know alot about animals. We are bottle feeding a calf his name is A.J. We had twin calves too. I named them Rockey and Bowinkle. We have many kittens but most of them are wild. The calico cat has had 9 or 10 batches of kittens ever since you left from your last visit. Well It is time for class better go. 

Your friend forever

Jess. 

Sigh.

Thanks Caroline. Thanks for the reminder that the person who wrote you this letter is still in me–wild hair, wild ideas, wild kittens and all.

Happy birthday little girl. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Because of you,  I think we’re gonna be ok.

The generations…

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So we have been in the middle of making house plans this summer and have faced the big decisions about where we should put it, what kind of view we want from our front porch, who is going to build it, who will dig the basement, what is our budget for windows, how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, what will our light fixtures look like, what style of shingles and what kind of toilet for crying out loud.

I have been through a major remodel in my short (five years to the month) marriage, which I left behind me in the dust last December when we sold the damn thing. I know about the process. I know what it takes and am excited about our final decision to have a new home built over the hill and keep this little house renovated and in tact for family on the home place.

I know, I know. Those of you who have been following my little journey here at the ranch will recall that I changed my mind about this a few times.

Approximately sixty-seven I would guess. It was a big decision, you know, the spot we pick to spend the rest of our lives.

But in the end, when the surveyors were here to stake it out, we were back at the beginning, back to the place where this little house originally stood, back to the coulee where my grandfather built it, and back to a home under my childhood stomping grounds, the big hill we call “Pots and Pans.”

They are building the road today…and you know the old saying “here goes nothing…”?

Well, forget that. Here goes everything.

The original Veeder Homestead where my great grandpa Eddy Veeder was raised

Everything my great grandparents worked to build, everything my grandfather and father and aunt and uncle worked to keep, everything I grew to love in the buttes and the clover and the coulees and the big blue sky is going to surround us, get under our fingernails, brush against our skin, greet us in the morning and kiss us goodnight…for as long as we chose to be here.

Which in my mind is as long as I live.

I can’t help but feel overwhelmingly blessed at the thought of it all. And then a bit guilty, a bit ridiculous.

Because what have I done to deserve to be here? What have I done but be born to a family who taught me things about the land and horses and cattle and how to plant a garden, a family who didn’t worry about getting my jeans dirty falling in the creek, or my boots scuffed from kicking rocks on the scoria road? What have I done but listen, learn and want to be like them?

What did I do but ask to plant my life here only to find my wishes so graciously granted?  Because someone should be here, someone should help tend to the fences and fix up the old barn.

The old barn my great grandfather Edgar Andrew Veeder built with his sons on this very place.


Can you see him here? A shadow in the doorframe of his homestead shack around the year 1915.

Eddy Veeder Homestead Shack-1915

His home that stood outside of the trees where the horses hide from the flies below our house. It was here he settled when he left his parents’ homestead to start out on his own at age 21. It was here he brought his new bride, Cornelia, after they wed on September 4th, 1917 in the small town of Schafer, ND. It was here he kissed her goodbye when he was called to serve in the Army during World War I. After his discharge in 1919, it was here, on this acreage where I ride and walk and kick up dust every day, that he purchased a threshing machine, more acreage from his brother, and worked cattle and the fields as he and his wife welcomed five children, the youngest, my grandfather, my father’s father.

Edgar and Cornelia Harrison-1917

It was here where my great grandfather watched as his wife, his woman, slipped away from this world at only 36 years old–a heart failed and five young children left behind to be cared for by a man who I hear made the world’s best biscuits.

And it was here, right below this house where I cook dinner each night, that Cornelia’s yellow roses still bloom in the spring.

Cornelia's Roses

I never knew him, my great grandfather Eddy. I couldn’t have. Time did not allow him to hold me in his arms, a wrinkly bundle of flesh and bone who would grow into a woman who would think of him often, discover his wife’s roses, and be grateful every day for the gift of this land, for his hard work, for the red barn and my grandfather.

My grandfather who chose to stay here too, through droughts, and too much rain and seven feet of snow. My grandfather who married a good woman who climbed on the back of a horse with the same grace and humility that she used to raise exceptional children.

Grandpa Pete and Grandma Edith Veeder

Children who loved this land, who cherished it more than the money it may or may not reap, who understood that it must stay here, no matter the cost, for their children to enjoy.

So what did I do but love this land too? What have I sacrificed but the conveniences of a grocery store and a shopping mall nearby? Why would I want more than this, besides my cousins and sisters and aunts and uncles as neighbors living here on this land where we all grew up?

My cousins and I with my Grandma Edie outside the house I live in

And so, as the first move of progress on the house we will have built comes creeping up the pink road, making a path to our new home, I am humbled by those people who share my name and my blood, who carved a few roads of their own out here, who put up their own walls, who grew their own flowers and wheat and corn and babies and cattle out here where I’ve always felt I belonged.

Where I will remain for as long as I am able.

And the colors of the carpets, the make of the siding, the size of the basement loom a little less significantly in my mind today as I am grateful…

Me with my Grandpa Pete in his house, this house, in 1985

Summer don’t leave me…

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Summer don’t leave me
stay under my feet
hang warm in the sky
don’t dry up the wheat

Summer stay near me
to kiss my skin tan
mess up my long hair
hold tight my hand


Summer please stay here
in the chokecherry trees
on the back of a good horse
in the green of the leaves

Oh, Summer my good friend
there’s only so many hours
so take the bees and the rainbows…

but don’t take my wildflowers


I will leave the light on…

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To come down from the buttes after staying out a little too far past sundown only to see the lights of the barnyard illuminating the grass and the kitchen of the house glowing warmly through the windows, waiting for my return…

it means more to me than I can describe here.

I imagine the same sight greeting my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and my father. I imagine them feeling the same deep breath, the same overwhelming calm as they drove in from the fields, rode up to unsaddle a horse or strip off the layers from a hunt in the hills in the still of a late summer or autumn evening.

I imagine the smell of baked bread reaching them from the open windows or the smoke from a grilled steak waiting for them to sit down around the table, the door swinging open and the warmth of this old house whispering “this is home this is home this is home this is home…”

No matter how far you find yourself.

No matter the distance between you and these buttes.

No matter the time that has passed, the mistakes that you’ve made, the words you can’t take back, the pain you might hold onto, the life you might have found down the road or the love you might have lost here…

No matter.

Don’t worry.

This is home…

And I will leave the light on.

And then we sang Red River Valley…

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Sometimes in the middle of a life in the middle of America, you are handed a couple of days, or moments, where you are graciously reminded of what is so good and wholesome about a community that exists on the end of a two lane highway with no stoplight, no Walmart, no mall and no place else you’d rather be on a Friday afternoon.

And so I had a weekend filled with small town, mid-west, rural, main street, wholesomeness that began with the execution of an event I helped to plan on Main Street Watford City, ND–my hometown’s Best of the West Ribfest–where I manned the entertainment stage while community members milled around the vendor booths, ate lunch on picnic tables outside Main Street stores, breathed in the scents of barbecues warming and turning their rib suppers and enjoyed games, music and other entertainment on the big stage…

entertainment that included watching me attempt to help call bingo by turning on the bingo blower machine thingy and launching the numbered balls all over the damn street.

Lord, I just wasn’t meant for some things.

Anyway, husband, along with seventeen other businesses, vendors and crazy grillers, participated in the rib cooking contest. And at 5:30, after the judging was done, Bingo was mercifully over, my big sister’s dancers showed us their Michael Jackson Thriller moves, the kids were all settled in for the rest of the evening on those crazy, sweaty, inflatable jumper things, and Lonesome Willy and I sang for our supper, it was time to eat already.

I had a great view from the stage and watched as people emerged from their businesses, ready for the weekend, and began filling the street, up and down, waiting for the smokey, spicy, barbecue tastes of the grilled ribs. The street flooded with neighbors, tourists, new comers, children and pets.


And from my post it became apparent that this was the most people I’ve ever seen on Main Street Watford City at one time. I was proud of our town as I rested my blistered feet that were shoved in my fancy boots for the day and listened to some of the best local musicians around pick a banjo, a dobro, an acoustic guitar, and sing songs about their North Dakota home.

And the music filled the street, the ribs sold out, I announced the world’s longest chicken dance, signed an autograph for a couple of confused guys who thought I was a famous D.J. and then wondered who the hell’s name was on the back of their shirt as they walked away, the big band showed up, the full moon rose, I found myself a beer and watched my community laugh, relax, dance, shake hands, meet one another and enjoy themselves in the middle of the street, in the middle of America, in the middle of an oil boom, in the middle of a season that passes all too quickly around here.

It was necessary. It was appreciated. It was hometown as hometown needs to be…

I loaded up in husband’s pickup and he drove me home, pulled off my red boots, poked at my blisters and then I got up to do it all over again the next day. Because as wholesome as Friday night was, I got another dose as I put on a dress and headed back to town to sing at a wedding at our hometown church and then pointed my car north to meet the guys out at a farmstead near Hazen, ND.

Because we were scheduled to play a community barn dance and, so, when you’re at a barn dance you need the proper footwear. I did a quick outfit change, squeezed on my fancy boots again and followed the highway out of oil country, down a gravel road and into a perfectly mowed, perfectly beautiful, perfectly placed farmyard on the edge of Lake Sakakawea.

And in the middle of the yard stood a white and green barn that reached up the prairie sky and was spilling out people and children laughing and chatting and singing in cowboy hats and boots. The smell of burgers on the grill greeted me as lugged my guitar towards the band milling around outside, waiting for 8:00 to get behind their guitars, behind their microphones and behind their music.

We climbed the steps to the hay loft where the festivities took place and instantly I was transported to another place, another time, where the world still had barn dances, where the table cloths were still checkered red and white, where people danced the two step and sang along with old time country music, where they still wore cowboy boots.

I was on a movie set, you know, like the one where Sandra Bullock wears a beat up hat and jeans and takes photos and drives around a classic old pickup. The one where the small town band sounds straight out of Nashville. The one where she falls in love at the end after Harry Connick Jr. swings her around the wood floor of the barn as the lead singer taps his foot to Peaceful Easy Feeling and the crowd sings along.

Seriously.

But I wasn’t Sandra Bullock. Sandra Bullock was that beautiful blond in the black hat dancing with her boyfriend. No, I was the band.

And the guys playing next to me, some of the best musicians around, picked all the right songs and played all the right beats. Their grins spread wide as the family crowd requested songs the guys knew and then danced and cheered when they played them. The lead part drifted out through the hay loft window behind me and on over the prairie and to the lake as I sang harmony to my dad’s chorus and then a song I wrote and then Red River Valley and oh my, there they were, singing along.

So we all sang together. That family, that community. We sang Red River Valley and then Home on the Range and stomped our feet and clapped our hands as our voices joined together…

“May the circle, be unbroken, by and by Lord by and by…there’s a better home awaiting in the sky Lord in the sky…”

We sang it again…

and again…

and so did they, the crowd, our hosts for the evening. They sang with us too as they bounced their sleepy children, swung around their grandma, slapped their cousin and uncles on the shoulders, and just genuinely enjoyed themselves.

Genuinely.

I headed home into the dark sky, the guys with the band trailer pushing through the early hours of the morning in front of me, with a renewed hope that the world maybe hasn’t changed much.

That maybe in the hustle and bustle of progress, politics, and technology even the fancy cell phones that can tell you what road your on when you’re on it still can’t tell you where you really might be headed…

to a place where people still wear cowboy boots, where time has been preserved in the wood floors of a nearly hundred year old barn, where the only agenda is to laugh and dance with one another for goodness sake…

where the music really matters and so do the friendships.

A place on the end of a paved street with no stoplight, a place on the edge of a wheat field under the moon under the roof of a green and white barn that the GPS would never find…

but that we should never forget still exists…

The top of our world…

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See those buttes, way off in the distance in this photo? Yes. You see them? Good.

I love those buttes. They are like the backdrop to this little painting we live in here at the Veeder Ranch. They are always there in the distance, reminding us of our neighbors to the north, reminding us that we are pretty small here on this landscape, you know, in the scheme of things, and staining as a fixture of the beauty that surrounds us.

The Blue Buttes. That’s what we call them around here. Why? Well, because they look blue don’t they? Yes? Bluish, purplish…

There they are again...way out there...

Every time I look at them I am reminded of a story that my pops told me about a drawing he colored of a cowboy on a mountain during a project at school. He used his crayons to make the man’s hat brown, his shirt yellow, the sky blue and the mountain he was riding along purple.

When the teacher asked “Why did you paint the mountain purple? Mountains aren’t purple!” young pops said he felt embarrassed and confused. Because the only encounter he had up to that point with anything resembling a mountain was the Blue Buttes that waved to him from about seven miles north. And they sure looked purple to him.

Oh, my heart.

Anyway, on Tuesday I found myself up close and personal with those buttes that have been such a far away mirage on this place. A new friend who moved to the area with her husband and settled into a little farmstead a few miles north asked me to come spend the day with her poking around the countryside, taking photos and climbing the area’s famous Table Butte.

Of course I was on board and for many reasons. Number one is that I had a chance to spend some time with a woman who I hadn’t quite had enough time to really get to know in person, but who already understood that I was the type of person who would be enthusiastic about this kind of activity. She didn’t ask me to go shopping or to help her bake a pie. No. She met me a few times and understood that hiking might just be my thing.

And it was her’s too.

This had potential to be a great friendship.

Number two was that I have grown up here, traveling to the small town of Keene for youth group activities and meeting up with friends on the other side of the buttes, but never have I had the chance to stand on top of one of them to catch a glimpse of my world from way above and all directions. I was grateful for the opportunity.

So I headed up the gravel road in the morning armed with my camera, sunglasses, hiking shoes and water and began poking my way to her house, kicking up dust and admiring how the day was shaping up. The sky was blue, the clouds were fluffy and the breeze was just right. I followed my new friend’s directions and pulled off the main gravel road and down into a coulee to find her standing in the door of her quaint, renovated farmhouse and her border collie-blue heeler mix running up to greet me.

And I’ll tell you, it was all over from there. See, this woman from eastern Montana, who married one of my High School Rodeo buddies and found herself out here making her home at the bottom of the Blue Buttes, couldn’t have been more connected to the land or more appreciative of it if she had sprung from the soil herself. While we loaded up the dog and our bodies into her husband’s old pickup she drove me down the gravel road toward our hiking destination and talked about the history of the area as she understood it. Because she’s enamored with the stories and finds the old houses, barns and shacks that still remain as ghosts off a different time among the rolling pastures and fields of the countryside so intriguing, so mysterious. And while she spoke about what family owns what acreage and told me stories about who homesteaded in the little wooden house with the green trim and who taught at the old sandstone school, I was struck by the fact that just as much as my new friend was at ease in her new surroundings, she was equally, if not more, astounded by it.

And so we drove a few more miles, chatting about growing up, our husbands and the people we knew in common, a tail of dust floating behind us, until we reached our destination.

Table Butte. A well known sacred spot for the Native Americans of the area and a landmark, a striking feature, a special place for any rancher, farmer, teenager or passerby who has stood in its presence, no matter the heritage. As we approached I understood why. See as you head north, away from the badlands, the countryside evens out a bit, the fields get larger and more fertile, the oak coulees less thick, the clay soil dissipates. While you drive further from home you feel like the wheels under you are literall stretching the earth…


And you think the landscape might all just even out eventually, until you find yourself approaching two massive looming towers of rock and dirt and grass that seem to have sprung up from the depths of the earth in an explosion of rocks and vegetation. And although from the back of your mind you extract some knowledge about glaciers and weather that could scientifically explain the formation, what you really want to put in its place is the story from the perspective of the Native Americans who climb to the top on their vision quests.

We parked the pickup under the cliffs of jagged rocks, unloaded the dog, and made our way through a herd of red cows and on up to the top.

The climb was steep and as stories and childhood memories and marriage and family flowed from our hearts and memories and out our mouths, we had to stop halfway up to take a break, because it turns out spilling your guts and climbing up the face of a massive cliff at the same time requires a good amount of oxygen to the lungs.

And then we were at the top and words stopped in our throats for a few moments as we took it in.

From the cusp of the giant cliff you could see for miles in all directions. We could take in our entire rural community in one sweep. To the north the big lake laid like a dark blue slate.

To the south, the coulees of my home and neighboring pastures.

To the east, miles of grass, oil wells, a ribbon of highway and wheat.

And to the west Chimney Butte stood in our view, the other side of the story, another magnificent formation.

We milled around up there, kneeling down to pay tribute to a memorial that was placed at the top of our world in honor of two members of my new friend’s family, we watched her dog get as close as she possibly could to the edge of each rock while I had mini-heart attacks and my new friend called her pet back.

We knelt down and snapped photos of the wildflowers growing out of the rocks. We laughed and shared funny stories. We sympathized with one another as we told tough ones about the hard stuff.

We got to know one another up there as the sun moved from the east to the west and the wind tangled our hair and we had scanned just about every inch of the landscape with our eyes and our lenses.

And then we headed back down when we were ready…

back into the seats of the brown pickup, and back along the winding road, stopping at my new friend’s favorite places: that old house with the green trim,

the Sandstone School my grandmother attended…

By the time we pulled back into her yard I noticed the sun was planted pretty close to the horizon. I tried to guess the time as we chatted about her horses and her husband pulled into the drive…home from work already?

I said hello, told one more story and loaded into my pickup to head home. I took a look at the clock for the first time that day.

8 pm.

It was already 8 pm! Ten hours I was out there among the grass and wind and sun and in the company of a new friend. A new friend that I felt had known me for years.

What the heck!? I had so much fun I forgot about lunch! That never happens.

I meandered home, snapping a photo or two of the wheat fields on my way,

and gave husband a few words about the day before stripping off my clothes and crumbling into bed, my spirits lifted, my body tired, my heart a little lighter from a day on top of the purple colored buttes.

So yes, when I went out the next evening and looked toward the buttes, I thought of their purple color, of course, and the story of my pops as a young, net yet worldly boy. But I also thought of the day I spent with my friend…

The friend I got to know on the top of our world…

Party ’till the people come home…

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The ranch in summer. Its lush and green and yellow and smells of vegetation and clover and dirt and the backs of horses. Its been warm and sticky during the day and cool at night, perfect timing for pulling the windows open and laying on top of the sheets in my jammies while I read Barbara Kingsolver’s “Prodigal Summer” or, if I’m feeling particularly vegged-out and relaxed, watch the latest episodes of “So You Think You Can Dance…” (Hey, my interests are broad, don’t judge–I think it might be the best show on television.)

Anyway, yes, summer at the ranch. It’s quite lovely most of the time. Even more so when you are blessed with a day of rain in the beginning of August guaranteeing the countryside a few more weeks of green.

That was the case on Friday. It was gloomy and rainy all day and I was happy knowing that I didn’t have to water my flowers, and actually, come to think of it, I never really had to water them at all this summer.

Yes, and all of this moisture has been great for the lawn too, you know, the lawn I battled with in the beginning of June. Because once I got the forest knocked down, husband and I have been maintaining it, grooming it, weed whacking the crap out of it, and admiring our neon green, lush, nearly town-material lawn that surrounds the barn and almost distracts from the broken down garage.

Things were going well. We are on the downslope of summer and the lawn was still immaculate.

So I was kinda happy with the rain on Friday. I was pleased with the cool down and the chance to stay inside, eat husband’s homemade knoephla soup, and write some new music. And the next day, while it was still a drizzle, husband and I headed out the door to take an engineering student who was visiting from Sweden on a tour of the oil field activity in the area.

We had a great day planned for him and I was excited to learn about what husband does all day (besides driving around and checking on things…which is the explanation I have been giving to friends and family for the past three years…)  It was also nice to get to know someone our age from across the ocean and learn that we have so much in common over one of the best steaks I’ve ever had cooked for me at a restaurant. Seriously, if you haven’t been to The Bison Room in New Town, NDmake a date with your spouse, your gram, your kids, your best friend, yourself, whatever, but get there. They know what they’re doing. Ok, so there’s my western North Dakota traveling/tourist tip for you, now on with my captivating and intense story…

So there I was sitting shotgun in husband’s pickup at 8:30 pm on our way back to the ranch. I was full and pleased and ready for a nice Sunday spent maybe, oh, I don’t know, picking chokecherries, riding, cleaning, reading or mowing the lawn.

But it turns out the cows had other plans for us.

Because while we were out frolicking in the oil field and probably feasting on one of their cousins for dinner, the cows were waiting in the bushes for our taillights to disappear over the hill and out of sight. See, on their schedule was a picnic. A picnic of short, lush, well groomed, green grass growing before their big, brown eyes. So as soon as we hit the highway they skipped on over, pulled out their lawn chairs and coolers, staked out the volleyball net, the croquet set, the Norwegian horseshoes, and proceeded to have themselves a regular old block party…all 150 women, their offspring and their two boyfriends.

And all in my, lush, beautiful, neon green, rain-saturated yard.

I’ll tell you they must have been looking for us, you know, to invite us to the festivities, because the evidence of their attempts to break in were in the deep footprints dug in right up to the basement door, and the living room window, and the bathroom window, and the bedroom window. They really didn’t want us to miss it. I mean, I’m sure croquet is more fun when you invite guests with opposable thumbs.

And judging by the size and numbers of plops in my yard, I am guessing the eating was as good as their games.

Shit.


Shit.

Shit.

It smells like shit.

That’s what I said when we pulled into the yard in the dark and I stepped out of the pickup and into a fresh cow pie.

And as I scuffled my way to the front door, sniffing the pungent air, the illumination from the barnyard light revealed small reflections on water puddles in the lower yard, right next to the retaining wall and the flowers my grandmother planted that, um, used to be there…what the hell?

Is that mud?

Is that water sitting in deep crevices shaped like hundreds and hundreds of hoof prints?

Is that poop? I keep stepping in poop? Is it? I can’t see?!!

Where are the damn dogs?

Snort, snort, slobber, slobber, yawn, whap, whap, whap.

Oh, there they are. Sleeping on the deck.

I growled to husband as we deduced that all signs pointed to a flaw in the system. The system where you have dogs on a ranch to keep the cows out of the yard.

Or to help you get them out of the heavy brush when you’re riding.

Or to assist you as you herd them through a gate.

That would be the idea of a cow dog.

But, oh yeah, that’s right. We don’t have cow dogs. We have dogs whose only purpose is to eat, sleep, poop in front of the stoop, drag dead things to the deck in front of our door and apparently party with the cows.


Whhhaaaaaaa!

Wwhhhyyyyyyaaaaaa!

3,000 acres and you party at my house?

Countless energy of screaming at you two dogs to get back, to stop chasing the damn cows, and you choose this day, these six hours, to actually obey a rule!!!

Hours spent in the sweltering sun clipping and whacking and working to create an acceptable carpet of grass and all I’m left with is three thousand cow plops, ankle deep mud, an invasion of flies and a bad farmer’s tan???!!!

I stormed inside and booked a flight to  Sweden. Because I have a new friend there and he said we could come to visit anytime.

So I hope you’ll stick with me on my journey abroad and check out my adventures coming soon on my new blog: Meanwhile, back in Stockholm…

Oh, and if you love me,  do me a favor tonight…eat beef!