Accident Prone (Prize Alert!)

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In honor of Friday the 13th I would like to take a moment to embrace a side of me that I have not appropriately opened up about. And I am ashamed of this, because anyone who knows me personally will know that this part of me is worth mentioning, if for no other reason than to protect the innocent souls around me.

Deep breath in….now let it out….sigh…

Some days life is tough for me.

Yes.

And by tough, I mean literally painful.

Because I am a klutz.

Accident prone.

A magnet for small disasters.

A target for falling things.

like bird poop...

This is a quality that is so much a part of me I have began to embrace it and use it when asked to describe myself:

“Who am I? Well I am so glad you asked: I am a wild haired, overly friendly over sharer spaz of a woman who is inclined to burst out in song when simply regular talking would do just fine. I often have big ideas that require more muscles than I currently posses attached to arms and legs that are more often that not, flailing. I lack the attention to detail needed to glide through this ranch-world unscathed by stomping horse hooves, alarmingly uneven ground, muddy creek beds, giant bulls and rodents with wings that prefer to fly right for my head when there are a million miles of open sky available to them. Oh, and chips and salsa are still my favorite food groups even though the food group almost choked me to death in a public space known as a restaurant, just to make sure I was good and embarrassed (Sweet Martha thank goodness for Mr. Heimlic and his maneuver). Oh, and I got my big nose from my dad…and a flying sled and an unruly beer bottle in case you were wondering….thanks so much for asking, I think l’ll go inside now.”

I mean, let’s get real here. How many women have been smacked in the head by a 15 foot 2×6 board that came screaming at 30 mph out of what appeared to be thin air one day…only to fall through the floor of a barn the next?

Danger, lurking around every corner

How many people have actually bent over to pick up a napkin off of the floor only to smoke their head so hard on a kitchen table (a table that has been in the same place for 15 + years so there should be no surprises) that guests fell silent and actually witnessed those little cartoon bluebirds circling around her head?

Do you know any proper lady who has dolled up, put on her big girl shoes and attempted a few hours in a dress only to step out of the dining booth and fall directly on her face, flashing her entire rear-end to a bar full of strange men?

How many best friends have to regularly say “Really? Did that just happen? Are you ok?”

How many times can a dad rush his young daughter to the emergency room for a crushed foot from jumping the wrong way off of a horse, a snapped ligament for landing the wrong way while jumping, er, falling off a small cliff, a smashed finger from getting her limb stuck between a 2,000 pound bull and a metal post, or a disjointed wrist from a unfortunate decision to heroically save herself from a runaway horse?

Note to self...bridal necessary.

How many times can a husband shake his head at his wife before his head actually falls off and he turns from bystander to victim?

How many people do you know who have actually hit themselves in the head with a hammer, measure the time they have spent in casts in years and were nicknamed “Tuck and Roll” in seventh grade by those who are supposed to love them most?

How many?

Well, I know one who happens to share my name and the same bruise on my left knee and permanent and distinct bump on my nose.

"Hhiiiyaaa gguuyyyssaaa!!"

Um, I just need one moment here….

“Bwwwaaaaa ahhh  ahhhh…sob…sniff…sniff…whimper…”

Sigh.

Ok, enough of this confession. Life is tough out here for animals and humans like me. Come to think of it I have a couple dozen stories I could tell you about witnessing my pops in similar life-threatening situations (i.e.: welding his polyester shirt to to his arm, getting clotheslined by a barbed wire fence and one or two cow trampling incidents) so perhaps his giant nose and frizzy hair weren’t the only qualities he passed down to me.

Thanks a million pops.

"Why you're welcome dear daughter..."

But I decided a long time ago that I can’t live in fear about the next mishap, bruise, concussion, bloody nose or knee. Life’s too short and there’s too much to do…

So I took the pug’s lead and invested in some safety glasses:

Because we can’t afford to lose another eye on this place.

And in honor of this cryptic type holiday, the one straight out of those horror movies I refuse to subject myself to for fear of bed wetting, I want to hear from you.

Tell me about an embarrassing blunder or injury. Give me your best accident prone tale and the one that makes me feel better about myself and the fact that I am gracefully challenged can chose from the following 8×10 matted metallic prints to be sent to your door.

Photo #1:

Photo #2

Photo #3

Because I like to celebrate our shortcomings 🙂

Oh, and don’t forget to visit the “Meanwhile, back at the ranch…” Facebook page and hit “like” for more ranch updates, contests and photos.

Love you and happy accidents everyone!

A promise of summer

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It’s been raining at the ranch for the last few days.

Raining, and thundering, and pouring and flooding and rushing the creekbeds.

And smelling so sweet.

So although I’m an outspoken fan of the sun, I know this is necessary. I know this is what spring does.

So I say bring it on. Let the heavens pour down and wash that winter away. Wash it clean and squeaky. We’ve been frozen and thirsty and our hair needs washing…

the worms need air…

the lilacs need watering…

the horses need waking up.

Rain sky. Cry it out. Turn the brown neon and make the flowers hunch over under the weight of your necessary presence.

I don’t mind. Really. I will stand in it all day.

I’ll splash in your puddles, let it soak in my skin, slide down the clay buttes, jump over the rushing streams. Because I forgot what this feels like, being soaked to the core and warm in spite of it.

I forgot what it looks like when the lighting breaks apart the sky. 

I forgot how the thunder shakes the foundation of this little house, how it startles me from sleep and fills my heart with a rush of loneliness, a reminder that the night carries on while I’m sleeping.

I forgot how clean it smells, how green the grass can be, how many colors are in a rainbow.

So go on. Rain.

Rain all you want.

Rain forever on this hard ground and turn this pink road red..

This brown ground green

Let your drops encourage the fragile stuff, the quiet beauty that has been sleeping for so long to wake up and show her face to the sky.

I’ll be there waiting to gasp over it, to gush and smile and stick my nose in the sweet scents and return home to track your mud into my house where the soup is on.
Rain. Rain. Rain. You tap at my windows…
and promise me summer.

Dear Brown Dog…

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Dear big brown dog with the fat tail that sweeps objects off of the coffee table with one swish,

I  know you don’t remember this, but at one time your nose didn’t even reach to that table in the center of our small living room, not even to grab the last of a sandwich or a piece of leftover popcorn on movie night. I know you don’t recall how I used to take you along in my car when you were so small I had to lift you onto the seat.

Because you’re a dog, and you live for the day, your memory doesn’t reach to the place where it first began, the first month into my marriage to a man I’ve known since I was a little girl. I wanted you to have him. I wanted you to be there at his side for hunting trips, drives to the big lake with a fishing pole, evening walks to the dam with a stick and nights when I was hundreds of miles away singing for my supper.

I wanted him to be yours, so I found you and brought you home to him and he gave you a name and something to chew on. And somewhere in between the pounds and pounds of kibble, the ever expanding collars, the jogs with your long pink tongue drooping out of your jowls, paws that slapped the earth with increasing force on your way to greet me at the car, you scooched on into my heart and became an essential part of a small family that only existed for one month without you.

I know you loved the ranch and the wide open spaces, the endless mud that the creek supplies and the water in the dam that never lets you down–all the smells and trails to follow, all the poop to roll in. I know you love it out here. And I know I’ve never properly thanked you, big brown dog, for giving all that up to sit in the passenger seat of the car on my 24th birthday as I drove us hundreds of miles away from the only home you ever knew, leaving my new husband behind to pack up the rest of our things. I needed you as we searched for a place to call home.  I needed you there as I drove into the mountain town late at night and unlocked the door to a lonely apartment, unpacked my bags and rolled out my sleeping bag to lay on the floor.

I needed you to sleep right next to me. To calm my nerves.

And you did.

You always do.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and companionship we found on new trails and sidewalks, you attached to the leash, attached to my arm.

Thank you for waiting patiently in the small backyard, sprawling out in the sunshine or hunkering down in the snow and rain until I returned home from work and husband from school. 

Thanks for wagging your tail and helping turn a bad day a bit better.

Thank you for showing remorse and regret when we left you in that apartment on a rainy night only to come home to find that you had shredded my favorite feather pillow to the point of no return.

It’s three years later and I think I still have feathers in my hair, but I forgive you.

I forgive you because you destroyed my pillow, but you have never touched my shoes.

I forgive you because you follow me, blindly faithful, even when I beg not to be followed…you follow.

And you are always eager to sit down next to me in the passenger seat–you do so time and time again. When I loaded you up and drove you back toward home, so close you could smell it, you didn’t run the rest of the way when we stopped to repair an old house, to work, to think on how we might get there in the end….

You waited as we worked it out. You nudged my dirty hands as I held my head and helped soak some of those tears up on your snout.

You cleaned up the pieces of burnt chicken that fell on the floor and went outside to wait with a stick, just in case I had the time today. Just in case I felt better. Just in case you could convince me that a little fetch fixes most things.

Thank you big brown dog for being right. Thank you for your perseverance.

And thank you for holding on to hope that someday we would bring you back here for good, back to the land of porcupines and wood ticks and water tanks and every specimen of bird just waiting to be chased.

But most of all, thank you for not running away, disowning me, howling in protest or indulging in a late night snack when I wasn’t looking, after, to your horror and in a complete moment of weakness, hubby brought this home to be mine.

And he began taking over.

And chewing on the shoes you always stayed away from. And eating your food, laying in your bed, hiding your bones in between the couch cushions and worst of all, stealing your sticks after biting your hocks during a game of fetch.

Thanks for not eating him when he does that.

I really appreciate it.

Because big brown dog with the fat tail that clears the coffee table with one swoop, you were meant to come into my life to take care of the man I love, to be his and he yours and walk off into the sunsets on hunting trips like a scene in one of those sportsman calendars.

But you could not be fooled, not by your name, not by your breeding, not by a small, black, one eyed monster biting your heals…

No matter what they say, from the very beginning,

on into the middle…

and until the end…

I’m yours.

With love,

The woman who feeds you

She chose us

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I like to imagine my mother before I knew her–before she became a mom for the first time to my big sister and wife to my father. I like to imagine her long straight hair, jeans that hugged her ballerina legs, her high heels clicking along the pavement on her way to a job she was damn good at, her tan skin on elegant arms that opened out wide to the world.

Because it was those open arms that brought me into my world. A world with gravel roads, cattle grazing in the yard, clay buttes, children on horses and neighbors who lived miles a way. A world I am certain this beauty queen who used to twirl and spin in satin dresses on stages never pictured herself in.

I like to imagine her this way, young and in love and willing to sacrifice the life between city streets, the life she was familiar with, for a man in a band with wild, black hair wearing a suit with cowboy boots and looking displaced in that city where they met–ready to bust out at the polyester seams, saddle his horse and ride out on the interstate toward home.

I like to imagine him, my father before he was my father, enamored  by this woman with quiet confidence, natural beauty and an aversion to practical shoes. A woman who was like no other woman he had ever met, who was fine on her own raising a beautiful daughter, but might be convinced, if treated with the kindness and respect that she deserved, to go with him.

Go with him to live in this wild space, a space that I imagine has always been under appreciative of a woman so refined and polished and poised. A space that required more practical shoes.

I like to picture that she pulled on her boots and listened to her new husband’s dreams of cattle and horses while she searched for work, taught dance classes in the nearby small town, had two more daughters and raised them in a landscape so far from the sidewalks and movie theaters and restaurants of her youth.

But she never complained. At least I have never heard it. And out here surrounded by snakes and trees and creeks and buttes and big blue sky my mother watched her daughters grow and get their hands dirty and tangle their fuzzy hair in the wind. She cheered them on at small town rodeos, tended to broken arms, made makeshift habitats for pet turtles in her roasting pan, gave advice on cheerleading moves, helped with 4-H projects and bought them pretty shoes, no matter the dirt and mud they insisted on dragging into the house on our boots.

And while she drove one with ballerina aspirations to lessons 75 miles away, sent one to ride horses and sing her songs on stage and  scheduled the other for basketball and volleyball camps around the state, I imagine her grabbing little pieces of her heart and spirit and handing them quietly off to her daughters…

Her pointed toes, blue eyes, poise, gentle nature and quiet beauty slipped to her oldest in her mug filled with hot chocolate on her way out the door.

The honesty, determination, quick wit, strength and social graces that exist within my mother flew out of her mouth and attached to her youngest during an argument about boyfriends or clothes or parties with friends.

And to her middle daughter, a daughter who in her younger days was convinced that she had nothing in common with the woman who gave birth to her, she gave a gift of gentle touches, encouragement, belief in wild dreams and understanding of untamed emotions. But most of all her sacrifice, her perseverance, tolerance and acceptance of a world she had to grow to understand and appreciate has been her greatest gift to me…the gift of a home on the landscape I will always belong to.

That, and an affection for impractical shoes.

But for all that she’s given, all of the sacrifices she has made through winters at the ranch that seemed to have lasted years, through snakes and skunks making their way into her home, through thankless jobs, burned tuna casseroles, drought and dust storms, drained bank accounts and children who just won’t listen, my mother has held on to the best parts of herself:

The beauty queen parts, the wine connoisseur, hilarious loon interpreter and graceful selflessness parts. The life of the party, the fashionista, giver of the most thoughtful gifts, Christmas loving, sun seeker, tasteful, best friend in the world parts. The big sister, the caring daughter, the understanding wife parts. The organized and impeccably clean and always prepared (even when 30 miles away from the nearest grocery store) parts.

The parts of her that have always known what is best for her family. Best for her daughters.

So, yes, I like to imagine my mother before I knew her, before she was my mother. I like to imagine her with all of that love to give, all of that joy, all of those dreams and talents with the world at her delicate fingertips.

And then give thanks that she chose this life. Of all of the things and people she could have belonged to, all of the places she could have laid her heart down, she chose to lay it  here.

She chose us.

And we are the luckiest.

Happy Mother’s Day momma.

Love you as wide as this prairie sky we live under…as wide as your arms reach.

Momentum

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Momentum. Forward motion. Moving.

I have been thinking about the act quite a bit lately as I have been guiding my car through back roads and highways, my feet along cattle trails and off to cut my own path.  The act of moving forward, in any capacity, whether it’s walking, riding or driving, is what I envision the stream of consciousness to look like: sweaty, breathing, flushed, meandering or running in a straight line following a bird, a path, a rainbow or nothing in particular.

Because there is something about covering ground that propels not only your body, but your mind. It frees it up a bit, opens it. And even when there is somewhere else to be, a dot at the end of the map, a destination, there is something about the space between point A and point B that takes on a life of its own entirely–the space where you can’t go anywhere but forward. Where time ticks away with the miles.

I drove across the state on Tuesday. 350 or so miles from the northeast corner to west. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and the wind was blowing across the flat landscape. The road I was following was completely unfamiliar to me as I headed in the direction of home. I had my radio blaring familiar music, music that I could sing along with and softly  I mumbled through words I have forgotten only to crescendo as I was reminded of the ones I always knew. I rolled down the windows. I sipped coffee. I adjusted and readjusted my visor and my sunglasses. I put a stick of gum in my mouth.

My mind wandered and I found myself back on all of the unfamiliar roads I have traveled during the time I was on the road with work and music. In pieces those moments flashed in and out of my memory–the toll booths on my way from Fargo to Chicago in the early daylight hours, my eyes heavy from the unexpected miles.  The long stretches of yellow lines on the interstate in Kansas. The blacktop backroads on my way to a small Wisconsin college town. The bridges that confused me in Green Bay. The antelope infested stretch in South Dakota. The mountains that unexpectedly jutted out as I hit Boise. The white-out road that welcomed me home to North Dakota and forced me to spend one spring night in my car along the interstate.

While I remembered parts of my life that weren’t significant enough to make it out of my mouth and into stories to friends and family, the miles carried me forward and turned me onto a highway I have taken home hundreds of times. And while I sped between its straight lines it was as if someone was playing DJ and handpicking the soundtrack that came through the car speakers and into my conscious to help me replay the events I moved away from and back into during the time I spent on the pavement that stretched out in front of me. Pavement I haven’t been on for years. The songs and the road and the setting sun bounced off of my aviator glasses as I thought of beer, coffeehouse gigs, sidewalks in my college town, movie theatre trips to pass the time, crying from pure loneliness, a future naively hopeful and wanting so bad to be somewhere else.

My tires hummed along as I watched the sun dip down a little further, changing from gold to pink to red and I thought about the idea of wishing to be gone. How I used to exist in that thought, in that wish, so passionately. Driving toward the horizon I suddenly felt a little uneasy, like I needed to begin constructing plans for what was next. That I couldn’t just move through the miles thinking about what could have been, but concentrate on what is now and what could be so great.

I started constructing plans for what was next. Ideas passed through my mind like a slide show, progressing with each mile marker, playing themselves out as the sky turned from red to black and headlights flashed in my eyes. But by the time the landscape started to roll a bit, after I crossed the big lake and the road began to wind the unease calmed and I settled into my thoughts, sorted them out in my head, planted some and let others fly away when I flung open the doors of my car to breathe in the familiar air of the ranch–wet grass and dirt and horse hair.

When my husband and I moved to the ranch when we were first married, we weren’t ready to be here. We weren’t ready to plant our lives. We had more to see, more to do and be. We didn’t understand yet that we did not have to hang up our wings to exist on this landscape.

And the best thing we could do for ourselves make the decision to leave. Because time was always something we understood. Time and the knowledge that only we have the power to change the way we feel, the way we live.

So we left. That dream we had since we were twelve or thirteen was staring us in the face, but our  arms weren’t open, so we left it there, alone.

To know that you can always move, to know that you have an option of a road, an option of your feet to take you where you don’t even know you need to go is one of the greatest freedoms.  That is what my husband taught me.

That is what we taught each other.

That we can always move. That we have hands to hold and feet and roads that are there to lead us anywhere we want to go.

And those hands, those feet, that longing to fly, those same roads brought us back here. When we were ready. When we understood that sometimes freedom isn’t always about leaving…

sometimes freedom is choosing to stay.

Melty Monday Trivia Question (prize alert!)

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We were foiled again by the big sky this weekend. After days of blue and sunshine that was working miracles on turning things green and purple and yellow and other glorious spring colors, in its predictably unpredictable bipolar attitude it freaked out and poured down snow and freezing rain, covering us in ice and white and shutting the lights off in the little ranch house for hours.

I was pretty pissed, I’m not gonna lie. For a few minutes.

Until I realized that it was a perfect excuse to leave  the laundry for another day.

And the dishes, and the vacuuming and the yard work and the emails and all things productive in general.

Ok. Ok. I took one more snow day in stride.

And read a book.

And cried and got all depressed because my favorite books are the sad kind.

Dammit.

But that’s it. That’s all.

Cause I want more of this…

and a little less of this…

I love a good adventure, but a girl has her limits. And snow heavy enough to snap tree branches on the last day of April is pushing that limit.

Anyway, the thing about spring snow is that it is gone before you even get the chance to use all of your favorite curse words. So when I was on my way out the door yesterday, the green grass looked like it was making its way to the surface again.

Phew.

Because today I am hitting the road on behalf of the North Dakota Humanities Council to learn about a community that was home to the first North Dakota Farm and I will be interviewing two women who are working the land for a living.

I can’t wait to hear the stories.

And can’t wait to see if anyone can guess what town in North Dakota I will be visiting this morning based on the hint above. 

First correct answer (for those not related to me who know my schedule) wins a matted 8×10 metallic print of this photo sent directly to the comfort of your home. 

I think it’s appropriate given the feisty attitude of the season.

Because nothing fixes a Melty Monday like a prize.

Love ya!

The Queen of the Barnyard

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I have added a new task to my morning routine at the ranch. Yes, while the world was watching a beautiful woman turn into a princess this morning, I was wiping my eye crusties, pulling on my vest and muck boots and heading out to the barn to play momma to two drooly, stinky, snotty, lovable, furry babies.

Oh, it’s a slightly less glamorous gig than what that princess on TV will face in her life…a few less diamonds, a lot more snot, but simply another day in the life of the Queen of the Barnyard.

Queen of the Barnyard. That’s me.

Yes, I received my crown and the important and necessary job of keeping these babies alive and growing up big and strong when our neighbor up the hill, who has been calving during one of the most treacherous, snowy, cold and wet springs in years, found these babies abandoned in the mayhem of the spring blizzards.

Our neighbor is one of those ranchers who has been running the place his father ran for his entire adult life. He is an expert when it comes to the cattle industry and takes the job very seriously. Consequently, he has spent the last few snowy months painstakingly feeding and checking his cattle in the sub-zero weather, blizzards, ice storms, rain and the occasional, merciful sunshine in order to keep the mommas happy and healthy so they will deliver happy and healthy babies in the spring.

Because that’s what good cattle ranchers do best, especially and most importantly during calving season. They watch. They pay close attention to their herd, taking in which cows are close to giving birth, who might be having trouble, what cows may need a little help in order to be a good momma and what babies need medicine or extra TLC

And these babies needed a little extra TLC indeed. One a twin whose mamma wouldn’t let him suck and the other abandoned all together, our neighbor took them into the barn, warmed them up and begin the milk replacing, bottle feeding regiment. But with all the other tasks our ranching neighbor is charged with during days of calving and feeding and the fact that our cattle don’t come to the Veeder Ranch until the grass is green, husband, pops and I decided to purchase the calves and start a little project of our own.

And I was dubbed Queen…

Not because I’m the most capable, intelligent, and fairest of them all…

but because I’m home.

And I have time to devote to a morning and evening calf feeding ritual.

So all rise for the Queen of the Barnyard looking ravishing in a yellow and gray flannel, saggy, drool soaked jeans and a Carhart cap–much more practical head-gear for royalty with these types of responsibilities.

Responsibilities like putting her morning coffee on hold to mix up giant bottles of warm milk replacer and head to the big barn where the babies are crying.

Important tasks like sliding open the barn door only to be rammed and head butted and stepped on and licked during the calves’ search for the bottles she holds tightly in each hand.

Yes, the Queen of the Barnyard puts one bottle in each hand (with the exception of when she has a camera) to feed these babies. Because she is an expert at time management and doesn’t want to leave anyone waiting (or deal with the repercussions that would occur while feeding one calf and fending off the other with her free royal arm and corresponding leg…the results sure to be painful and sloppy)

But the Queen of the Barnyard isn’t all business. Oh no she isn’t. She realizes that she is these babies’ only link to the outside world and she must teach them to be calves. So when her subjects are finished drinking she distracts them from their instinct to ram her repeatedly with their noses until she flees to the house by tossing the bottles aside to begin the ritual of demonstrating to the babies what it looks like to run and buck.

She begins by running as fast as she can to distance the needy animals’ noses from her royal butt. She then launches her body half-way across the length of the corral in a leap, lands both feet in the dirt and then finishes it off with a jump and a kick.

Hands on hips the Queen waits for the response.

Her subjects stop.

Stare.

Bow…

and follow suit.

Her Highness laughs and claps with delight.

And the Queen’s subjects shower her with kisses and bid her adieu.

Then the Queen, a hot royal mess, climbs the fence  to make the short trip home, only to do it all again in the coming hours.

Because this Queen goes above and beyond…and her work is never done.

Ah, princess Kate, you may have a castle and a country and a handsome prince, but are you the ruler of all this?

Or this?


This?

What about him?

Or him?

But most importantly is this yours?

Yeah. Didn’t think so fancy pants. Didn’t think so.

Happy Royal Wedding day everyone! I want to know what makes you king or queen of your household today.

Life: one damn masterpiece after another

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I have a theory about this world we live in. I know I’ve said it here before, but it just proved itself to me again on Monday evening and I feel I have to share it once more.

Because there it went spinning outside the windows and walls of this little home in the buttes and I found myself catching my breath again…

because life is just one damn masterpiece after another.

And that is my theory, in case you missed it the first time.

Because on Monday evening after my day was coming to a close–a beautiful, 70 degree day spent cooped up in the house answering emails, scheduling, making phone calls, organizing and checking things off my list–I stepped away from my desk and moved to the kitchen to shift the cans in my cupboard and pretend to think about dinner–the next task. But just as I was giving up on the idea that I would come up with some sort of brilliant meal and heading toward the front door to fling it open and splay my body out on the deck to catch the last afternoon rays, I was met through the window of the door by pops, wide-eyed and looking urgent…

the first human person I had laid eyes on for a good twelve hours.

“Whew…hey there…you scared me…whats up?”

“There are elk on the hill right across from the house…just saw them as I was driving in…a bunch of them…”

“Really?”

Here is where I will explain that before I even uttered the word “really” I was already heading for my boots, snatching up my camera and throwing on a hat…

…and pops was already in his pickup, behind the wheel and shifting into drive.

That was all the exchange we needed right there.We knew what we were going to do.

Because elk are still a rarity, a treasure, a bit of an oddity on this landscape and we needed to witness this, we needed to get in close and watch them pass through our world.

So as the fluffy clouds rolled on over the farmstead, creating patches of shade and sunshine on the brown ground, pops and I bounced along in the green Dodge, turning off of the road and toward the elk herd–a site that would have gone unnoticed by eyes less trained and in tune to the landscape.

See, pops is the kind of guy who is always looking. After years spent as a rancher the man is always scanning the horizon for something amiss, something important, out-of-place or occasionally, if he’s lucky, something spectacular.

And Monday he found the spectacular and chose to share it with me.

So in the green Dodge pops drove toward where the wind was right so the elk wouldn’t smell us. And when it wasn’t advisable to go any further with the pickup we stopped, opened the doors and stepped out into the landscape.  As soon as the doors latched, just like that pops was on the hunt and it was like I was twelve years old again walking behind his strides in his footsteps as he snuck up on a big buck–always so eager to come along, pops always so willing to allow me the experience.

Over the fence and along the side hill we reached a point where we had a spectacular view of the herd and I snapped some photos while pops counted and recounted under his breath…”three…four…ten…seventeen…I think there’s about seventeen, eighteen there Jess…”

We sat there watching the two bull elk as they moved toward the rest of the herd, discussing whether they had antlers, using my telephoto lens as binoculars. We watched them graze along the flat below the clay buttes as pops explained to me in a hushed voice the way elk graze and what kind of grasses they eat.

I am not sure how long we sat before pops made the decision to get closer, but seeing that the beasts didn’t suspect we were there he took off at his hunter’s pace down the steep hill and along the muddy cow trail before leaping, without pause, in his cowboy boots and spurs through the wide and moving creek.

I followed diligently, a good ten steps behind, wondering how close we would get, wondering if we would spook them, wondering if the herd would be there when my ponytail appeared over the clay knob.

Pops slowed his pace and stepped softer.

I did the same.

He crouched down.

I crouched down.

He stopped.

I froze and held my breath.

“The two bulls, they should be right over there. Right over that knob. Get your camera…go ahead…you should get some great shots…”

I looked at him, little sweat beads forming on my forehead, and for a brief second (because that’s all the time I have in situations like this) I wondered how he was so sure of the exact location. How was he so certain after a fifty-mile-an-hour trip through brush and mud and a raging creek?

But it didn’t matter. I believed him. Because in my experience with pops and things like this he is always right.

Always.

And he was right again as I flung my hat down in excitement and crouched and belly crawled and peeked my way over the knob to find before me something I had never been so close to in the wild of my backyard in all of my 27 years.

I was shaking as I pulled the camera up to my face, certain that the beasts were going to bolt at the first click of my shutter.

But it was as if I was just a little breeze, a bug in the grass as the mighty bull elk lifted their noses at the sound.

I clicked and took a few steps closer…

and clicked again.

The elk froze, looked me directly in the eye…and nuzzled each other.

I looked back for pops, whose black hat was peeking over the hill. He nodded.

Encouraged, I put my sites on a bald bump in the landscape, thinking if I could lean in on that I would be close enough to almost reach out a give their noses a scratch.

I snuck.

They stared and snorted a bit.

I crawled and crept until I reached my destination, laid flat out on my belly and clicked my camera in a panic, certain now that they were going to run from me at any moment.

But they stayed.

They looked.

I stayed.

I looked.

And although I know it wasn’t possible, even from my ideal distance, I swear I could feel their warm breath…I swear I could smell the dust on their shaggy coats…I swear I could hear them sniff the air as I held mine.

I swear I have never been so close to something so wild.

We sat there like this, the three of us looking at one another, and the magnificent elk posed for me, taking turns walking in an out of my shot until I exhausted all possible photo opportunities and the elk were no longer curious.

And after hours, or minutes, or seconds, slowly and reluctantly we turned away from each other, sneaking glances back over our shoulders, wondering what we had just witnessed…

…wondering what the other was doing out here in a world that, just moments before, belonged only to us.

When I was growing up out here I never laid eyes on an elk on this ranch and as pops and I walked back to the pickup he informed me that, until recent years, the beasts never passed through this place at all.

And it makes you wonder where they are going, what the grass was like where they came from, how many women with wild ponytails they have watched sneak up on them…

and how long they will stay.

But mostly it makes my jaw drop in awe that while I am busy living my life between walls and windows and the nook of the barnyard, these creatures are living their lives, grazing, snorting, shedding, pawing, living and moving on through my backyard, into my life and out again, free and magnificent as the wild wind.

I may never be that close to the nose of an elk for the rest of my life and I could have very well missed it, just as I have most certainly missed them passing through dozens of times before.

But I didn’t.

I was there.

Pops was there.

We were there.

Right smack in the middle of yet another masterpiece.


How do the crocuses know?

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It’s official.

Deep breath in and out.

Whew.

After a winter that dug its frozen fingers in, ate us out of house and home, turned our skin pasty and soft and all in all outstayed his welcome, peaking up from the once frozen ground is the first genuine promise of warmer days to come.

And when I say genuine I mean it, because this little signal that comes to us quietly on the hilltops has never failed to lift the dreary spirits of country people in the northern states.

Yes, the crocuses are here.

And if there was anything I needed to do upon returning to the ranch yesterday evening after a lovely day with family sitting out in the 60 degree sunshine–if there were chores or phone calls or words that needed to be said to you about Easter and family and the sweet memories this holiday stirs inside of me, all of that was trumped by husband’s and my deep desire to fling open the doors of the car, pull off our town clothes, change into our muck boots and climb the hills to find springtime treasures.

For anyone who grew up in a northern state or in the countryside where your world turns white for months you will understand this. You will understand what the crocus means to us here in rural North Dakota.

You will understand the sweet smell of dirt that accompanies the search and anticipation of spotting that first vivid purple petal emerging from the cold, damp, brown earth. And if you have patiently watched the snow drifts disappear and reappear outside your front porch as the months drag on, you will not laugh when I say at that moment you feel as though you have never seen a purple that deep, a petal as soft, a color so vibrant. Beauty has arrived.

And if you are from the prairie you will smile as you think of that first breeze catching your hair and the sunshine warming your shoulders as you fling off your spring jacket,  let the warm soak in your skin and fall down to your knees to inspect the new arrival.

You will understand how, at that moment, you are eight years old again and you have your grandmother’s hand and you can hear her voice through the breeze. You can hear her exclaim “Oh, now look at that…” as your eyes move from the first flower and across the hill to notice that there are purple dots are everywhere. Scattered.

And if your world has been white and you have been restless you will appreciate the challenge you face just then where your enthusiasm for the change of season begs you to grab the flowers up, collect them for your pockets, pluck them for your basket or your bucket and bring them home to proudly display on windowsills and kitchen tables and countertops.

But instead you pause as your fingers run over the fuzz of the fragile flowers that reach for the sky in groups, holding hands with a promise to face this uncertain sky together.

Yes, if you are from the windswept buttes, the wheat fields, the quiet streams that cut through small cow pastures you will nod your head when I tell you that yesterday, when I finally found what I was after, I made sure I only picked one crocus from each group, careful to not leave any alone out there, certain not to pluck the hilltop clean of this precious flower that enters this world so confident, the first bud of prairie spring…

because life is short and a little piece of me felt like, for all this flower has given me, there should be some left out there to live it.

Yes, if you are from the once frozen Dakotas, you will nod your head because you have done the same thing and returned to your home with a modest bundle of furry purple flowers, shaking off the tiny bugs that have made their home inside the petals before setting the bouquet on your table with pride.

This is the ritual, these are the emotions conveyed by such a small and simple gift from nature. And we repeat this ceremony year after year, our excitement builds, our childhood reinvented, our hope for a new season renewed.

We anticipate, we make time, we know it’s coming every year…

But how do the crocuses know?

How do they know the ground is ready and the sky won’t forsake them?

How do they know that momma’s desperately need flowers just as much as papas desperately need to pick them for her?

How do they know when children need a treasure hunt and grammas need to lead the way?

How do they know just when to make a quiet and brilliant entrance to come and finish thawing us out?

How do they know just exactly when we need them?

Our feet are planted

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Earth Day.

That’s what it is today.

And I feel there’s so much to be said about it as I sit here in this house plunking out words surrounded by this open space, this landscape that cradles me, hills that gently roll, creeks that babble and trees that reach up to the sky and dig their roots in the gumbo soil.

The fog has settled in, the rain is misting on my window, the last snow drifts are hanging on for dear life and I feel like telling you something about what a day like today means to me. Me, a woman who leaves footprints in the mud, catches dust in her hair and steps out for kisses from the wind. A woman who recognizes the smell of each season rolling in and celebrates it with a walk, a listen, a photo, a good deep breath.

A woman who was raised in a place that depends on the sun, the rain, the snow, the wind to nourish the earth to feed the animals to feed our bodies…our souls.

I want to tell you how I came from the greatest stewards of the earth, people who have sacrificed and worked long hours through winter nights and hot sunshine to plant, to water, to feed, to fix, to take good care of this acreage that has been in the family for nearly 100 years. I want to tell you that nothing was more important to them than the land. Nothing had more of an effect on the lives that they led and nothing was more important for the generations to come.

Because long before Earth Day was established, my relatives were establishing their lives here and instilling in their children how to care for their world, how to encourage it to thrive, how to take from it and how to give back.

And I want to thank them for holding on so tight, for their children, for their children’s children…

for mine.

But most of all I want to thank them for giving me the opportunity to hold this dirt in my hands, to frolic in it, to spread my wings and dig my roots in deep. I want to thank them for passing on something to believe in so strongly that I would give any material thing to belong here and work hard to make plans for it to remain in tact–the most fundamentally miraculous gift.

Yes, today the calendar says Earth Day and the people on our the planet are asked to take pause…

But out here our feet have always been planted like trees with our branches exposed standing in the face of the storms that pass, the ground that shifts and the soil that dries up, freezes, thaws and floods…

so we dig our roots deeper, reach up closer to the sun, pray harder, take good care…

and celebrate every day.