Trail Riding

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It was a beautiful fall weekend at the ranch and to celebrate roundup and the change of the seasons and friends and horses and kids and ranch life in general our community got together for a trail ride.

The Blue Buttes Trail Ride is a tradition that has been organized on and off for years in this rural “neighborhood” that spans a circumference of 30 some miles.

When I was growing up this event was the like Christmas. The opportunity to ride my horse across pastures all day alongside my best friends made me feel grown up and capable and wild and free and a million things that a little girl wants to be when she’s 8 or 9 or 10.

Sometimes it snowed. Sometimes it rained. Sometimes the wind blew and sometimes we got all three. But regardless of the weather, the neighborhood showed up. They showed up with their horses and wagons and drinks and snacks and kids and they rode together on a trail mapped out weeks before that stretched for miles across pastures and cleared fields, through coulees and along fence lines and roads.

I don’t remember anything from when I was a kid about the route we took or the weather really, I just remember being so excited the night before that I couldn’t sleep. I remember riding my old mare, Rindy, kicking my feet out of the stirrups during the third or fourth mile, swinging my leg over the top of my horse’s neck and thinking I was cool.

Thinking that there was no kid in the world luckier than me.

And so this weekend, almost twenty years later (20? REALLY?) I saddled up again to hit the trail with my neighbors. And I have to say, aside from a little horse malfunction due to all of the energy in the air on that warm fall morning, it wasn’t long before I was feeling all those things again.

Cool? Well, maybe it was more temperature related than attitude, but capable and wild and free and lucky?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And really proud of my community and how they’ve held on to this tradition despite a changing world.

Proud of how they’ve kept their kids on the backs of horses and encouraged them to run.

Humbled by how they swing ropes and hitch up teams of horses to wagons.

Proud of their potluck dinners and generosity and enthusiasm for a lifestyle that is unique and important and tested by the modern world every day.

For twelve miles I sat on the back of a good horse and rode next to a friend. We talked about life and house building, husbands and pets, horses and work.

And we observed our world as it played out before us, young kids, their stirrups barely reaching the bellies of their mounts, kicking and flying back and forth across the pastures as fast as their horses were willing to take them.

Those kids would have gone faster and further if they were allowed.

And we watched families connected as they talked and laughed and moved through the pastures and gates. Old friends catching up.

Sisters laughing and joking.

A big extended family loaded and bundled up in a wagon sharing snacks and stories.

A husband and wife riding quietly side by side, helping one another along.

Whatever’s going on here.

And my friend and I, getting to know one another and the landscape that stretched for twelve miles as Pops pointed out where his mother was born, the dam where he used to swim and the route we took nearly twenty years ago when I was 8 or 9 and knew nothing but those miles and the back of my favorite horse.

Last Saturday I may as well have forgotten everything I’ve ever learned and all the things I’ve seen and have come to know in those years between. I may as well have forgotten I’d ever wanted to be anyone else.

Or anywhere else.

Because I was having good old-fashioned, genuine fun.

And I was the luckiest kid in the world.

More time

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

If I had one wish worth fulfilling I would wish the days longer.

I would wish for the sunrise to take its time,

and for the afternoon heat to linger.

And I would suggest that the night wait a while to come creeping in, sprinkling stars and showing off the moon.

I would ask to prolong that evening light, that witching hour where the world seems to glow with the soft golden haze of the sun.

I need more time to bask in it.

And I need more time to get to my work, to do the things I love and do them right. With care. With thought.

Yes, if I had a wish I would wish for more time.

More time.

To linger in embraces.

And kisses.

And not worry about the passing hours and a list impossible to tackle in the time given me in 24.

If I had a wish, I wouldn’t make lists.

I would move through the day knowing that what I get done is good enough.

And I would splash in more puddles.

If the earth spun slower I would take longer walks, I would write more poems, scratch more bellies, take longer baths, and can those tomoatoes already.

I would spend more time on the back of a horse,

in a conversation with my mother, over pancakes in the morning and in his arms at night.

If the sun would wait to set I would get in my car and drive to see you. I would. I would come with the muffins I baked and the bottle of wine I picked up along the way because I had time to make muffins.

And to pick the perfect bottle of wine.

Because I wished for more time.

I wish.

Delusions.

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I’ve been meaning to tell you some things about the pug. You’re all so supportive of him, the dog who, despite his sins and misadventures, still somehow finds a way to sleep on the couch.

Anyway, I figured you might be wondering how he’s been adjusting to this new life in his new home over the hill.

I’ll tell you, at times, it hasn’t been pretty…

And sometimes, his ear does this.

I’m guessing it’s probably due to the wind whipping through his fur as his short, stubby legs take his barrel shaped body across the pasture to try his luck at hunting down this guy:

Nope, not much has changed. Despite the new four walls the pudgy canine is still shitting on floors, hitchhiking to the nearest oil sites to see what’s cooking, working on taming the new feline in his life and exercising his delusions of grandeur.

And every year those delusions get, well, grander.

Don’t tell him he’s not a horse. He won’t believe you.

He will also not accept that he is not a cat.

Or a 110 pound cow dog.

Which is working out really well, now that Husband is on board with the idea that this dog could actually become something… well…helpful.

And so Husband has decided to work on it, you know, making the pug the best cow dog on our place. Which I realize doesn’t say much for the other dogs at the Veeder Ranch, but based on what we have to choose from, I’ll tell you, it could be true.

But it’s definitely weird.

Because the pug’s newly-honed talent has allowed for a fat little pug-shaped space in the corner of my husband’s heart.

A bond 4 years in the making…

Now I wasn’t aware this new role and relationship was occurring until I witnessed the pug stare down a small herd of cattle that had found their way to our front yard, pleasantly munching on what was left of the green grass poking out from under the fallen oak leaves and acorns.

Anticipating that damn dog’s next move, I hollered his name.
I hollered “no.”
I hollered “get back here!”

The pug turned his good eye toward me in confusion while Husband came up behind me, scolding me for yelling at the pooch.

What?

He then proceeded to inform me that lately he had been working with the pug on the whole cow-chasing thing, because, well he seemed he was brave enough, and when told to “sick ’em” the lab just runs for the first big stick.

So it’s either Husband or the pug who is destined to perform the task of getting those cows out of the yard.

And it seems the pair have found their common ground.

Delusion.

The difference between us.

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I convinced Husband to accompany me on a ride after work on Tuesday. The weatherman warned me it might be one of the last nice autumn days for a while and I felt the need to take advantage of it.

Plus, I dreamed the night before that I was riding a fast horse like the wind through the tall grasses in endless pastures and I suddenly felt the urge to make that dream come true.

An evening ride wasn’t a hard thing to convince my dearly beloved to participate in. Especially if it meant he could pretend he was looking for cows and actually getting work done. So off we went, the two of us, seeking the only kind of marriage therapy that works for us–a little ride together through our world.

The breeze and the light were perfect and my horse was just the right amount of lazy.

Suddenly I felt a wave of creativity as the sun crept down toward the edge of the earth.

So I asked Husband if he would be opposed to a little “sunset photo shoot” along the horizon, you know, because he has always made such a nice silhouette.

As usual, he humored me and I quickly planned out a method of capturing the romantic vision I had of my husband riding his bay horse at full speed across the landscape.

I got off my horse and crouched down among the grass as my husband followed my directions to “run your horse back and forth in front of me for a while until I say stop.”

So he did.

Thrilled with the results of that handsome man and his handsome horse romantically frozen in a moment of speed and power inside of my camera, I hollered at him “Go faster!”

So he went faster, back and forth, working on his horse, going nowhere in particular, just back and forth across the sky.

But from behind my camera they could be going anywhere, that man and that horse.

I felt like an artist with the power to freeze time, the gift of my camera allowing me to catch that horse’s mane as it reached toward the sky and his feet as they gathered beneath him.

“Go faster!” I hollered from my spot behind the camera.

So Husband made that horse go faster.

Watching them move across that landscape was beautiful and romantic and rugged and western and kind of like a John Wayne movie scene…all of the things Husband can be to me sometimes.

“Stop. Come back. Come here!” I yelled, suddenly struck with another idea.

The idea that if my husband could be all those things as a silhouette, I wanted a shot at what I could be as a dark, mysterious woman on a horse against the backdrop of a setting sun.

Husband stopped his horse in front of me and I handed him my camera.

“Can you take some pictures of me now?” I asked as I climbed up on my horse who was lazily munching on the tall yellow grass. “I’m going to go really fast. See if you can get my hair blowing in the wind as I ride off into the sunset.”

Husband took my camera and snapped away as I worked to channel the dream from the night before, the one where I leaned into the neck of my horse and kicked him gently as his hooves moved faster and faster across the landscape, gaining speed, pushing forward, becoming one fast blur as our hair whipped together in the wind.

Only, it seemed my horse didn’t have the same dream.

Nope.

His dream involved less running through endless pastures and more grazing through them.

And about half-way through our second pass across the photo shoot area, Husband yelled “Faster!” and the horse between my legs, the one I envisioned behaving like Black Beauty as I channeled my inner rodeo queen, began to behave more like the mule in that John Wayne movie with the nun.

And in one swift jump and kick, that horse demonstrated the major, glaring difference between me and my dearly beloved:

Silhouette or not, you are who you are.

And I am not a sexy silhouette.

A prayer for wild women…

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

To be content at the end of the day. As the sun goes down and the world goes dark, to know that it was yours for the taking, and so you took.

This is my prayer for you and wild women everywhere.

To know you’ve tamed some wild things, and let the others run free. To have ridden hard and fallen harder.

To have found your way back to your feet.

This I hope for you.

To have loved a good man, a good horse and a good dog, but not necessarily in that order.

To have been loved. I know you have been loved.

To have mud on your boots, on your face and under your fingernails and still call it a good day. To know the smell of a well-worked horse and call it sweet. To stand in the rain because it’s raining.

To find a soft place to land, wild women, I pray for a soft place to land.

To climb a hill to be closer to the moon.

To do it yourself because you can do it better.

To work. To work. To work. And to love it as much as you can possibly love it.

Wild woman.

Wild, wild women.

This is our prayer.

Why I’m shopping for khakis and a house in the suburbs…

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Last night I went on a ride with Pops to gather the cows. We were in a hurry because every day it gets darker a little earlier. It was 6:30. It gets dark at 7:30…or something like that.

But that’s not the point.

The point is, I have never been able to keep up with Pops on a horse, and I’m afraid no matter how much help I think I am, I’m quite certain he would be better off without me.

I mean, I could be riding a race horse. You know, one of those fast buggers that wins the races race horses win. It could have countless trophies, made jockeys famous and fans from around the world could be chanting his name. And that horse would take one look at me and decide that running isn’t his thing today.

And neither is trotting for that matter.

Nope.

Not until we’re pointing toward the barn anyway.

Or cutting a path through the thick trees. Yeah, in the trees he’d find his pace.

But Pops. Pops could ride a horse that was half-way to the light at the end of the tunnel and that horse would turn right around to give him his last breath.

So this is what I deal with when we’re in a hurry–kicking and pushing and working to find a pace on a lazy horse to keep up with Pops as he heads toward the trees, providing me with directions that I cannot hear because he is facing the hills and I am three horse lengths behind him.

I yell “What?”

And he says something about following a cow through the trail in the trees.

So I do.

Only there isn’t a trail.

So me and my suddenly-lightening-fast horse make one through the brush so thick that I lose sight of the cow I’m supposed to be following (and all forms of life and light for that matter).

I hear Pops hollering from what seems like twenty miles away and wonder how he got that far in what I’m certain has only been thirty seconds (I’m not sure though because I lose all sense of time as soon as I get into the trees, you know, because I’m focusing on trying to not die a horrible, mangled death now that my horse has found his first wind…)

“Jessss!!!” Pops’ voice echoes through the trees. “Wheeereee youuuuu attt?”

“Uhhhh…” I spit the leaves from my mouth. “Just, uh, cutting a trail here…”

…and bringing with me some souvenirs from the experience–sticks in my shirt, leaves down my pants, acorns in my pockets and twigs jammed nicely in the puffs of my ponytail as I emerge on the other side of the brush alone and searching for any sign of the cow I was supposed to keep an eye on.

Ah, nevermind, looks like Pops has her through the gate.

Shit.

I kick my horse to catch up while I work on ridding myself of the vegetation I acquired on my “Blair Witch” journey through the coulee.

I catch up just in time to follow him to the top of a hill, down through another coulee, along the road and into the barnyard where we load up the horses and I wait to make sure Pops’ tractor starts so he can get home and get a bale of hay.

It does not start.

(Good thing I have patience, you know?)

So I drive him and the horses home.

Slowly.

Because I have precious cargo.

And because apparently I like to torture this man who is trying to beat the sun.

And the other man in my life who was still at work when I got in from “helping” and decided to make him a casserole, only to be asked, three bites into his meal, what I put in this thing.

To which I replied “cheese, noodles, hamburger…the regular…why?”

He gets up from his chair while pulling something from his mouth, looks and me and says:

“Because I just bit into a stick.”

Shit.

If you need me I’ll be shopping for khakis and a house in the suburbs.

He flies airplanes.

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

This is Adam.

Adam plays the bass for me.

Long, low notes ring out from his fingers, finding a rhythm in the melodies I created between the comfort of the walls of the old farm house. Adam’s bass is something I didn’t know my music needed until it was there.

And now I don’t know if I ever want to hear my songs without it.

Adam also plays the guitar.

And the harmonica and the banjo and probably a hundred other instruments.

Adam grew up between the sidewalks of our little hometown. While his limbs stretched toward the sky Adam was listening…to his mother’s singing voice and the beat of his big brother’s guitar, the way the waves of Lake Sakakawea sound when they hit the rocky shore and the buzz of his dad’s airplanes as they took off from the runway and into the sky above his home.

Adam is my little sister’s age, five years younger than me. I can’t help but look at him and think of him as a little boy, though I was just a little girl myself in some of those memories.

Adam doesn’t say much, so I’ll tell you what I know:

Adam plays the bass and the guitar and the harmonica and the banjo and probably a thousand other instruments. Adam sings songs about the North Dakota badlands and that big lake where he’s caught a thousand fish. Adam plays music about big trucks and dirt roads and whiskey with friends around campfires, on front porches, in bars and on stages, anywhere there are ears to listen.

Adam climbs mountains and rides the snow down. Adam balances on rope strung between trees. Adam brings his own beer to the party in a little blue cooler. He wears a green jacket and is waiting for me to bring him some garden tomatoes so he can make salsa.

Adam makes salsa and plays the bass guitar for me.

Sometimes I listen to those notes and I think the things Adam loves are too big for our little town.

Adam flies airplanes in the sky above his lake,

above his badlands

and above the oak groves of this ranch.

He buzzes over the landscape that grew him tall and lean.

And because Adam doesn’t say much I’ll tell you what I think:

I think if you asked him Adam would make you a jar of salsa.

I think if you wanted he would take you fishing and play you a song on his banjo.

He might even play the bass in your band.

And I think he would take you flying. If you asked, I think he would.

I think Adam likes the way his world looks up there.

Because from up there, the things Adam loves are just the right size…

Under a Badlands Sky…

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

One of my favorite autumn rituals has become my now annual trip down the road to visit the North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park just outside the ever-expanding limits of my home town.

These days, more than ever, I believe this park to be a blessing and a gift, a reminder among the chaos of a bustling industry to slow down and remember the best things in life.

The sky…

The grass…

The quiet, wild things.

I like to visit those rugged buttes to be reminded that I am one of those quiet, wild things and last week I took my Little Sister along on a little hike so that she could remember that too.

See, Little Sister has just recently come into some major responsibilities after graduating from college last winter. And with her new teaching degree in health and physical education, she has found herself in a small school outside of our hometown writing lesson plans, leading jumping jack sessions, chasing around adorable kindergarteners and helping seniors prepare for college while working on getting a master’s degree in counseling and guidance.

I’m tired just thinking about it, but so proud of this woman who, in my mind, should still be 8 years old and following me up the creek to the forts we built behind the house.

I still find it a little disheartening that when we grow up that seems to be the first thing we give up…walks to nowhere.

And building forts.

But that’s what the ranch does for us, and places like this park. It provides us with a reason to walk to nowhere, to climb to the top of a hill and look down,

to notice how that jet leaves a white streak in the sky and to wonder where it’s going…

while we find we’re happy to be right where we are.

Happy to point out the small deer crossing the road or a chipmunk below our feet instead of worrying about deadlines and messy kitchens to clean.

Happy to notice how the sun shines through the changing autumn leaves on the river bottom instead of how the end tables need dusting and the windows need a wipe.

Happy to trip on a rock as we make our way down from the buttes, happy for a near-miss incident that we can laugh at together, thankful we made it in one piece.

Thankful that we’re not sweeping right now.

Or doing paperwork.

Or making dinner.

Thankful that someone set aside a place for us to go to get away from all of the things that seem to matter so little when it comes to a choice between watching the leaves change or watching a television screen.

Thankful that we can walk to the river and talk about the time Little Sister broke the tire swing as it flung her out over the coulee and dropped her in the creek. Thankful she survived the fall, though she was certain she was dying.

Thankful she has nearly forgiven my reaction of hysterical laughter.

Thankful that years later, though those jets could take us anywhere, we still chose to be out under this beautiful and familiar sky…

Together.

A wild cat.

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So, I’ll just cut to the chase here.

We got a kitten.

Well, husband got a kitten.

Yeah, I know. I thought he lost his damn mind too when he presented me with the idea last week. I asked him how many figures I was holding up, what day it was and if John Wayne was still alive.

But if I thought he had suffered a severe head injury then, I picked up the phone to dial 911 when he told me he was going to town that evening to pick her up.

“Oh, and by the way, my dear, sweet, understanding, animal loving wife. This is no no ordinary cat,” Husband nonchalantly declared as he reached in the fridge for a beer.

Surprise! But not really. If I thought for a second that the man I married, the man who hunts deer with a Robin Hood bow,

deconstructs houses only to build them up again, makes knives out of antlers and steel files, mixes his own dough for the noodles in his noodle soup and, and catches fish with his bare hands

was about to bring home a straight-up calico or one of those felines that looks like he’s wearing a tuxedo, I might as well forget Christmas.

Not a chance. My mountain man cowboy of a husband was set on a cat with wild blood. And he was bringing her here. To our new house, the one with new carpet and hardwood floors.

And he was serious.

As he explained the animal to me…half bob cat, half mountain lion, half leopard, half liger…wait…

Image from ligers.org. Yeah, there’s a ligers.org. Napoleon Dynamite anyone? Anyone?

I flashed to visions of a wild cat the size of the 105 pound lab dangling from my recently purchased curtains, making a snack out of the insides of my leather couch, swinging from the fancy chandelier and licking her lips as while sneaking up on the pug…

I was not sold.

But it was happening.

See, that’s the thing about this relationship I’m in. There are times we talk things over, like what we should have for supper or what color to paint the walls, and then there are times we make decisions for ourselves.

The pug was one of my rogue decisions, and, well, look how that turned out…

So what could I say about a cat who, according to my recently insane husband, is sure to be the best mouser in the county?

A cat who I learned after I snapped out of my furniture nightmare, happens to be part bangle and part Pixie Bob?

I don’t know.

And I don’t know what that means really, except that here she is, all 12 oz of her.

In my new house.

With her giant ears, weird back legs and missing tail.

Here she is with her soft spotty belly, her wild, curious eyes, and unhealthy interest in the pug’s curly tail.

Here she is attacking my shoelaces with a passion I’ve never seen in something so small, spinning out as she takes the corner in the kitchen at fifty-miles-per hour and following husband around like he’s her mother.

Here she is before she took a flying leap toward my face.

And here she is snuggled down in the blankets after she, indeed, used her razor sharp claws to climb my leather couch.

I am apprehensive, but then, I’ve never had a cat figure out the litter box situation so quickly.

I’m not sold, but I like the way she sits on my shoulder as I work.

It will take some time, but look at how cute she is laying in that sunbeam.

I’m not sure, but…wait… how the hell?

…I think I might have accidentally locked her in the pantry…

Ahhh, shit.

We have a cat.

About Today

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I have so many things to tell you about the weekend, about the long ride I took with my two favorite people,

about the leaves changing…

and the radio show we performed on on Saturday.

I want to show you this picture because it’s so damn cute…

and let you that we have tomatoes coming out of our ears in case you need any.

I want to tell you about our new kitten and why my fear that my husband likely lost his mind is equal to the fear I have for my furniture.

And I want to show you my new favorite photo.

I woke up this morning with every intention show you all these things by performing my Monday ritual of coffee and words. But as I stretched my limbs, turned on the coffee pot and let the dogs out the door I got distracted by the way the frozen air leftover from the evening made the stock dam steam as the sun worked on warming the morning.

I stood at the big windows and watched it roll off the top of the water and suddenly I was very aware of the seconds passing. It seemed the season was changing right in front of my eyes and I wanted to be wide awake.

I didn’t feel like Monday morning or the sleep lines that hadn’t yet had a chance to work their way off my face. I didn’t feel like the daunting deadlines of the week or the kitchen that needed a good cleaning. I didn’t even feel like coffee.

I felt like I needed to be on the other side of those windows.

So before Husband could finish buttoning his work shirt, I pulled on my boots, tucking my bulky sweatpants inside the tops as I reached for a second sweatshirt from the laundry pile. I didn’t want to waste time on things like proper clothing. I had to capture this quiet moment that I was certain to be short-lived.