Tag Archives: childhood

From the top of the hill…

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Sometimes, when the day is coming to a slow close and my head is spinning with worry and lists, schedules and a pile of things that must wait until tomorrow and the dishes from a dinner of meat and potatoes sits waiting to be taken care of on the table, I slip on my boots and head out the door.

I’m usually not gone long, and husband has grown accustomed to this behavior, understanding it’s not a storm out, or a give up, or a frustrated stomp, but a ritual that his wife needs to put a flush in her cheeks and make sure she’s still alive out here where the trucks kick up dust on the pink road and the barn cats quietly wait in the rafters of the old buildings for a mouse to scatter by.

I tell him I need to go walking and he knows which trail I’ll take, down through the barnyard, past the water tank and up the face of the gumbo hill, the one that lets you look back at the house where the kitchen light glows, the one that gives you the perfect view of the barn’s silhouette tall and dark against a sky that is putting on its last show of the night as it runs out of light.

It’s a ritual that needs timing, because that sun, once it decides it’s out, goes quickly to the other side of the world. My pace is not meandering but diligent. I need to get to the top of that hill. I need to find the horses before the last of the light cools down the air  sends me back to the house to tend to the dishes and slip under the covers until we meet again in the morning.

So I time it, and sometimes, if there’s enough light I head  a little further east to check out how the light hits the buttes in my favorite pasture making the hills look gold and purple and so far away. Sometimes I just keep walking until dark. And sometimes the evening finds me sitting on a rock or pacing in the middle of the ancient teepee rings that still leave their mark on the flat  spot on the hill. I like to stand there and imagine a world with no buildings and no lights on the horizon. I examine the fire ring, close my eyes and think about sleeping under the leather of a teepee, covered in the skins of the animals, under a sky that promised rain and wind and snow and a sunrise every morning.

The same sky that promises me these things, but it cannot promise anything else.

I think of these people, the ones who arranged these rocks, hunted these coulees, and watched the horizons and I am humbled by the mystery of the ticking thing we call time.

And I wonder what they called it.

Because I take to those hills and look back at my home and the sections of our fences that have been washed away by the melting snow, the barn that is in desperate need of a new roof, a house that has stood for fifty-plus years on a foundation that crumbles  and I am reminded that time takes its toll on this land the same way it puts lines around the corners of my eyes… and there is not one thing man can make to stop it.

These thoughts, this understanding, is not what you would call comforting or nostalgic, but it is a fact. A fact that I have come accustomed to when I climb those hills. A fact that builds roads and oil wells, new houses and fences and bigger power lines stretching across a landscape I still like to consider wild.

I climb to the hilltop to see how things have changed, to catch the last of the day’s sun, and I am reminded that the progress we seek is the same progress the wild world is after as well, but the change is steady and slow. Trees grow, the creek keeps flowing and eroding its banks, the weight of the snow sends hills crumbling…flowers bloom, wither and die and just as the earth is sure all is steady, in comes a storm, a twister, a high wind or a bolt of lightening to knock down some trees, create new ravines and change things a bit.

I climb to that hill and look back at that farmstead and remember those kids we used to be, running through the haystacks and searching the barn for lost kittens. I climb to that hill and I remember my grandmother in her shorts and tank top, exposing her brown skin while she worked in the garden. I remember my first ride on a horse by myself, getting bucked off near the old shop, hunting for Easter eggs with the neighbor girls in the gumbo hills behind my grandmother’s house, branding cattle in the round pen.

From the top of the hill I could still be ten-years-old and my grandmother could be digging up potatoes. From the top of the hill my cousins could be hiding in the hay bales and my father could be waiting on the side of the barn to jump out and scare them, sending them running and laughing and screaming. From the top of the hill the neighbor girls could be pulling up in their dad’s pickup, dressed in pastels and rain boots, ready to hunt for eggs. From the top of the hill you don’t notice all of the work that needs to be done on the fences, the roof of the house, the crumbling foundation.

From the top of the hill that light in the kitchen is still glowing the same color it was when I would come in from an evening chasing cattle with my father or catching frogs with my cousins to a house filled with the smell of my grandmother’s cooking.

From the top of the hill the only thing certain to change is the sky…

and everything else is forever.

For you child…

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In this life we’re all made for something
Holding tight and letting go
Some things they are certain
And some things we’ll never know

So I wish you singing
I wish you laughter
I wish you free and running wild

 I wish you nothing but bright blue skies
And warm breezes for you child


When I could break untamable horses and catch fish with a spear…

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When I was younger, a little girl all wrapped up in the magic of this place, my favorite book of all time was “My Side of the Mountain.” I’m sure you’ve read it. It’s about a boy who finds himself living away from home in the wilderness of the mountains inside of a giant hollowed out tree. I can’t remember the exact story now or why he was alone out there, funny how those details escape me no matter how many times I went over the pages and marked my favorite parts. The parts where there were diagrams of how to build a fire with no supplies and something about a windmill and making a spear for fishing.

I still have the book buried somewhere deep in the rubble of the basement. It was one I could not give up to charity or to my younger sister. She just wouldn’t understand. She was a normal girl after all. A normal girl who read about horses and babysitting and a guy named Harry Potter.

Oh, I read about horses too. Horses that needed to be rescued from an island and a kid who became friends with a wolf, and another kid who overcame obstacles and won the Iditarod with a pack of misfit dogs and a whistle. I read about little girls growing up on the prairie during the homesteading days, riding in covered wagons, getting lost in blinding snow storms and making dolls out of corn cobs. I made one of those dolls myself.

I wanted to be these kids.

I wanted to be the free-spirited girl who broke the free-spirited horse. I wanted to live in a time where there was no “Garfield and Friends” on television, where we ate what we planted and went to school in a one room school-house. I wanted to be the girl who beat up the bully and wore pants when dresses were the rule.

I wanted to break the rules. I wanted to tame a wolf puppy, train a wild falcon to hunt, catch fish with a spear I sharpened out of a tree branch and exist in a far away time where those things were necessary for survival.

Screw microwave popcorn and Super Mario brothers, I wanted adventure!

And I wanted to live in the wilderness like the kid I came to love in “My Side of the Mountain.”

I am sure I wasn’t unlike most kids at 9 or 10 or 11 years old. We all wanted to prove our capabilities, stand out from the crowd, be the best at something. At that age most of us were lost in some sort of fantasy, whether it was flying to the moon, getting a puppy or discovering that elves really do live under mushrooms like in that book we just read. We all had a little more confidence than we had experience at the real world

So I’d like to think that it wasn’t that unusual that I, a 10-year-old girl who already lived about as far out in the middle of nowhere as anyone could live, had convinced myself that I could survive out in the wilderness alone. Without a house. Or a toilet. Or my momma’s cheeseburger chowder.

Yes, there was a time that was my plan. And let it be known that as a kid, I was pretty serious about these kinds of things. In the evenings I would step off of the bus from a day at country school, grab a snack, and head out up the creek behind our house. For months I would work on building what I called “secret forts” all along the creek that winds through our ranch. In the oaks and brush that grew along the bank I would identify just the right tree, one that was bent over just so, growing parallel to the ground, a perfect frame for which to create a sort of tent like structure out of fallen logs. And then I would begin the tedious process of locating and moving fallen branches, branches that took every ounce of muscle and try in my spindly little body to budge out of their place under overgrown vegetation and fallen leaves. But when it was dislodged from its space, I would drag it back to my tree and hoist it up to rest next to the last one I had managed to maneuver.

It would take a few days, but eventually I would have my secret fort enclosed with every moveable log and branch within a 100 foot radius. And when it was complete I would look around to make sure my little sister hadn’t followed me here like she did last time, identifying my plan and ruining the secrecy of the secret forts.

And then I would lay down inside of  it. And under the flawed “shelter” of fifty logs leaning on a tree, providing nothing but a faulty wind break for the day dreaming girl laying on her back in the grass and leaves and twigs underneath, I would think about my next move. I would need a door. Yes. That would be necessary. I could make the door the way I imagined Huck Finn made his raft. I would need some rope. Some rope and a knife. I wonder if dad would let me carry a knife? I need some sort of blanket. Maybe there’s something in the barn. Oh, and a fire. Of course!

I would be scouring the creek bottom for granite rocks to arrange in a proper fire circle when the sun sink down below the banks and I would decide I wasn’t quite ready to spend the night. Besides, I forgot to bring a snack and the wild raspberries weren’t quite ripe yet. Taking one last look at my creation and deciding to reevaluate the next afternoon, I would turn my back to it and follow the cow trail back toward the house where my little sister was likely lurking in the shadows, having found out my secret again, begging me to let her help next time. Begging me to let her in the fort as the sun gave off its last light and we argued and grappled until we could smell dad’s steaks on the grill or mom’s soup on the stove.

This was my daily ritual for months and one of my signature childhood memories. Eventually I gave in and helped my little sister build her own fort. A much smaller fort. Across the creek. Out of site.

I thought I wanted to be alone out there, left to my own survival skills, but it turned out that having company was a nice addition, no matter how stubborn and annoyingly curious that company might be. So we built a tin-can telephone that stretched from my fort to hers and brought down old chair cushions from the shed, searched for wild berries, tried to catch frogs and minnows in the pond and spent our evenings planning our next move: spending the night.

But we never did it. We never spent the night. Summer gave way to fall and the leaves fell and covered the floor of our paradise. We would pull on our beanies, mittens and boots and trudge down the freezing creek to clear out the fire ring we weren’t yet brave enough to use. And then the cold set in and the snow came and the neighbor girls called us to go sledding and our dream of being wilderness women collected snow and waited on a warmer season.

I can’t help but think about those girls on days like these. Days when the cold sets in and the house seems smaller. Days when the toilet is doing the thing where it leaks, burnt casserole from the night before sits waiting for a clean-up on my countertop, the television’s blank and broken.

There’s no morning news today.

No one but me and the wind out here. The wind that seems to be calling me this morning to get out of the house. Come out of behind those curtains, from under the shelter of the shingles. Come have an adventure girl. Come dream about hollowed out trees, living on wild berries, building a fire for warmth and living a life like no one lives anymore.

I step outside and follow the trail to the creek bed, trying to remember where I set that first fort. Trying to remember what pulled me out here all of those years ago. Trying to remember the fantasy, the magic as the cold bites at my cheeks and the snow crunches under my feet.

I turn around and I miss my sister.

I turn around and I’m alone. Alone with a woman who used to be a girl I knew, a girl who thought she could tame wolves, fight off the bad guy, break untamable horses and live alone in the wild.

I follow the creek and look for her. I know she’s here somewhere. I hope she hasn’t given up.

I could really use her right now.

Windows and doors and walls and where we will make a new home…

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Step one. Breathe in.

Step two. Breathe out.

In a little over a week the house we are planning to live out the rest of our lives in will be rolling down the highway and turning on the pink road to find its way to the ranch…

When I see that in writing that sounds a little more redneck than magical, but hey, that’s how it’s happening.

Anyway, we’ve been preparing for this, like really preparing for this for a good year. It’s been almost exactly a year since we sold our renovation home in Dickinson and since then we have been researching, talking, planning, making calls, comparing notes and crunching numbers to see if we could make that little dream we had brewing up in our heads to come out right on paper. We had discussions about where to put the thing, what we might need to take down, how big a hole we should dig, how many windows to put in, what color our floors might be, where we need a toilet, where we need a light fixture, where we need an outlet and a door and a piece of carpet.

These are small decisions that all pile up into one big one. A big one that changes what road we drive out of in the morning and come down in the evening for as long as we are able, where we put our Christmas tree, where we sit to watch the sunrise and drink margaritas, the way the couch faces when we snuggle down to watch John Wayne movies in the evening, where we keep the silverware and coffee cups and good dishes…where we might one day tuck our children in at night.

Husband and I have been dreaming about the day we hang the “Home Sweet Home” sign on the door of our forever home since we decided we loved one another enough to talk about a future together. We knew where we wanted to be and a little of what it looked like and then lo and behold the road to get here just happened to be filled with a little less bends and bumps than expected and we are blessed.

And I am nervous.

I don’t know why.

See, this house, my grandmother’s house, has always been a safe haven for me. It is where I came with my cousins to celebrate Christmas and get stuck in the gumbo hills looking for Easter eggs in the spring. It’s where we slept in bunk beds, dreaming big dreams and learning that Santa Clause doesn’t exist.


It’s where I came with my pops to live with my gramma when we moved back to the ranch when I was seven years old. It’s where I ate my grandmother’s kettle popped popcorn on New Year’s Eve while my parents were out. It’s where we sat on the porch and slurped on popsicles from the Schwan’s man as the hot summer sun beat down on the clay hills around us.

It was where my other grandparents moved in when my grandmother died to keep it a home, to love it and fill it with the smell of cooking…to keep the lights on.

It was my first h0me as a married woman, the threshold my new husband carried me over. It’s where we had our first Christmas tree as Mr. and Mrs., cut from the pastures that surrounded us. Where we brought home our new puppy, where we hosted our first Thanksgiving together for family, where I slept as husband fumbled around in the dark of the early mornings getting ready for work, careful not to wake me.

It’s what we saw in our rear view mirror, through tears in my eyes, as we decided on a new adventure…and where we settled a few years later when we discovered our biggest adventure yet would be here, where I learned to make homemade chokecherry jelly and along the way we found ourselves.

Home.

So this evening I am sitting in husband’s big leather chair while he makes some sketches, tallies some numbers, makes some phone calls and puts together a schedule of preparation for the next few days. He needs to build some walls, he needs to call the septic guy, I need to call the bank and the insurance company and we need to unload that giant trailer loaded with 2x8s and windows and screws and house wrap.

We have so much to do to prepare. There isn’t time to think about the memories that we will be leaving in this little house that will sit forever over the hill from us as we cook our meals under a new roof…one that holds more than one bedroom and a closet bigger than a shoebox. But in all the excitement I feel for our new big deck, stair case, hardwood floors and spacious kitchen cabinets, I can’t help but feel a little twinge of loneliness for a life I found bumping into one another in the little bathroom while brushing our teeth, the negotiating skills I acquired compromising closet space, the belly laughs and snorts that came flying out of my lungs while sitting close to family and friends around this kitchen table, the way the house heats up when the oven is turned on or how I can vacuum every carpet in the house without switching outlets.

Yes, it’s a little twinge of loneliness for a good life led cradled in the arms of my grandmother’s house,  a little bit of nerves from a woman who has lived in close quarters with the people she’s loved all her life…and a little uncertainty about what will happen when I can’t lay under the covers of my bed in the bedroom and hold conversation with husband making noodles in the kitchen.

Do you drift apart when you have the option of living out your lives in separate rooms? Will we lose our connection when we no longer bump into each other while cooking casserole together in the kitchen? What will we talk about if it isn’t that we need to downsize on our boot collection or get a better place for our coveralls?

In our new house, will we still brush our teeth together in the same bathroom? Will we choose to stay in the same room and watch the other’s TV program, complaining the entire time, but glad to be close? Will we still trip over our boots? Will everyone gather in the kitchen on the holidays, no matter the option of another room and a basement?

Because I want more space, yes. I need more walls to hang photos of the people we love, more shelves to hold books, more room for my shoes. I’m not worried about filling up our new home with stuff, but what I want more than three bathrooms and a garage for husband’s tools is to be able to fill our new home with as much warmth, comfort, hugs, laughter, family, friends, love and  memories that have always surrounded me in this little house in the buttes next to the red barn.

I hope we can do it.

I hope we do.

 

The waking up

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“I’ll tell you how the sun rose a ribbon at a time.” – Emily Dickinson

It’s early morning here at the ranch and I feel, for some reason, like talking about it.

Because this time of day, the beginning, the space when the sun has not quite risen, where the coffee is brewing, Husband is searching for his socks and the dogs are still sleeping on the floor at the foot of our bed are some of the most underrated, serene and precious moments in my life.

It’s not as if I’ve ever claimed to be a morning person.  Husband can attest to this as he rises around 5:30 am after the snooze button has been hit for the third time only to find I am buried fully and completely under the covers with at least two pillows over my head. He has to dig to find me for a sleepy kiss good-morning which I rarely remember in my waking hours.

I’ve  been known to say a few things to him in that quiet moment after he’s taken the time to dig me out of my blanket cave to tell me it’s time to “wake up, wake up put on your hair and makeup…” things like “noooo, not yet…” and “I’m up, I’m a zzzzz…” or “where did you put the pineapple?” as I reach for those pillows and roll over.

It isn’t pretty, the fight I have with the morning hours (and the other battle I have with my hair once I do finally decide to emerge from my cocoon). Never in my adult life had I figured out a way to change my sleepy-head mentality, and depending on where I have been in the course of my life: my dorm room in college, my first apartment, my duplex at the foot of the mountains or our first house, my relationship with the mornings have always been the same: dread.

But something changed when I moved back to the ranch over a year ago.  I am not sure when it officially happened, but somewhere between the mud-sliding, the cow chasing, the cooking, singing,  cat farming and story telling, my mornings have become my therapy and refuge. After the coffee is brewed, the animals are fed, the bed is made and husband’s socks and pants and shirt and scarf and vest are on and he’s out the door, I find myself in my favorite space as the sun rises slowly over the hill behind the red barn.

And rarely during the week do I miss that sunrise. I wait for it.  I wander around the house cleaning up dishes from the night before, filling my coffee cup and taming my hair,  stopping by each small window to take a peek at how the horizon decided to make an appearance today.

Sometimes it comes dancing in wearing ravishing bright pinks and golds and purples with streaks of fluffy clouds reflecting its light.

Sometimes its quiet against a clear sky turning the crisp grass silver and making the frost on the trees glisten.


And other times it simply provides enough light to silhouette the barn just right, making a subdued but dramatic entrance.

And sometimes it is hidden under a blanket of rain clouds or comes up with the snow that has been falling all night.

But it doesn’t matter, I always look, bending down slightly as I walk past the sink, watching the horses in the pasture below me as I brush my teeth in the bathroom or, in the summer, on the other side of my bedroom window as I roll over and open my eyes. In those moments, when it wakes me and the green grass and the blossoming trees like that, my first site a gorgeous pink sky, I catch myself in a smile I put on without an effort, without even being fully awake, without even thinking about the time or my agenda for the day…without even remembering my name.

And if I sleep in and miss it’s show, I find I am a bit disappointed, no matter how much that extra hour or two was needed.

Yes, I don’t know how it happened, or why, but my mornings have transformed from a time where I used to rush, groggy eyed, to get to the shower and out the door with a cup of coffee and slice of toast in my hand into a time where I can take a moment to actually greet the sun, have my coffee on my favorite chair and take a few more moments to reflect, to write, to relax and be myself before moving on with my day.

These were how my mornings were growing up. As country kids who lived miles and miles from our school we had to wake up early…way before the sun. Pops would knock on our doors and swing them open to say to us gently “it’s time to wake up girls.” And as I would roll over, my little sister across the hall would bounce up, always prepared, always on time, not willing to sacrifice a moment and eager to get to the last bowl of Frosted Flakes.

After a few minutes pops would knock on my door for the second round of wake-up and I would swing my legs groggily over the side of my bed to prove to him that this was it, I was up, the day was happening.  And somewhere between waiting on the bathroom (can you say “three girls?”), pulling on my favorite Levis, fixing my ponytail,  shuffling to the kitchen for my turn at the Frosted Flakes while my mom sat on the other side of the counter chatting quietly and sipping her coffee,  I got used to the idea of a new day as the sun slowly lit up the trails beneath the dark oak trees that surrounded our house.

It was in those mornings at the ranch waking one another gently, getting ready for the day together, waiting our turn for the bathroom that we were our best family. We knew for certain that morning after morning pops would be there to open the door to our bedroom and let the light from the hallway flood in, we knew mom would have our cereal or bagel or waffle out on the counter waiting for us, we knew when the small yellow bus would come bouncing down the road and we knew who would be saving us a seat when we boarded. And when we were older and pops drove us to town, we knew he would make us laugh by making up ridiculous words to Bon Jovi songs on the radio and we knew he would be there to pick us up after school was out or practice was done. We knew he would drive us home to our place in the trees in the evening and we would have a chance to do it all over again when another morning came around.

What we didn’t know was what was going to happen in the between-hours as the sun made her way to the horizon, up over our heads and back down again. We didn’t know what we might learn about the English Language or the history of our country, or what or who might come into our lives unannounced . We didn’t know how our hearts might ache that day or how tears might form as we were sure we failed that test or lost the game because we missed that shot. We didn’t know when an opportunity might arise or that a love might be blossoming day after day in the hallways of our schools.


But we walked through the day with the memory of that morning, the sound of our father’s voice rising us from our dreams, the taste of sugared cereal on our lips, the smell of our mother’s coffee and we knew, that no matter how the day turned on us, the sun would rise and we could start again from a peaceful and safe place.

We will be moving into our new house over the hill in a few months. That house will have large windows facing the east where the sun rises every morning and I look forward to this more than a larger space for my shoes, a kitchen with adequate cupboard space and even an extra bathroom. I picture myself sitting with my morning coffee out on the porch or on my favorite chair taking in the show on a big screen, basking in the pink light and energizing myself for the day.

But the way the sun peeked through the windows of this little house morning after morning, following me around from tiny room to tiny room, waking me up to what is important, reminding me to take a moment, kissing my cheeks and calling me to look, to listen to, fall in love with life again will be a memory I will hold in my pocket like the sound of my little sister’s door swinging open to greet the day…

reminding me that, around here, the waking up has always been worth it.

Halloween in Boomtown

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On a dark and kind of windy night a woman in fleece pants and an old FFA sweatshirt sat alone in her farm house in the middle of nowhere eating leftover noodle casserole, waiting for little munchkins dressed as goblins and witches to pile out of pickups and knock on her door while the news anchors on the TV told her stories she already knew about the bustling, busy, over-stretched and opportunity filled boomtown where she once went to school and now works.

As the sun disappeared over the clay buttes and the stars popped out one by one, she munched on a bite sized Snicker bar for dessert. Her Halloween costume from the weekend’s festivities still lay in a crumpled heap, a massacre of fuzzy pink flamingo in the corner of her tiny house. Two days later and she was still recovering from the celebration of one of her favorite holidays. Turns out pink flamingos can’t handle five beers and two shots in the matter of three hours.

“Sweet Martha”, the girl thought to herself as she unwrapped another piece of candy. “What happened to the good ‘ol days when coming down from a sugar high and planning your costume around the necessity of a snowsuit were your biggest worries on Halloween?”

Here I am, six years old in a clown costume my grandma made for us..

She contemplated this for a while, because she could. Because no little Lady Gagas were knocking on her door and her husband had left her here for a week alone to her own dinner plans…and she was already failing. It was day one and she had resorted to leftovers and candy. Yes, she had time to herself. Time that, in another life, would have been spent planning her Pippi Longstocking outfit with her best friend up the hill who would be putting the finishing touches on her  picnic table costume. They would have been loading up in the pickup with their little sisters in turtlenecks and scarves shoved into witch’s capes and stuffed garbage bags that looked like pumpkins. Twenty years ago she would have been visiting the neighbors who lived within a fifteen mile radius of her little house in the coulee. Twenty years ago she would have been thrilled to curl her tongue into three loops, or throw her body into a cartwheel, or recite a poem about a goblin with the Picnic Table for their neighbor down the highway. “A trick for a treat,” she would say as she clapped her hands together.

Twenty years ago she would have performed. She would have thought this out. They would have expected it, the girl and her Picnic Table friend.  Because the stakes were high out here surrounded by gravel roads, trees windswept and bare, dark, starry skies and howling coyotes. It was Halloween for the love of Butterfinger! Halloween in the country and, well, twenty years ago those girls didn’t mess around.

The neighbor girls...

No, it didn’t matter that there were only five stops, only five houses to visit on Halloween night.  That was of no concern. The girls didn’t know about sidewalks and knocking on doors and running wild through neighborhoods. The ribbon of pink road, the miles of fence posts, the grazing cattle, that was their neighborhood…and it would take them days to walk it (especially in her dad’s oversized boots and with all that silverware stuck to the giant cardboard box her friend was wearing.) So their dads would drive them down the road to farmhouses lit up with lanterns and pumpkins with faces. Houses that smelled like dinner on the stove when they drove in the yard. Houses where their friends lived. The same friends who rode the bus with them for an hour every day to get to school.

Yes, twenty years ago those best friends lived for this holiday–the planning, the creativity, the stories and  piling into the warm ranch pickup with their squishy little sisters, caramel apples, mom dressed as witches, dads dressed as monsters and, well, the treats…

Momma and Pops on Halloween

Ah, the treats. The woman in fleece pants opened a box of Nerds and closed her eyes…

First stop was the neighbors to the south who would have a bowl on their kitchen table filled with pre-packaged goodies for all of the girls: stickers, small games, skittles, candy corn, chocolate shaped as pumpkins and, on your way out grab a scotcharoo why don’t you.

Second stop a half a mile down the road: homemade popcorn balls in orange and green. Glow sticks, apple cider, and a PayDay for the road.

Third stop on the highway: Time to perform. A trick for a treat and a long visit with a retired teacher who loved them and gave them pencils and made them hot Tang and sugar cookies. And they loved her too…and knew better than to say anything about the prunes she placed in the middle of those sugar cookies.

Back to the gravel to finish off the night with caramel apples and a handful or two from the bowls at the doors and then on to the Picnic Table’s house to dump out pillowcases full of treats and trade and sort and count.

A sad clown with a broken leg. Yes, I was accident prone even as a fifth grader...

The woman tilted her head back to finish off the Nerds and then got up off of the chair to take a peek outside.

“There will be no puffy gremlin visitors tonight,” she said quietly to herself.

Because times were different. Twenty years ago this landscape she lived on was dotted with young families working to make a living out on family farms thirty miles from town. Twenty years ago the country school was still open and playing host to Halloween parties with green punch, piñatas and those to-die-for popcorn balls.

Twenty years ago the woman in fleece pants wanted to be Pippi Longstocking…

But somewhere in those years, between eight years old and twenty-eight, people got older and moved to town and no more babies were brought home to those farmsteads that smelled like dinner when you drove into the yard. Moms who once dressed as witches became grammas to babies in other states and the hair on the young dad’s head grew gray or fell out.

And there was a time in there, it occurred to her, that perhaps her dad thought all was lost. When the last of his daughters packed her pumpkin costume away in the toy chest in her old room only to pull out of the driveway to get on with growing up, that he may have believed that he and those five neighbors may be the last to make it out on this landscape where the coyotes howl and the moon is bright.

There was a time like that for him, when there were no picnic tables or Pippis to drive around and the knocks on the doors on Halloween went from ten to five to none…

But she was back. Here she was. And so was her picnic table friend. And their other friends who once walked the sidewalks in town as kids were now holding the hands of their own children on Halloween. Here they all were, back home because it seemed, the times were changing.

The woman saw it first hand after a day of work in town, she understood that the nostalgia came from the stop she made  in the local department store on her way home to help her momma hand out candy to kids trick-or-treating in town. She needed to get a taste of the magic she was missing as a childless adult on this holiday, so she stood by the door unsure of what to expect from the children in her once sleepy hometown that had come to life in the midst of an oil boom.

And what she saw was bowl after bowl of candy diminishing before her eyes as a stream of princesses and Spider Men and bumblebees and pirates paraded through the doors, smiled and opened their treat bags hour after hour. She had never seen so many adorable, sparkly, smiling children out and about at one time. Her friend’s children were dressed as army men and Buzz Lightyear, her nephew as a lion, children she worked with in 4-H were witches, children of families she had never met before wandered in all dressed up and excited…all adorable, all doing what children should be doing on Halloween, all here, in Western North Dakota, on Main Street Watford City laying roots for their futures, making memories here in the woman’s hometown.

So, on a dark and sort of windy night a woman in fleece pants and an old FFA sweatshirt sat in her house reminiscing about a childhood full of Halloweens on a landscape that was dotted with friends and neighbors and black cows. She remembered this. And then remembered  a time when she wanted nothing more to be back in that place…and a time when she thought it might never be possible.

So although that woman knew that she wouldn’t hear a knock on the door of her little farmhouse from a witch or a gremlin or a picnic table tonight, she smiled as she popped another Snickers into her mouth knowing that out there her community was changing. New goblins and firemen and zombies were walking the streets of her hometown, finding themselves bonding over skittles and costume ideas. And for one night those children in sequins and cardboard boxes and masks spoke louder than all of the truck traffic, worries, gossip and news stories that move and swell along a Main Street that is changing every day in a town that is pushed to its limits.

Yes, there, on Halloween, on the scariest night of the year, were the children– building strength, camaraderie and hope.

Hope that there is an opportunity for people to make it again, to really build something, to make it possible again for children to grow up in the hills among the hay bales, to eat a neighbor’s popcorn ball, to sit and sip hot cider, to perform a trick for a treat..

To live a good life.

To have a Happy Halloween.

Whether on sidewalks or better yet, country roads.

To always ride horses…

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Last weekend Little Sister came home for the hustle and bustle and celebration of Little Man.

Have I mentioned that I love it when Little Sister comes home? Well if I haven’t said it sixty-thousand times already, I am saying it again and singing it softly to myself in a little tune I made up while I work on building her a quaint house in the oak trees next to mine, complete with a tin-can phone stretched across the yard and a couple of reclaimed lawn chairs from mom and dad’s junk pile.

It’s going to be just like old times.

Because here’s the thing. Everyone has people in their lives that they would like to keep wrapped up in a pretty little box in their pockets so they can carry them along and take them out whenever they need a good laugh, a smile, someone who really understands where you’re coming from, and who will, well you know, tell it to you straight.

My Little Sister is one of those people for me. I wanna wear her as a locket and show her off to friends. I want her confidence and quick wit at my fingertips. I want someone to drink margarita’s with and who will consume bowls and bowls of tortilla chips and cheese dip with me in the middle of the day in sweatpants without judgement…whenever I feel like it.

I know this is weird. I tested the theory out on Husband and he said I was a dork. Especially after I told him I wanted to wear him as a scarf around my neck so I would always have him there to protect me and provide for me better judgment wherever I go.

Well, it sounded good in my head, so I’m sharing it here. I imagine a few of you will be able to relate to my desire to be able to morph my favorite people into accessories and then un-morph (?) them back into people again whenever I feel the need…

Anyone?

Well, anyway, since I have yet to find that Genie to grant me my three wishes, I will just have to take what I can get of Little Sister when she comes around. And one of my favorite things to do when she shows up is to grab her and Pops and Husband and the horses and take a long ride out in the buttes. Because really, there’s nothing better than the smell of horses, crisp air, quiet trails, two of my favorite cowboys chatting about plans and my favorite high strung best friend on a high strung horse snorting and laughing and prancing along the prairie beside me.


So that’s what we did last Saturday as our chatter around morning pancake breakfast brought us too quickly into the afternoon  It was a little chilly out there when we stepped out into the farmyard and Little Sister was dressed just a bit too fashionably for this type of activity, so I promptly dug out my dorkiest hat, gloves and fur-lined vest and we were on our way under the big gray sky that hadn’t made up its mind whether it wanted to rain on us or shine. 

When taking a ride is my idea my posse generally agrees that we will have no particular agenda but to enjoy ourselves out here, to explore and tell some stories, check things out or just be quiet. And so that’s what we did. We strolled through golden grasses, and crunched through fallen leaves in the coulees, the two black cowboy hats in the lead and the frizzy haired women trailing behind.

We stopped on hill tops to catch up, to take a look around at how some of the leaves are desperate to hang on the oak trees, to check out the fences, to listen to one of Little Sister’s stories about school or one of my long stories that usually ends with me embarrassing the shit out of myself.

And as the words between sisters bounced off the hill tops and blew away with the wind and the guys talked hunting and horses, Little Sister’s horse, as he generally does, began to warm up enough to show his personality and the wild whites of his eyes. Here I will tell you that unless that horse and I are chasing after something that is running away from us, I prefer to avoid the Red Fury and stick to the Paint Mare, but Little Sister barely notices the animal beneath her snorting and prancing and all around making sure the other animals know that he needs to be in the lead.

So in the lead she went. That’s the funny thing about horses, while you are on their backs living your own little life, having your own conversations, thinking your own thoughts, they are underneath you, carrying you along on strong and quick feet and, if they are allowed, they are doing the same damn thing. And it was quite apparent that the Red Fury had only one thing on his mind that day and that was to be ahead of the mare I was riding.

It was driving him nuts.

And it was hilarious. Each time Little Sister’s horse would find himself a step behind he would snort and lift his head a bit higher and work on his rider to allow him at least one more step ahead. And so naturally I was tempted to see what would happen if I took off up the hill to catch a snapshot of my favorite people riding toward me. So I did. I rode up the hill ahead of the gang and turned around at the top to find Little Sister and the Red Fury flying up the hill behind me.

Apparently the Red Fury wasn’t about to allow this, and Little Sister didn’t care. She was along for the ride. The ride which I tried to document up until the part where the space between her ass and the saddle measured about a mile and I was almost certain she was going to be launched.

I think I yelled something like “Hang On!”…which is always so helpful in times like these…

but Little Sister just squealed and laughed and said she was a bit rusty after sitting in classrooms.

Which brings me to the point of my story, I do have one (besides embarrassing my sister.) I remember growing up here and taking these rides in the fall air, smelling the same smells, and feeling the same blessed. I remember making a promise to myself not to grow out of this. Not to ever say no to a ride with my father, to a chance to really live out here on these trails. I remember knowing, even at 10 or 12 years old, that I was lucky to have this experience under my belt, even when I had just hit the hard clay ground so hard I couldn’t feel my left arm after being bucked off of my gray mare yet again.

I remember telling myself that until I was old and gray I will always ride horses. No matter the agenda, no matter the responsibilities, no matter the fear of falling. I will always ride.

So seeing my Little Sister fly up that hill on a horse that has just as much attitude and free spirit as the woman on his back, I was reminded of that little girl with wild curls on a white pony named Jerry trailing behind me, singing songs to herself, telling me to wait up, getting her beanie hooked on a branch while riding through a trail in the trees, smelling those same smells, feeling the same breeze and promising herself the same things.

An hour before in the house over pancakes that memory was another life. It was other people in another time with different agendas and thoughts and outfits. But in that moment when Little Sister reached the top of that hill having recovered her balance and her breath, out of my mouth came laughter that was so familiar to me, and out of hers came the same. We were those children again, tucked snug in our puffy coats, cheeks rosy, chattering and riding with Pops in our own little world, promising one another, if such a promise can be made, not to grow up. Promising to stay out here just a few moments longer, to run just a little bit faster.

To stay together.

To remember we are blessed.

And so we rode. We rode with our father, with our other best friend, side by side or tail to nose, or spread out wide over the flat, under a sky that had decided to shine its sun on us after all.

So if I can’t have a locket at my fingertips to hold these moments with my sister, or a scarf around my neck that is Husband’s strong arms keeping me safe from the world’s worries,

or my Pops on a horse forever riding beside me telling me I’m doing fine…

…at least I will always have that promise. The promise to make more moments like these.

and to always ride horses.

A horse with no name (Prize alert!)

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Good morning. I need your help.

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

No. I can’t talk about that.

This shit is urgent.

My horse needs a name.

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

The mare.

The paint mare.

Girly girl.

Miss Piggy.

Mohawk.

Jessie’s horse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think he’s been this way since birth.

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

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

That’s the first scenario.

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

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

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

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

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

And his buddy did.

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

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

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

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

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

I will not ride another.

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

I can relate.

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

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


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

Girlfriend needs a name.

And I need your help.

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


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

Thank you.

Love you.

We’ll be out riding if you need us.

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

Christmas is coming. 

And that’s my shameless plug. 

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

Sweetclover in my skin

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I wish I could bottle this up and send it to you.

I wish I could pick the right words to describe the sweet, fresh scent that fills the air tonight and gives me comfort when I breathe it deep in my lungs while standing still or moving across the landscape, stepping high, eyes on the horizon. Or maybe my  hands are on the wheel and the windows are open in the car as I reach out my arm. Or I may be laying down, ready to drift to sleep while the breeze kisses my skin laying silent in the night air.

I imagine everyone has something like this that hits their nostrils and brings them back to a time in childhood when they felt so deeply loved, so overwhelmingly safe, so much themselves, so free. Maybe it’s your grandmother’s warm cookies from the oven. Maybe it’s the smell of a diesel tractor plugging across a field. Maybe it’s your parent’s home or your fur on the back of your old cat or the salty air blowing across the ocean and onto vast beaches.

For me it is sweetclover.


It’s not something that graces us with its presence every year, but when the ground is saturated enough and the sun is warm it seems to pop up overnight like an old friend knocking on your door unannounced–and you just happen to have the coffee on and bread warming in the oven.

And so I think I have sweetclover in my skin. My first best memories are laying among it, rolling down the highest hill on the ranch as the sun found its way to the horizon and my cousins, tan and sweaty, hair wild, would fling their bodies after me. We would find ourselves at the bottom in a pile of laughter and yellow petals would float and move around us and then stick to our damp skin.

For us the clover was a blanket, a canopy of childhood, a comfort. It was our bouquet when we performed wedding ceremonies on the pink road wearing our grandmother’s old dresses, an ingredient in our mud pies and stews, our crown when we felt like playing kings and queens of the buttes, feed for our horses, our lawn, a place to hide from the seeker, to rest after a race,  to fall without fear of skinned knees, a promise of summer.

A wave of color to welcome us home together.

And so it has appeared again, just like it did last July, only bigger, more bountiful, taller–up to my armpits even the sweetclover grew! It’s there all season, the seeds tucked neatly under the dirt, and still I am surprised when I open the windows of the pickup after a late night drive and the fragrance of the lush yellow plant finds its way to me.

The night is dark but I know it’s there…

And I am taken back…

I am seven years old again and my grandmother has our bunk beds made up in the basement and my cousins will be coming down the pink road soon. And when they get here we will climb Pots and Pans and we will put on a wedding and look for new kittens in the barn. We will play “The Wizard of Oz” and I will be the Tin Man. We’ll catch frogs in the creek and take a ride on the old sorrel. We will play tag on the hay bales in front of the barn.

We will hide from each other in the clover that scratches and brushes against our bare legs.

Oh, I wish I could bottle it up for the cold winter days that showed no sign of release.

I wish I could build my house out of it, weave it inside my walls, plant it in my floor and lay down in it at night.

I wish I could wrap my family–my father and mother, my sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles, my grandmother and grandfather and all of the souls who have touched and breathed and lived where the clover grows–I wish I could wrap them in its soft petals and sweet stems and watch as they remember now.

And tell them not to leave. Not to grow older.

I wish I would have sat still long enough to smell it on my skin when I was looking to find the real me.

I wish I would have always known I had it there. 

But mostly I am just glad that it came to visit me this year…

so I could remember.