A very merry first day back to work after Christmas to you all. I hope you all had a lovely time working on polishing off those sugar cookies and have packed a turkey sandwich, a leftover noodle salad, a piece of prime rib, some chocolate kisses, peanut brittle and maybe a holiday orange or two to get you through a full day away from the kitchen.
We celebrated in Veeder style out here at the ranch beginning with mimosa and husband’s famous caramel rolls in the morning and ending with our first attempt at homemade pie for dessert.
Yup, I (helped) make this
And so I would like to present to you some of the highlights of our big day in my 2nd Annual Very Veeder Christmas Re-cap. It must be done. Because, as always, it was a holiday to remember at the ranch, filled to the brim with traditions that have warmed our souls and lifted our spirits year after year…
I know it's hard to believe he's edible considering how absolutely life-like he is, but it's true. And he was delicious.
The “quick, take a picture of the cat under the tree with the presents isn’t that so cuuutteee oh my gaawwdddd” photo:
The beautiful tree:
The forced, awkward holiday photo shoot, under the direction of yours truly…which never works when she who is to be directed is my annoying, shutter happy little sister:
Let's do this people...
I hope that wasn’t as painful for you as it was for me.
Let’s cleanse our pallets now with an explosion of cute…
And one of our newest and most favorite traditions yet: watching Little Man take in the holiday while Pops follows him around helping him open presents, pry into the fourteen layers of plastic packaging then disappear in a full out investigative search in the garage for the appropriate sized batteries, assemble the toys and proceed with his instructional session with the one-year-old on how to scootch a toy truck along the floor while making “vrroommminnng” noises as the rest of the family watches in anticipation of Little Man following suit…
It must be a grandpa thing.
Awww. Christmas just isn’t Christmas without adorable little children playing at your feet and… well…the annual presentation of the pug in his Santa suit…
Load him up Cowboy
Don't look at me like that...this is your Christmas duty...
Ta Da!
Nothing spreads holiday cheer like the glare of hatred coming from the one-eyed pug who refuses to move on account of the outfit.
I’m not positive, but I think might be the only one in our family who finds this type of pet humiliation utterly hilarious….
bwahahahahaaa…(tap, tap, is this thing on?)
Yes, it was a holiday to remember at our house filled with love and laughter, snuggles and eating, just the right amount of humiliation and maybe one Christmas cookie dough fight. But in all of the familiarity of the season, there are some traditions that just couldn’t be fulfilled, and this year it was snow.
Ah well, I don’t hear anyone complaining really, considering last year at this time we were trudging our way through snow drifts up over our heads to get down the road to Mom’s and Pop’s for Christmas morning.
But the lack of snow isn’t the only thing that’s changed around here since we celebrated Christmas 2010…
What a difference a year makes!
Cheers to a wonderful new one ahead, filled with beautiful memories and at least one less than embarrassing photo to match.
The Merriest Christmas to all of you. I hope you’re reading this and looking forward to a weekend filled with friends and family and laughter and delicious food. To honor your friendship and support I am giving you a gift that has been enjoyed by many families around the countryside here Christmas after Christmas, courtesy of my Momma. You remember her? My Momma, the woman who has Santa Clause’s cell phone number on speed dial and continues to make Christmas the most magical time of the year. Every year.
There she is, buried under presents and squished between a couple other holly, jolly family members...
And one of the ways she does this is by whipping up this recipe and distributing it in fancy little green and red containers adorned with bows to every person who has touched her family’s life or made her laugh or brought her a bottle of wine at the perfect moment a bottle of wine was necessary throughout the year.
Men drool over this. Women hide it in places their families won’t find it. Kids sneak pieces of this heartfelt delicacy while their parent’s have their backs turned. It’s a little bit of heaven in your mouth.
It’s my momma’s fudge..and I’m going to give you the recipe. A recipe that is sure to put you on the top of the “Nice” list year after year.
Make this and even the family members who’ve disowned you will be knocking at your door, apologizing for their wrong doing with a bottle of champaign begging you to forgive them…and please, can I have a piece of that fudge.
It’s that easy.
Really.
I can even make it…all by myself!
Here’s what you need:
1 12 oz package semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 12 oz package milk chocolate chips
3 teaspoons vanilla
4 1/2 cups of sugar
1 pound of butter (No worries, I’ll post my Momma’s instructional aerobic video after Christmas)
1 can evaporated milk
Got it?
Ok, onward.
Butter an 8×12 baking dish
Bring sugar and evaporated milk to a boil, stirring constantly. Continue to stir and boil for 7 minutes.
Remove pot from heat and stir chocolate chips, vanilla and butter.
Stir until smooth and pour into the buttered baking dish
Refrigerate until set
Ask your hubby or the woman in your life with incredible strength to help you cut the fudge into squares
Serve up on a cute platter and stand back and smile as you experience that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with spreading holiday cheer.
If you’re looking for me and this fudge, we are more than likely shamefully hiding out somewhere.
Merry Christmas friends. Much love from our house to yours!
Well, it looks a little like a Charlie Brown Christmas around here, but husband and I did it. We got a tree…or something that looks like it might have come off of a tree somewhere.
Not the Rockefeller Center Tree, but at least we'll save on our electrical bill...
And it finally smells a little less like the small brown stinky present the pug left on my carpet last night and a little more like the holidays in this house.
Yes, the pug continues to hold a spot at the top of the naughty list, but we’ve gone ahead and decked the halls anyway…
Don’t worry, he’s been adequately punished…
hey, at least I sent him out in the cold with the proper gear...
And that’s all I was asking for. A little holiday cheer, a pug in a santa hat, and a tree, any tree, to put all of those presents under.
Yes, when husband came home before dark for the first time in weeks last night we decided to head out before the sun sunk down below the horizon. Despite the beautiful weather we have been experiencing this December, husband and I haven’t been out and about on the place together for a while. So we loaded up the lab and the pug in his humiliation hat and headed out to check on things.
Down the pink road and into the quickly setting sun we drove, dressed in jeans and boots and nothing but a hat, coat and gloves. As we took a turn onto a prairie trail we both marveled at the weather we’ve been having. We couldn’t believe we don’t have to wear seventeen layers beginning with underwear and ending with a wool cap over the top of a wool cap. Last year at this time we were on a snowmobile zooming over the top of ten foot snow drifts in our search for an oversized Christmas tree that would spend the rest of the month in the house poking the back of my neck as I sat at my computer desk.
Yes, last year we had a bit more ambition, a little more time, the pug had two eyeballs and we had a very white Christmas.
Last Christmas
This year? Well, Cliff the weatherman says it’s supposed to be 40 degrees.
Do you know what I am going to do on Christmas if it is 40 degrees?
Go find my horses and ride off into the tropical North Dakota December sunset, because riding horses on a warm, snow-less December day on the northern plains might be a once in a lifetime experience.
I think the horses were feeling the same thing as they came to greet us on our hunt for holiday cheer. Our pickup rolled slowly across the grassy pasture and the paints and the sorrels and the buckskin and bay, fat and happy and furry came trotting down from the horizon to sniff our pockets for treats.
I buried my nose in their fluffy coats to smell the little pieces of summer they hold in their skin. I scratched their noses and took some photos as they posed for me, black silhouettes against a darkening sky. And standing out there on the open prairie with the winter chill on my skin as those horses breathed and snorted and leaned into our hands on the cusp of Christmas, just like a shot from a gun I was flooded with a memory that set me right with the season…right in the place I needed to be…
…to Christmas morning when Pops gets up before the sun. Hours before our bare feet hit the floor to find our warm slippers, he is pulling on his wool cap, his overshoes and coveralls in preparation for the chill of the morning winter air.
If we get up early enough we might catch the tail lights of his ranch pickup as he heads out over the hill, the empty grain buckets he is intending to fill rolling around in the box as he bounces along the gravel road.
And as we walk past the sparkling tree with presents piled high, our stockings filled for the brim waiting for us, as we put our caramel rolls in the oven, brew our coffee and pull our robe tight around us to go wake the children, our little sisters or our husbands, Pops has just parked his pickup next to the grain bin and pulled out those buckets from the back. He is un-latching the creaky door to shovel the sweet smelling feed into the containers, piling it high to the top as the dust from the previous season pools in the crisp air around him.
Carefully he is loading the buckets, two at a time into the back of the pickup… and then he grabs one more and fills that one too before pulling down his cap against the cold and reaching for his handkerchief to wipe his chilly nose.
As we are pulling on our sweaters and sipping our first cup of coffee, pops is heading toward where he last saw the horses, out in the field above his house or down in the coulee between the two places.
And while we’re turning on the holiday music and buttering our caramel roll, Pops is taking a moment to scratch his buckskin between the ears, pull a few burs from the bay’s mane and give them that extra bucket of grain before heading out to check the water and then on into the yard as the sun rises slowly over the house.
When I was younger he would take me with him if I was up in time. And in those quiet moments on Christmas morning when the frost was sparkling on the trees, or the snow drifts were lurking in the shadows of the rising light. in the moments my toes might have been a little chilly and my nose a little runny I don’t remember thinking that we needed to hurry to get back. I don’t remember feeling anxious about opening my presents or checking out my stocking to see what Santa might have brought us. I don’t remember thinking about hot cocoa or Christmas cookies or the new sled I hoped I would be getting…I knew we would get there in time
The only thing I remember on those Christmas mornings when I sat next to Pops on the bench seat of the feed pickup is the lesson he may have mentioned out loud…or maybe not…
No matter the day, no matter the season or the weather, the blizzard or the warmth, no matter how many presents are waiting for you under the tree, our first responsibility is to care for the things that depend on us…
And on Christmas we always throw them a little extra.
If only some of those things that depend on us didn’t poop on our floors…
Christmas is right around the corner. Like, right there. I can see its sparkly ribbons and the ball on its Santa hat from here and I am finding myself a little anxious about the whole thing. I’m saying things like, I’m not ready! I have to bake something! I have to wrap the presents and find a Christmas tree and put up lights! It has to snoooowwwww! It hasn’t even really snowed yet!!!
I’ve been so wrapped up in other things this December, like planning the arrival and set-up of our new house, that Christmas and I haven’t been able to spend time together.
So this week I have “Christmas” on my agenda. I’m not going to lie, I don’t like having to pencil it in. I much prefer when the season infiltrates into my life naturally. I like when the ground has just the right amount of sparkly snow and husband and I are able to go out and cut the tree together. I like when I have a weekend to put up the lights and replace my usual brown candles and wooden frames with red and green decorations and boughs of cedar.
I love it when the house smells like cedar. It’s one of my favorite things about Christmas at the ranch.
Last night when husband and I got in late from dinner at my big sister’s new house I walked through our entryway full of tools and living room piled to the ceiling with unwrapped presents and realized that, with Christmas just a few days away and husband working so hard on the new house, it isn’t likely we will have a tree this year. And it’s the last Christmas we’ll spend in this little house.
It made me a little sad as I crawled into bed, thinking about our first Christmas spent as a married couple in this house. I pulled the covers up and closed my eyes to remember the first tree we cut together from the place. Our first tree as husband and wife….
We’d been married about four months and there was snow on the ground. We headed out the door in early December to drive the trail to the east pasture, the pasture on the edge of the badlands that grows the most Christmas type trees on the place, our new puppy riding in the back of the pickup. We bumped and bounced along the rough and frozen path until we got to the top of the hill looking over one of our favorite spots. Deciding he had pushed his luck and the limits of his 4-wheel drive, we got out of the pickup to scope out the hills on foot, our little brown lab trailing in our footprints behind us.
It is one of my favorite memories, watching my new husband dressed in his wool cap and neckerchief, jeans and big boots, milling over the size and proportion of a cedar tree that we had spotted on the top of a hill together. I remember it being just before dark as the sun made its way down over the buttes as our new puppy and I watched eagerly as husband carefully sawed off the top of our chosen tree and drug it up the hill to the pickup.
We followed in his snowy footprints and walked together talking and laughing at how our puppy was jumping through the drifts, watching our breath puff in and out with our words. We reached our pickup as the sun was setting, loaded our puppy and the tree in the back and I plopped my snow-suited body down next to husband in the cab. He started the engine, put the vehicle in reverse, stepped on the gas and, well…we didn’t move..
Husband put in drive, stepped on the gas…and…ummm…we were not going that way either.
Reverse.
Drive.
Reverse.
Drive.
Stuck.
Husband got the shovel and I stepped out and sunk knee deep into the snow bank we decided to park in. I trudged around to the back of the pickup to check on the puppy who, in all of that back and forth, had lost his cookies all over in the box of the pickup…and if memory serves me right, it seemed he had indulged in a lot of cookies.
So there we were, my new husband and I, out on the prairie in the middle of winter at sunset, a good five hilly miles away from our little house with a Christmas tree and a sick puppy in the back of the pickup…two supplies we found are pretty worthless in times like these.
But you know, I don’t remember feeling panicked or frustrated or upset in any way. I do remember being grossed out by the dog puke, but not enough to not laugh about it. I knew somewhere in that youthful and hopeful heart of mine that I married a man who was perfectly capable of getting us out of a jam like this and on down through the hills to help me drag that tree into the house and make it a Christmas to remember.
So I got behind the wheel as husband shoveled and instructed me on the technique of successfully rocking a pickup out of a snowbank that had us high-centered. He shoveled the snow, wet and sticky from the warmth of the now disappearing sun and I leaned my head out the window to hear his instructions to drive forward, then backward, then forward again.
And then, as the stars started showing their shiny faces one by one over the snowy hills, husband scootched me out of the driver’s seat to get behind the wheel, I grabbed the puppy and with one mighty rev my man drove us and our giant Christmas tree out of the snow bank and to the front door of our home in the barnyard.
I remember us laughing the entire way home with relief, thanking those stars above that we weren’t walking.
Thankful that we were there together in our own adventure…
Thankful for a Christmas together.
I fell asleep last night with this memory floating in the air above my bed, playing itself out for me. I woke up this morning while my husband of nearly five Christmases still lay sleeping beside me.
I wrapped my arms around him and lay there in that memory for another moment. And in the quiet of the farmhouse, in the still of the early morning before the sun appeared, I listened to my husband breathe.
I listened to him breathe, kissed his shoulder and rolled out of bed to find the list of things I have to do to prepare for Christmas this weekend.
And at the top, in front of wrapping presents, making fudge, cleaning the house, and writing cards I wrote in big, bold letters…
You know that saying, “When it rains it pours?” Or how about the other one, “Bad things happen in threes?” I’ve used these before to describe overwhelming events in people’s lives and in my own. I have said these phrases out loud to declare war on an unpredictable life, to show my exasperation at a world that sometimes just keeps piling on the crap…and then held my breath and watched my back for the next small catastrophe, because that’s life sometimes, you know?
But as I mill around my little home this morning, shuffling through the kitchen in my furry boots and pajama pants, listening to the pug snore and my husband’s breath move in an out as he lay, still sleeping, in the bedroom just a few steps away, in the calm of the morning of what is probably going to go down in my book as one of the bigger, most exciting days of our lives, the day our house gets set on its foundation, I am finding myself overwhelmed…but in the best way possible.
Part of our new house waits to be put on the foundation...
And do you know what’s even better? Just thirty miles away in my hometown, I imagine my big sister is having the same sort of feelings (or at least she will be when she wakes up this morning). Because today she and her husband and Little Man are going to be meeting their brand new home too…and moving in!
And just a little further east, oh, about 370 miles, my little sister is having her own moment as she prepares to welcome friends and family to her neck of the woods to celebrate four and a half years of hard work and studying and how it has paid off. Yup, she’s graduating from COLLEGE tomorrow! And I can’t wait to give her a big hug of congratulations and toast her efforts.
We have much to toast about.
But oh, it’s been a crazy week here of preparing and running and signing paperwork and getting everything in order and calling in the neighbors and family and friends to help us hammer and nail and prepare the foundation in the middle of a frozen winter and on into the night.
Husband has been dangling off of ladders busting out his “on a mission” face.
And down the road my big sister has been packing up all of Little Man’s toys and cups and putting her shoe collection in boxes, eager to finally have a larger countertop and a few more cupboards and floor space for Little Man to crawl around on.
In Fargo, Little Sister has been planning the rest of her life while planning her party and eagerly calling the ranch to check in on her mother who, in the middle of all of this, is armpit-deep in her first Christmas rush as a new retail store owner, and she’s doing great.
And Pops? Well, as a married father of three girls he’s had some practice with matters like these. When the women in his life are reaching as far as they can reach, he makes sure he’s there too, to help give them a boost and let them step on his knee if they need to.
Yes, in the days leading up to a holiday that will find my big sister settled into her new home, my little sister a career woman, my mother with a glass of wine to toast the end of the rush and my pops leaned back in his easy chair, outside a quiet frost has been hanging over the ranch for days. It has been coating the fences and buildings and oak trees in a white sparkle, as if it is setting the stage, painting the landscape for a perfect photograph of a Christmas gift delivered to us today…
And in all of the hustle and bustle it is all I can do to not stop and lay down in its sparkle, to shake the branches and watch the frost fly, to take a quiet walk through the hills to really appreciate this mid-December weather that has held on for us to get the last-minute details done.
So as the sun is making its way up the horizon line, husband is awake now and working his way out the door, bundling up and loading tools in his pickup for a trip over the hill. Little Man is probably waking Big Sister with a giggle, Little Sister is brewing the coffee and Momma and Pops are loading up the car to go see her and celebrate. I will be on the road soon to do the same.
But right now today is the day.
Today is the day.
Because yes, life has a way of piling it on indeed, but sometimes it does so in a the best way possible.
And what do we say when that happens? Where are the words written for when dreams are coming true? Where is the phrase we use to declare our overwhelming excitement and happiness?
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.
Hello, hello…happy Sunday everyone. I come to you from under my favorite blanket on my favorite recliner in my favorite sweatpants and fleece shirt while the snow blows and drifts outside the windows of this little house. The heat is on, the music is playing, the laundry is rolling in the dryer downstairs. All should be well shouldn’t it? I mean, this is the best place to be on a cold and dreary December day.
.Except one thing.
I just realized it is December.
Like December 9th or something right?
Sweet mercy, it’s almost Christmas!!!!
I’m in crisis.
I have been so consumed with photo taking, eating, working, writing, snuggling, and planning for the arrival of our new house (yeah, that’s happening in like a week or so, but we’ll talk more about that later) that I have completely neglected the whole process of making it look a lot like Christmas around here.
I have no tree. I have no baked goods. I have no lights or tinsel or twelve-foot inflatable Santa riding a motorcycle on my front porch. My gift ideas are still ideas (the inflatable Santa and is one of them…but don’t tell my momma) and I haven’t even dug out Chug’s santa suit yet! I know he’s pretty damn disappointed.
I am very upset with myself. I am. But wasn’t it just yesterday that I was jumping in the lake in my swimming suit? Now I am digging in our chest full of winter gear to find my favorite mittens and scarf. Wow, time flies when you’re working, crafting, photographing, riding horses, chasing cattle, drinking margaritas with friends, swimming in big lakes, walking around aimlessly in the hills, yelling at the pug to get off the couch and planning the house you are going to live in for the rest of your life.
Anyway, today I woke up with every intention of making a dent in this holiday season. And the first item on the list was this:
1) Make and order our Christmas Cards
Pretty simple. Pretty straightforward.
That should be checked off in a good 20 minutes…
All I need to do is find a relatively decent photograph of husband and I. No problem. We’re together all the time. I have a camera I take with me wherever I go. I am sure during the course of the 360 days since we ordered our last Christmas card someone has taken a semi-decent photograph of the two of us in a khaki pants and holiday sweaters by a crackling fire with perfectly placed stockings with our names on them behind us as we smile with the warmth and love of the season.
I am sure someone has captured us clinking wine glasses together in a nearby vineyard as we gaze lovingly and knowingly into each other’s eyes.
Or maybe they caught us on top of a mountain in our Eddie Bauer ski clothes, with cheeks perfectly flushed from the crisp mountain air, arms around one another as we took a moment to sip a hot chocolate and pose as the clouds rolled by in the bright blue sky before we “swished, swished, swished” down the face of the powdery mountain.
I think I have that photo around here somewhere….
Or what about the one where we were caught together in a delightful fall day, raking leaves in our matching fleece shirts and mittens, finding it so refreshing and romantic to be outdoors together that we just couldn’t contain our joy so we began playfully throwing leaves at one another. I could use that one with a card that says something like: “Joy to the world, the yard work’s done…”
Hmmm…
Or what about the one with us in that hot-air balloon sailing over the Grand Canyon? Didn’t we do that this year? Didn’t someone document it?
Or on the beach with our perfectly sculpted abs from all of that P90X we’ve been doing. Yeah, I think I was wearing a bikini with one of those sarong things and my hair was blowing in the sea air while husband scooped me up in his arms as the waves crashed against our legs. I KNOW someone captured that moment. That would be a perfect Christmas card photo…
Funny, I can’t find that one anywhere…
And now it has been a good two hours and all I have is more snow, less coffee and thirty-seven thousands photos scrounged up of the two of us either double-fisting drinks at a concert, holding an awkward pose with forced smiles in a scenic place or captured moments of annoyance…
But I have lots of photos of hubby. Gorgeous photos of him riding through the prairies so stoically handsome or standing on a horizon somewhere looking masculine…
Maybe I could just scrounge up a semi decent photo of myself and, well, you know, smoosh them together. People do that don’t they?
Yeah, this ain’t gonna happen is it?
Seriously, if anyone was on that hot air balloon ride with us, can you please send me the photos?!!
Maybe I’ll just call it good with this one this year. I mean, it has holiday cheer written all over it.
Happy Holiday preparation everyone. I’ll be in the bathroom practicing my classy, warm, inviting, Eddie Bauer model smile if you need me…
I hope the holiday weekend was good to everyone. I hope the sun rose bright and warm and flooded your kitchen with streams of light while you or your momma or your gramma or pops or sister or mother-in-law basted the turkey and rolled up their sleeves, saying something like “whew, it’s warm in here isn’t it?” as you cracked the window open, letting the crisp fall air billow in from outside.
I hope you helped make something wonderful to eat, like a cheesecake or pie or a cookie salad (yes, such thing exists). I hope you played games, took a walk, laughed really hard, maybe even danced a little before dessert.
I hope there was ping-pong or a game of spoons or maybe even a friendly round of poker on your list of things to do.
I hope there was a cheeseball. I really do.
Because these are traditions aren’t they? The ping-pong? The kitchen hot flashes? The cheeseball? Every family has them, the things that are constant in an ever-changing and unpredictable life. It’s my favorite thing about the holidays, to know that I will be in a kitchen somewhere with my mother and that there will always be turkey and pie…that I won’t be judged on this day for unbuttoning the top button of my pants…
Yes, some things remain constant…but some things sneak up on us. While we’re busy with that extra slice of cobbler things are tweaking and evolving and changing the world we know little by little until suddenly you find gray hair mixed in with the black ones and you look around to find that those who used to sit with you at the kids table now have kids of their own.
How the hell did that happen?
My handsome nephew
And as the family tree branches out, so do the holidays, turning aunts into grammas, grandma’s into great ones, best friends into uncles and cousins into mommas who are now wearing aprons and hosting their own Thanksgiving meals hundreds of miles away.
So our lives change taking with them some of our traditions. When I was growing up Thanksgiving was always held at my aunt K’s in South Dakota. It was one of my favorite holidays because it meant that we got to see my cousins and run in the hay bales, sing songs we made up and put on ridiculous plays about pilgrims and how the first Thanksgiving may have gone down in our naive and theatrical heads. One year we put my little sister and cousin in ridiculous hats, built them a homemade ship out of a cardboard box and sent them sailing over the living room as we subjected the rest of the family to our version of the story of how our great land was settled as I stood on one leg (the other was in a cast) waiting for the “pilgrims” to make it to shore.
That was one activity that thankfully never made it to “tradition” status.
I miss those days and my ugly sweaters. I miss my aunt’s cheesy potatoes and how watching her work in the kitchen made me feel like my grandmother was in the room . I miss listening to my brilliant cousins whine and moan while their dad requested one more song on the piano. I miss that music.
But now the turkey is in my cousin’s oven and she is the momma proudly requesting a performance from her gifted children and I am miles away with my nieces and nephews opening the window for my mother-in-law before scooping her gravy onto the hot turkey she’d been cooking since the early morning hours.
And I smile to myself because my mother-by-marriage reminds me a little of my aunt K. They way she effortlessly pulls it all together. The way she never loses her sweet and calm nature even when it’s 87 degrees in the kitchen and there are thirteen kids scrambling at her feet, the way her cheeks flush after her first glass of wine…
the way she forgot the sweet potatoes in the microwave until 10 pm….
Because even as time changes our circumstance, taking people we love from us, bringing into the world new little ones to adore, making us brave enough to try new recipes, to host our own Thanksgivings, to introduce someone to the family, even when weather snows us in, throwing us a sledding party after dessert, or gives us the gift of a 50 degree day in November, I love knowing there are a few things we can count on during this holiday:
One of them is turkey…
and the other is memories.
I hope you made some good ones this holiday.
Next year, the memories are at our house…
our new house.
And get ready, because the cheeseball will be epic.
P.S. It looks like our photography show may have to become a “day after Thanksgiving” tradition. If you missed it, no worries, our things are up all week at the Visitors Center in Watford City, so stop on by take a look and maybe, you know, finish your Christmas shopping 🙂
“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.
In case you didn’t notice all of the pickups driving a little bit slower down the highway…or that blaze orange and camouflage have suddenly appeared as a fashion statement…or, you know, your husband/boyfriend/significant other has been missing since last Friday come think of it, I am here to remind you.
It’s deer hunting season.
It’s official.
I think I’ve mentioned it before here, but deer hunting season is a holiday around here with its own set of traditions. Kids get out of school, basement poker becomes a popular activity, beer gets a new, hunting appropriate look and clean-cut men grow beards, wear vests, drink whisky, wake up at the butt-crack of dawn to walk miles and miles in the whipping wind only to sleep together in close, smelly quarters in the middle of nowhere, rain, shine or snow, in what is known up here as “hunting camp.”
Now hunting camp seems pretty rustic and masculine for the city boys whose main outdoor chore is weed eating around the rose bushes. Those boys itch for the day they can pack up their duffles with camouflage, bourbon, bullets and only one change of underwear and head for the hills and to their manly roots. Somehow it doesn’t ring as particularly romantic to the man who chases cattle out of his yard on a daily basis and frequently finds deer legs on his front porch, a gift from the canine friends he feeds perfectly decent dog food every morning.
But regardless of the man’s living situation, hanging with the guys at hunting camp is a staple of hunting season. Because really, after the big bucks are stalked and spotted and the farting, burping and scratching is freely is underway, what the season is really about is camaraderie and fellowship and getting back to the primal need of man to hunt and gather in order to feed his people.
Yes, it’s about the food. It always comes back to the food. So what an appropriate time for Cowboy to whip out his famous and simply rustic hunting camp stew. Because the second best thing to the whiskey at hunting camp is, hands down, the chow.
Our family takes great care when a wild animal is taken from our ranch. We prepare and put to use as much of the meat as we can, so this recipe is the perfect solution for those cuts of meat that aren’t as savory and tender, but still deserve a place on your plate.
I haven’t mastered the art of cooking wild game, but I tell you when I leave it to the men in my life, they do not disappoint.
The following recipe is made with wild elk meat from an animal taken by pops from our ranch earlier this fall.
Elk meat, when prepared properly, is tender and lean and can be ground up to make delicious burger, steaks and roast. We use the leftover cuts of meat that don’t fit in those categories to prepare stir fry, appetizers, fajitas, chilli and, of course, this stew, but this recipe will be equally delicious if you want to use beef or venison.
So let’s get to it shall we?
Cowboy Cooks Hunting Camp Stew
Step 1: Grab a glass
First things first, put on your snarky apron, neckerchief, sexy cowboy hat and pour yourself a drink…oh, and remember to not say the words “sexy cowboy hat” in hunting camp.
This evening’s drink of choice: Black Velvet
Which brings up another hunting camp rule: avoid singing Alannah Myles’s “Black Velvet” at the top of your lungs while pouring yourself a drink. That will go over about as well as “sexy cowboy hat.”
Ok, when preparing himself a glass of whiskey, Cowboy sometimes likes to make his own, manly version of the famous and classy “whiskey sour”. So he adds a splash of lemon juice and an ice-cube.
No, it’s not your gramma’s drink.
Alright, now that we have that out of the way, let’s move on.
Step 2: Gather the ingredients:
Here’s are the simply, basic ingredients that you’re gonna need besides whiskey.
2 lbs elk meat (or venison or beef) cubed into bite sized pieces…man bites
10 whole cherry/Roma tomatoes
4 medium potatoes
1 cup of fresh or frozen corn
1 cup of fresh or frozen peas
3 large carrots
½ large purple onion
1 T black pepper
½ t red pepper
1 t thyme leaves
½ t rubbed sage
3 fresh garlic cloves
salt to taste (and don’t go easy on the salt ok)
½ stick butter
8 cups water
2 cups flour
Now if you are a man in a hunting camp, you more than likely packed and prepared for this hearty meal. If you are a woman in a little house in the middle of nowhere who put “go grocery shopping” on the bottom of her to do list, right behind the laundry, you will have to run to the neighbor’s to get potatoes and onions…and then come back home only to realize you don’t have carrots either…
don't look at me like that...
Ok, now that you have everything, lets move on.
Step 3: Prep your ingredients
Bring your cups of water to a boil in a large pot. And when I say large, I mean it. We had overflow people…making this a two pot stew…for two people.
You heard me, now go scrounge up that giant pot you save for cooking giant things…
Ok, now while you’re boiling the water cut up some things:
Cube the meat into man-sized pieces
Dice three garlic cloves
I know what you're thinking...pretty fancy dish for hunting camp...
Dice 1/2 purple onion
Cube 4 medium potatoes
Dice three large carrots…take a bite—what’s up doc?
Ok, now your water should be close to boiling.
Drop the potatoes and carrots in there to get them cooking.
Step 3: The meat
Now we are going to deal with the meat.
Warm up your skillet on medium/high heat and add ½ stick butter (and a little bacon grease left over from breakfast ) and melt. Use olive oil too if you want..or just butter…or just olive oil…whatever…it’s hunting camp, you can do what you want.
Now we are going to prepare a little flour coating for the meat.
Measure 2 cups of flour in a flat tupperwear or open bowl. To the flour add the black pepper, red pepper, thyme, sage and plenty of salt.
Mix this concoction together with your hands because you are manly like that.
Then give your meat a little dusting of salt and then coat the pieces in the flour mixture.
Now make sure your skillet is nice and hot and add the meat…then grunt like Tim the “Tool Man” Taylor because that’s what you do at hunting camp.
Now add the onions and garlic too.
Cook the meat to very rare. You won’t want to cook it all the way because it will have more cooking to do when you add it to the pot.
Go ahead, give it a taste.
Good right?
Ok now you can add it to the boiling water with those delicious chunks of carrot and potato. Boil for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are nearly done.
Step 4: Finishing it up
When your carrots and potatoes are done to your liking (about 15 minutes prior to serving) add the rest of your colorful ingredients:
In goes the corn…
and the peas…
and the tomatoes
*queue tomato dropping action sequence*
Sweat a little because it’s about to boil over….
Now add some of the leftover flour mixture to the stew and cook until desired thickness
Simmer for about 15 minutes or until everything is cooked to the proper consistency.
Also, don’t forget to taste your work. I like a little more salt in my stew, others might want a little more heat, so adjust the seasoning as you go along your merry, manly way. This stew is pretty basic, which leave room for any kind of seasoning your manly heart desires.
Oh, and while your waiting, have someone make biscuits to go along with your hearty meal.
I am pretty gifted as far as baking goes, so I took on the task.
Yup. Ah Pilsbury, making regular wives into Betty Crocker every day.
Alright, now we’ve found ourselves adequately whiskied up and things are smelling a bit better in the hunting camp, I think it’s time for our final step.
Step 5: Eat!
Now if you’re actually in a hunting camp instead of a tiny house with your wife, I would like to imagine that you would serve this up in some of those tin camping bowls. But my white dishes with the blue design will have to do for today.
Now stand back in your apron and not-sexy at all cowboy hat as the rest of the men at camp give you some grunts and thumbs up while they devour your stew.
There won’t be any left over for lunch I guarantee…I mean, playing poker and swapping stories around the fire is exhausting.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 