Tag Archives: friendship

A neighborhood tradition.

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We helped our neighbors brand  calves this Sunday. The sun was finally shining enough to give us hope the corrals might dry up by the time the day was over, so it seemed like the perfect day to get some work done.

Branding calves is a traditional chore that happens once a year. And whether your herd is 50 or 500, branding is always a great and necessary excuse to get neighbors, friends and family together to get some work done under the big prairie sky.

Branding, for those of you who are not familiar with ranching operations, is what cowboys do to identify their calves a month or two after they are born in the spring. Each ranch has a certain symbol associated with its operation and that symbol is placed on the cattle by using grey-hot irons that have been heated up in a fire and placing those irons momentarily on the calf’s hide.




At one time cowboys ran their cattle in open range on land not divided or sectioned off by fences. Branding your cattle meant that each ranches’ herd could graze freely on the open range and could easily be identified come roundup time when the calves were taken to market. Today in Western North Dakota ranch land is split up and sectioned off into pastures. If a neighbor’s cattle break down a fence and get into a field or an adjacent pasture, they are easily identified. In addition, branding cattle has traditionally been a way to deter cattle thieves, as brands are registered and inspected when taken to market.

With most calves born in March and April, ideally a rancher would want to get their branding done in May, but with the snowy and wet weather that occurred during calving and on into the late spring, things have been delayed a bit this year.

Now every operation has their own traditions and ways they like to work their calves. Around here a typical branding day would start early in the morning with a ride out into the pastures to roundup all of the mommas and babies and gather them into a corral where the crew then sorts the calves off from the cows into a smaller pen.

There’s a lot of mooing at this point, which will not cease until the mommas are back with their babies, the end goal the crew will work to accomplish as quickly, safely and efficiently as possible.

Once the calves are sorted the real work begins.  Typically, if the calves were younger, a crew of able bodied cowboys and cowgirls would work to catch and “wrestle,” or hold the calves in place on the ground while another crew works quickly to vaccinate, fly tag, brand and, if it’s a bull calf, castrate.  If all goes well the calf is only down for a few short minutes before the crew releases the baby back into the pen to find his momma.

At the neighbor’s last weekend the process was the same, but because the calves were a little older and a little bigger, Cowboy Kelly decided it would be easier on all of us, calves included, if we used the chute.

And because, as I have mentioned earlier, I was out a little late the night before, drinking some adult beverages, I was ok with missing the opportunity to brush up on my calf wrestling skills. But my desire to be involved was completely selfish anyway, because around this neighborhood it seems you always find you have plenty of help.

And so was the case on Sunday as one by one under a sun that turned my fair skinned friend’s skin pink, even under her cowboy hat, the crew pushed the babies through the chute and Cowboy Kelly marked them with a brand that has been attached to his family’s ranch and cattle for over 100 years.


I stood by Kelly’s daughter, my best friend and neighbor when we were growing up, as she tagged the calves to help keep the summer flies away and counted and inspected each and every one for her father.

My best friend is a mother now. I watched her carry one of her babies piggyback as she trudged through the mud to shut the gate and I wondered when it was exactly that we grew up.


She just had her first son, her third child, a little red headed boy, a few months ago. He was likely sleeping in his great grandmother’s arms in the house as his grandma set out the dishes, turned on the oven and put ice in the cooler for the crew.

His two blonde and freckled sisters were hanging on the fence in their pink boots and ponytails, watching the action, counting the calves and asking questions next to their cousins and aunts who stood just close enough to make sure they didn’t fall and hurt themselves.

I look at those girls and it’s like I’m looking at my friend, new freckles appearing with each hour those little noses see the sun. I used to stand next to her on that very fence, watching our dads, asking questions, wearing holes in the toes of our red boots, happy with the business of being friends.

And so I stood next to her again on Sunday and we were ourselves, older versions of the children who used to ride their bikes up on the highway between our two ranches, weaving in and out of the yellow center line, our feet off the pedals, the wind tossing our hair, making plans to grow up and get married and work and be cowgirls and mommas out here on our ranches, the only place we knew, the only place on earth for us.

So I guess we are grown up now. And so are those boys we brought home to help with branding back when we were sixteen or seventeen and hoping they could pull it off.

Hoping our dads approved.

When the last calf got his brand, the crew gathered for a Bud and to  lean on fences and find some shade. I snapped a few more pictures as my friend tallied up the ratio of bull calves to heifers.

She’s always been good with numbers.

I’ve always liked words.

And so I’ll tell you the most important part about branding. Everyone will agree.

While we were standing in the sun and the smoke of the branding irons, inside the house our mothers were cuddling the babies and cooking up a casserole meant to stick to a hungry man’s ribs.

Because the number one promise after a successful day of work in this neighborhood is a hearty meal and the chance to catch up, to visit a bit after a busy calving season.  It’s why you can always get a crew, because the work load is eased by friendship and comradery and the spirit that still lives out here on 100 year old ranches, the spirt that holds hope that it could carry on like this through the generations in the faces of the children we used to be.

All in a day’s work…

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So there I was, legs dangling and flailing as I maneuvered and shimmied myself out of the window of my friend M’s big blue pickup parked outside the front door of the pizza place in Boomtown.

It was a perfect parking spot for a spectacle that could only occur when my friend and I get together. And it was the perfect time of day–6:00 PM, the dinner rush hour when hundreds of men are flocking in from the oil fields in search of dinner, a cold beer, and if it happens to be an option, maybe some entertainment.

Well, if the gentlemen were paying attention as they shoved their hands in their pockets, talked on their phones and shuffled past that blue pickup and on through the door for some grub, they might have paused a moment to wonder what the hell was going on in there.

Why was the pickup shaking?

Why did it just park, backup, and then park again?

Why were those women laughing so hard?

Why weren’t they getting out? What are they doing in there? Wait…is she climbing out the damn window? 

If they would have stopped to ask I would have answered:

Yes. Yes, I’m climbing out the window. Why? Because the damn doors of this pickup, the ones we used to get in here, worked just fine thirty miles ago. But now? No. Now they are stuck. All four of them. 

We tried our best to open them, punching and flinging our bodies at the doors in an attempt to dislodge whatever is potentially lodged, so that’s what the shaking was about.

We tried cutting the engine and starting it again, the sort of control+alt+delete thing that works on computers, but as you can see from my ass hanging out the window and my legs dangling and flailing as I attempt to reach the ground, kind sir, that didn’t work either.

And we’re hungry, but not surprised. This kind of shit happens to us all the time. And her husband will never believe it. She’s calling him now. He’s going to ask her if she unlocked the doors.

We did.

But I got this. I got this. No big deal. I’m climbing out the window. No, don’t worry about the gravel road we accumulated on the way here, I’ve had plenty of gravel road on my outfits in my lifetime. Yup, we’re starving and I’m climbing out the window to get the pizzas to bring home to our husbands who will shake their heads and wonder what we did wrong. 

We will say nothing. They won’t believe us. Thanks for asking.  Now if you’ll excuse me…”

That’s what I would have said if one of those men had asked. But none did. Thankfully. They probably knew better, knew not to get involved as my friend made the call to her husband and I lowered myself to the ground, laughing uncontrollably and wondering how the hell I was going to get back in that big truck of hers with two pizzas and a box of cheese balls, a dinner clearly made for adventurers like us.

Adventurers and friends who have found ourselves in the throes of a small photography business we created that sends us along muddy back rads to chase toddlers through fields, try to fit babies in buckets and race the sun with a senior in a prom dress to the top of a butte in an attempt to get the best shot.

We’ve been nearly a year in business and we’ve learned a lot about our craft and our friendship, but mostly we learned that it isn’t a day’s work until one of us twists and ankle, trips over our own feet, drops a camera, slips and dangles dangerously from a ladder, or, you know, runs out of diesel twenty miles from town.

So we weren’t surprised about this door thing, because we were due for another mishap, that dark cloud that hovers over our fluffy hair hadn’t quite delivered that day.

But it was a mystery, I declared as I handed the pizzas in to M through the open window, giggling, mumbling, grunting, hoisting and stretching my legs up there in an attempt to follow.

And then I said, “You know, when you get home to show your husband, these doors are going to open right up.”

My friend laughed and said she was sure of it, “but really, what the hell?”

And we laughed for the next 15 miles where I said goodbye and got in my car, praying the doors would open and that it would start, because, you just never know.

road

But we did know. We knew it was going to be a mystery forever.

We knew we would laugh about it now and be glad we had one another for witnesses. Because when she got home to declare the pickup in need of repair,  those doors opened right up.

Ah, well. Just another days’ work…

Trail Riding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes. Yes. Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sisters laughing and joking.

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

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

Whatever’s going on here.

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

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

Or anywhere else.

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

And I was the luckiest kid in the world.

A house becomes a home…

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This weekend the house that arrived at the ranch in the middle of the coldest part of the winter, the house we’ve put a few tears and sweat droplets into in order to move in earlier this month, came to life.

Sure, the trim wasn’t up and the outlets weren’t covered, the staircase isn’t complete, the basement is full of dirt and I can’t use my stove, but who needs a stove really?

Or a basement?

All we needed was for the much-needed rain to hold off for a few hours so we  so we could enjoy our beautiful front yard and celebrate husband’s 30th birthday with friends and family.

I have to tell you I was a little uncertain about the capabilities of hosting 20+ family and friends in an unfinished house we had barely unpacked in the middle of a wild place. I had visions of small children falling down unfinished stairs, guests twisting ankles on one of the thousand dirt clumps that have yet to be leveled  and rain that would force us all to cram inside the dirt filled basement. But when I asked Husband what he wanted to do for his big 3-0 he said with confidence that he wanted to have a party.

At our house.

So I took one look around to gauge, on a scale from 1-10, just how far off we were from looking like a page out of “Better Homes and Gardens,” determined that we were about a 0, took a deep breath and made a few lists.

One for groceries.

One for booze.

And one for Husband  that looked something like this:

“Happy Birthday my sweet and lovely man. Can you please accomplish the following before Friday:”

-Make a fire pit in the front yard
-Put up the backsplash
-Prune back some wild and dangerous trees in the yard so we don’t ruin anyone’s good hair day
-Put up a railing to the front door so your grandmother doesn’t plummet off the edge and to the ground 15 feet below her
– And while you’re at it, make sure the lock is on the door to the basement, because, if you remember correctly, there are no stairs on the other side.
– Write down instructions on how to cook a 50 pound brisket
– Put the doors on the closets
-Help me figure out why the new fridge smells like fish
-Call Pops so he can help you put up the giant chandelier that has been sitting in the middle of our living room for three days
-Try not to die on that ladder, I want you around past 30…
-Oh, and tell me what you want for your birthday…

Then I wrote my own list. It looked like this:

-Clean as much as humanly possible in the time that you have between now and the arrival of guests
-Channel your inner Lutheran Church Lady and learn to make some Jello Salad already
-Make sure Husband and Pops don’t die putting up the chandelier
-Buy plenty of booze

I put boxes next to each item and prepared to check them off.

I was feeling pretty good about getting after it all on Monday. And then it came and went. The same way  Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday flew by and pretty soon it was Friday and all I had was a long list with no check boxes,  $300 worth of booze, one giant chandelier sitting in a box in my living room and 20 or so people thinking their might be some noodle salad and a cake the next day.

But Husband didn’t seem worried. He thought it could all get done in a few short hours. First item on his list for party day? Put up the giant chandelier.

Fifteen scenarios of how Husband could potentially die, three mini-heart-attacks, one broken bulb and four hours later, the damn chandelier was in place.

One more hour and up went the railing while my salads chilled in the fridge.

Another thirty minutes and my Little Sister arrived with cake ingredients, I mixed us a bloody mary and Pops grabbed the chain saw to take care of some wild tree branches while the first guests arrived.

Turns out we didn’t get to the backsplash or the doors. We winged the brisket and held our breath when we reached into the fridge.

And nobody opened the basement door to plummet to their death.

In fact, nobody even got so much as a scrape in the chaos and beauty and wild space that is our unfinished backyard. Our guests arrived with proper foot wear, bearing desserts and dips and gifts and then took a seat in the shade or stood around with a nice cold drink on the hot first day in September to celebrate a man who built this little unfinished dream.

And I was overwhelmed. Not with what there was to do, not with the menu or the heat, but with the sudden realization that this is our home.

Forever.

And these are our neighbors and our family. And their kids are marching toward the big hill to throw sticks in the dam. My nieces are making up names for their favorite spots and pulling at my hand to take them on an adventure hike.

My Pops and his band are singing around our campfire.

My friends’ laughter seems to be lighting up the moon and my husband is dancing with his mother.

In his yard outside a house he built on a place we fall in love with over and over again every day.

See, it had been years since we had played host to that many friends and neighbors. Living in tiny apartments, in houses in renovation and in the small ranch house for the last two years simply did not allow us the space or resources to embrace and welcome our neighborhood into our home all at once.

But on Saturday we celebrated a big birthday and a giant step in our lives as a couple who has made a commitment to a place, to a neighborhood and to ourselves to work and live and love in this spot, and to keep our doors open to anyone who wants to walk through them, to sit down, have a cocktail or a cup of coffee and enjoy the view and the company.

Outside my kitchen window…

As I washed the dishes and prepared french toast in my kitchen on Sunday morning for the family and friends who spent the night, I smiled while I poured another cup of coffee and listened to the recap of the conversations from the night before.

They weren’t about the outlet covers, the dirt clumps in the yard or the giant chandelier.

They were about the people who came and ate and hugged and talked and laughed and sang and spilled. The stories were about the kids who climbed in the hills, rode our horses and wished my husband a Happy Birthday.

And I couldn’t help but think that our new house, unfinished as it is, has never felt so complete and it has never felt more like a home.

Happy Birthday Husband. Thanks for helping me make this dream come true.

A letter from me.

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

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

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

Please, allow me to reflect for a moment:

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

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

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

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

A gardener and a vet.

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

Yes. A beauty shop. 

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

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

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

I would need my eyesight to attend to the animals.

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

Where the hell did it go?

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

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

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

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

Word for word. Spelling error for spelling error.

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

Dear Caroline (CBO):

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

Your friend forever

Jess. 

Sigh.

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

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

The top of our world…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, my heart.

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

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

And it was her’s too.

This had potential to be a great friendship.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then we headed back down when we were ready…

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

the Sandstone School my grandmother attended…

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

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

8 pm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friends like this…

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I am coming off of the best vacation high this Monday morning. There was cooking and wine, friends and games and outdoor adventures and wildlife sightings, singing, baby snuggling, great conversation, laughter, celebration and sitting under the stars in a hot tub with a Champaign toast.

The best part? I didn’t have to get out of my stretchy pants or put on a stitch of makeup.

Not once.

The other best part? I didn’t have to leave home.

Because these really wonderfully beautiful (inside and out) friends of ours chose to celebrate a huge accomplishment and an exciting step in their funky and exciting lives by braving the winter chill to load up their own stretchy pants and scarves to take the three-hour trip through oil country to visit us at the ranch in the middle of nowhere–despite an awkward phone call from yours truly the morning before their departure explaining that they may or may not have power or water or lights when they got here, but please, we would love to have you anyway.

Without batting an eye, they loaded up a few extra pairs of wool socks and another bottle of booze and headed for the hills, unfazed by the potential of an authentic roughing it old-school style experience.

These are my kind of people.

Heading out on our snow-shoe trip to work off all the wine and food we had the night before.

So once the power returned, my vacuum and I got reacquainted. Then I introduced myself to the Windex bottle and that went so well that I thought it would be a perfect time to meet my mop and just like that my cleaning supplies and I we were set for their arrival.

The arrival of two people who deserved a great getaway after years of higher education and a final exam that added a second Master’s degree to the couple’s accomplishments and a great adventure ahead. And I am so proud of them, even though it means they are going to pack up their little car and move further away from me.

But I guess it’s not always about me is it?

Damn.

Anyway normally when we have company at the ranch I try to come up with some activities we can do to show them around the place and help them fall in love and relax and have a little adventure. I schedule in meals and music and a little trip somewhere down the road to the lake or the river or the badlands. And we take photos and take it easy because I want them to remember it fondly. I want them to come back for crying out loud.

Crunching through the hard packed snow, with a sprinkle of fresh stuff floating in the air...

But these guests of mine have been here before. The have ridden our horses, zipped off to the lake to take a boat ride, hiked and barbecued with us in the summer sunshine and chatted under the stars at the campfire. And I think they genuinely love the place and its open skies and rolling buttes and coyotes howling at sunrise and sunset. I think they’re already sold.

Heading into the trees and the deep snow...

cutting a trail...

They love it so much that they can overlook the work that needs to be done here when the snow melts–the building that needs a new roof, the deck that will be replaced, the old equipment that is scheduled to be moved, the fencing that needs to be done. They don’t think twice about it because they understand, that this is what a working ranch looks like. And it isn’t always perfect. The fences don’t always align and the paint on the buildings don’t always match.

Husband telling a story of how elk live here in the summer...

But that’s not why they come.

Playing fetch with some enthusiastic participants...

They come to see us, to eat husband’s homemade noodles and the steak he cooked on the grill in sub-zero temperatures. They come to tell us their stories and hear ours. They come to laugh and teach us a card game and make a toast to friendship and accomplishments. They come to meet my sister and nephew. They come to tease me for my quirks and be the punch line for my jokes. They come to talk about marriage and life’s inconveniences and their adventures and worries and fears and to hear they’re not alone.

And to make sure we know that we aren’t either.

They come to walk the hills and take with them a new experience–to breathe in the wild, fresh air I tell them I love so much.

They come to love it too.

Climbing the hill...

taking in the view...

getting out the binoculars...

to spot...

...buffalo on the horizon

And as our friends packed up their car to head down the road and back to their home I realized I am not sure when I will see them again as they head off into a new adventure that will take them across the country and miles and miles from us. But I am not worried, because this friendship that we’ve found is worth traveling for. And we will make plans to see them in their world, just as they have done for us. We will make plans to walk their hills and eat at their favorite restaurants and drink their coffee and meet their family and hear their stories.

Because that’s what friends do. The come and see you.

And they don’t care if you don’t vacuum, or if your microwave is the first model ever invented, or if your dog got in the garbage while you weren’t paying attention, or if they didn’t see you in real pants or makeup the entire duration of the visit. Because they are right there with you, stretchy pants and all, whipping up a perfect batch of guacamole and helping with the dishes and laughing in the little old house behind the snowbanks in the middle of nowhere, together while the coyotes howl at the stars.

Here’s hoping you have friends like that.

The passion of the pets

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I know. I admit it. I have before. I am obsessed with animals. I take too many pictures of them, I talk too much about them, they are too often the subjects of my mind’s meanderings. But c’mon they are hilarious. My animals. They are hilarious and naughty and sweet and crazy (especially the cats) and cuddly and fascinating, really.

Plus, I don’t have kids, so what else am I supposed to obsess over?

My eccentric tendencies on this subject became more evident last night when I was on the front porch talking on the phone with my best friend. We were trying to catch up on the latests: TV shows, her brother’s wedding, who is having or just had babies, what’s for dinner. And in between movie critiques and recipes my best friend would pause to save her three year old child from tumbling down the steps, driving his toy tractor in the street, slamming his fingers in the door and certain death. You know, important, motherly things.

And in between those pauses, I was yelling at the dogs.

You know, trying to save the cats from certain death…

Come on down. I won't hurt ya, I promise.

Yeah, yeah, me neither. I also promise.

I think I'm quite comfortable up here, thanks.

Well, we can all see here whose responsibilities might save the world some day. Or at least have a chance to become president.

I don’t think they are electing pugs to office, although some have tried their hand…er, I mean…paw.

My best friend and I laughed together at the chaos, each one of us enjoying the heck out of the life that surrounds us. I love hearing about how my friend had to duct tape her three year old’s tux at the wedding, how he loves tractors so much it’s the only word he uses and I absolutely melt when he gets on the phone to say “hi Dessy” (that’s how he says my name…ahh, so cute.)

I’m not so sure my best friend is equally impressed with the stories about how my pug sleeps with the cats and then proceeds to chase them up the tree–so I spare her the phone chat with him.

Anyway, my conversation with her got me thinking about what it is that makes me keep these animals around. Because they are naughty (did I say that already?) and dirty, like the furniture way too much and, occasionally, they smell a lot like poop.

But sometimes they are so much like humans it blows my mind.

So come along with me here to explore the multiple personalities of the animals that make their homes at the funny farm.

Let us begin with the horses:

This is Tucker. He only loves us for the treats. He follows me around the barnyard with his mouth like this, checking my pockets and taking little nibbles. Yes, every pocket.

Can you say “goose?”

Relentless.

Unicorn? Alien?

No, Tucker again. Tucker and the burs he got into, most likely on his scavenger hunt for treats.

Spooky.

And kinda pathetic.

Stormy. He might look bored, and that’s because he is. Bored with life, no matter the weather, no matter the job, his pace doesn’t exceed what you see here.

Stormy’s old.

The mule. She’s old too. She runs into things…and people.

She’s blind.

Nuff said.

Now for the cats, who have yet to be named. I’ll take any suggestions. Right now they are affectionately referred to as “Don’t” and “Get Down.”

Here they are climbing into a boot.

This is mischief.

This is not helpful, thanks anyway. This is disruption…and disobedience.

Climbing the walls. Monkey business.

Tipping the vase, knocking over the frame to use it for his own personal stepping stool in order to reach the only sparkly decoration in the entire house. This is sure to end in disaster.

This is damage.

And after all of that chaos and damage done, this is finally…peace.

On to my beloved lab, who has one emotion that seeps out of his soul…

Pure, unfiltered, untouchable…

Joy.

And last but not least, the pug, who has saved me from a life without drama, snoring, curly tails and every expression an old man would convey.

He has taught me what it really means to….

…relax with such passion your face skin sags…

…never back down…

…ever…

…smile so wide it consumes your entire face…

…really not give a damn…

…sport an attitude…

…have your best friend’s back…even if it means getting your paws wet…

…and love with all you’ve got inside that furry chest…

May we all live with the same passion our pets possess.

Now go scratch a belly or two.

I know what home is.

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There is something about the month of July that has always felt so much like home to me. It’s like it marches in with all of its blue sky and green grass and bugs and scents of clover and cow poop and touches me on the shoulder to wake me up to every glorious lake day, evening ride, campfire and hot, mid day hike I’ve ever had in every July of my life. This particular month so far has, to my surprise, has been all of those things and it is only half over.

I saw this summer at the ranch drifting lazily by as I contemplated what I am doing here. I saw myself sleeping in a little, cleaning up and making home cooked meals for the husband (ha, well, I have been known to be delusional). I have done this a little, but I have also done things a bit more exhilarating really…like answering my phone and saying yes –yes to every family member and friend that has been within arms reach for years, but whom I just couldn’t quite get to because of deadlines, work, or a commitment I didn’t want to commit to. And I have found that when used properly, “yes” can be the best word. Ever.

And so I have been out of commission in my own life for about 10 days, because I have willingly, and with gusto and open arms, planted myself in my best people’s lives across this great state. And all this being away from home, camped out in my grandparent’s lake cabin, in a hotel, on a couch in my cousin’s basement, in my sister’s bed in her apartment,  and in a tent at the edge of Lake Sakakawea, got me thinking a bit about how we define the word.

Home.

It’s intriguing to me particularly because we, my husband and I, have spent the last few years trying to find it. We have expended quite an amount of energy lugging our things around from apartment, to apartment, to apartment until we finally lost our minds enough to purchase a house of our own. And then we promptly extinguished all of our life savings deconstructing this new place so that it would indeed feel like ours, smell like ours, look like ours…be ours.

And for two years, I never felt so displaced. In all of the chaos and construction and saw dust and paint, I never unpacked a photo of us. I placed my things in the closets to get them out of the way and then never could really find anything again. I moved in and out of the project, from work to work to bed and back again, only a shell of a person really, in the shell of a house that someday, we hoped, would become our perfect home.

The funny thing is, all of the cussing, planning, crying, and hitting my fingers countless times with a hammer didn’t open our eyes of a perfect bricks and mortar home that was coming to life in front of us, but revealed a vision of a future that wasn’t contained in this house in this town, but a life that was waiting for us 60 miles north.

And as soon as we declared this project no longer our future, I became me again and I guess, started spreading myself around to whoever has missed me. And as it turns out, there have been plenty of people who wanted to catch up. So I put them all on my calendar.

I drove east to Minnesota to spend 4th of July with my grandparents on my mother’s side of the family, getting to know new babies and babies that have turned into teenagers over night. I put my feet in the lake where I spent summers of my youth, then let it close in over my head, just like when I was twelve. I swam. I ate watermelon. I toasted s’mores. I water-skied for crying out loud!

I hugged my grandparents and cooked french toast for thirty of my favorite people in a kitchen where we have all gathered to re-cap weddings, to announce pregnancies, to proudly tell a story of a renowned kindergarden performance or a winning goal. And we filled that home, that entire lake, with laughter of people who have known us all along and love us anyway.

And it felt pretty good, so I stayed away a bit longer.

I headed back west a bit to Fargo to spend some time with my cousins (the former members of the Kitten Kaboodle club and the ones who are responsible for my non-belief in the Easter Bunny). I marveled at a now grown woman, who once taught me the rodeo queen wave and lent me her sparkly cowboy shirts for talent shows, as she moved about her house, feeding her toddler cheerios and clapping her hands and rolling her head back as her princess four year old performed karate moves on her doll. I listened as that woman’s brother, and my forever best friend, spoke of his PhD program at the University of Miami, and felt so damn proud, followed by a pang of jealousy for his great tan and the laid back attitude he has accumulated along the way. I watched my youngest cousin use a pizza box to sled down the stairs just because we dared him to. I slapped the bass like a champ playing “Rock Star” on Play Station, I drank just a little too much, and talked just a little too loud and was just a little obnoxious. Just like old times

And my stomach hurt from the laughter, so I stayed away a bit longer.

Because my little sister needed me. She needed me, of all things, to hold her hand as she got a tattoo to commemorate her service trip to Guatemala. She needed me to make sure it looked just right, to calm her nerves, to tell her that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, you should do what you want. And I watched as she braved the needle like a champ and cried a little when her alligator tears fell at the end of the session, because even though the pain was self inflicted, it really sucks to see your little sister cry. I got to know her new boyfriend. I gave him shit. I commented on her less than clean apartment and ate at the restaurant where she worked and tipped her big.  I slept next to her in her bed. Just like old times.

My heart filled up.

And then my best of friends, these three beautiful, successful and wonderfully quirky women,  called and said they wanted a vacation out west. So I drove back to the ranch to meet them there to try to give them their dream weekend. It was 100 degrees, but like a fresh breeze their car pulled into my driveway and love spilled out as they opened the doors with their arms spread wide, ready to embrace us, ready to embrace the evening. We grilled steaks and cut up veggies for a salad, we sat out on the lawn, we saddled up and took a ride over the hills. We built a campfire. We drank some beer. We went to the lake and felt the wind whip by as my husband drove the boat like a bullet across the big water. We listened to my dad sing. We all made our beds in this tiny house, snuggled in tight between these walls that embraced us like their friendly hugs embraced me, under this roof, under the big, starry sky.

And I felt damn loved.

But now that the quiet has settled in again, I caught myself thinking: “Now back to normal. Back to the real world”

What is that all about? What is normal? What is the real world? Wasn’t I just in it?

Never during those days of being away did I feel like I missed home. Never did I miss my bed or my couch or my shower or my desk. I missed my husband,  I missed the space, the horses,  I missed my dogs…

So here is what I think. And I don’t think I’m wrong.

Home isn’t carpeting and wall paper and a really great kitchen. Home is those living, breathing things surrounding you, talking to you, touching you and reminding you of things you forgot about yourself.  Home is who loves you and listens and offers advice on cooking and great wine.

Home is a long, hot summer, jumping in the lake, cheering your sister on as she works to get up on water skis. It’s taking your cousins to a movie and then driving home in the pouring Minnesota rain. It is pitching a tent with your best friends and then realizing you forgot the stakes. It is saying thank you when they cook you a really great hot dog and figure out how to make stakes out of sticks, and that works even better anyway. It is sitting next to your aunt as she holds her new grandchild and watching your grandparents beam with love as the next wave of company pulls in the yard. It is cringing with worry as your brother in law attempts to blow up the lake with $300 worth of fireworks. And it’s the whooping and screaming when he pulls the display off beautifully (and safely). It is singing around the campfire, catching tiny perch out of a pontoon full of family, posing for photos and taking turns at bat during a game of softball on the lawn.

It’s July and September and December and all of the months spent living.

I know this now.

I know what home is.