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A prayer for wild women…

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

This is my prayer for you and wild women everywhere.

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

To have found your way back to your feet.

This I hope for you.

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

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

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

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

To climb a hill to be closer to the moon.

To do it yourself because you can do it better.

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

Wild woman.

Wild, wild women.

This is our prayer.

Under a Badlands Sky…

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

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

The sky…

The grass…

The quiet, wild things.

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

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

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

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

And building forts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thankful that we’re not sweeping right now.

Or doing paperwork.

Or making dinner.

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

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

Thankful she has nearly forgiven my reaction of hysterical laughter.

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

Together.

About Today

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

about the leaves changing…

and the radio show we performed on on Saturday.

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

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

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

And I want to show you my new favorite photo.


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

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

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

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

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

Because I know that once it hits the horizon, the sun rises fast…and it never stops moving.

It’s always on time.

I know that raindrops dry up.

I know that when the leaves start to change, winter isn’t far away…

And if I would have slept a few minutes longer I would have missed the pair of ducks cutting their way through the mist.

I know I don’t want to miss these moments.

Or these moments.

Or these.

And I know there are so many things to say…

about today.

Weird.

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Life out here is beautiful.

Life out here is peaceful and dirty and busy and windy and full of long “to-do” lists staring us in the face.

And life out here can be weird.

My first example: Last Sunday night when we arrived home from a trip to see Husband’s family, I was working on unloading the groceries and figuring out the jig-saw puzzle that has become my refrigerator while talking to a friend on the phone when my dearly beloved husband sauntered into the kitchen with a hammer in his hand and declared:

“There was a bat in the bedroom.” And then he nonchalantly walked over to the fridge to free up some space by grabbing a beer.

My mouth dropped and so did the package of celery that was working it’s way into a nook of drawer space as I screamed into the phone:

“HERE! In the NEW house! Why? How? Whyyyy?”

Husband cracked open his beer and walked over to the cupboard in the entryway to replace the hammer.

I stood there with my mouth open, looking up, over my shoulders, scanning the walls and then up at  the ceiling again, scoping out any signs of additional intruders as he walked over to me, took a sip and said,

“Don’t worry. I got him with the hammer.”

What?

I have combined this little episode with the fact that I’ve  had a golfball sized crack in the driver’s side of my windshield since the beginning of May and a companion chip that showed up around mid June. I’m worried that we might soon be getting a call to pose for the cover of  the “Rednecks of America” magazine because I refuse to fix them. Because out here when you have a thirty mile drive to town behind gravel trucks and pickups that go too fast, I have convinced myself that installing a new windshield is like asking for another giant rock chip.

And so I will not take the risk. Instead, I’m somehow comforted knowing that I already have two giant rock chips and am okay with watching my world fly by this way. Because I know they’re there. Apparently I’m not comfortable with the invented and preconceived rock chip that is certain to appear once I spend money on my already ruined windshield.

That is ridiculous.

Which reminds me of another behavior that I cannot explain and certainly have no laid out plans to change. The dogs. When left to their own devices they continue to flee to the nearest drilling rig in search of leftover lunches, t-bone steaks, enchiladas and a rig hand willing to play fetch for hours and let them sleep in their camper. Each time we decide to trust the hooligans to be on their own unsupervised in the great outdoors we find ourselves scouring the countryside for the misguided pets only to find them miles away in doggy heaven.

And each time we go and look for them.

We can’t seem to take a hint. Feed them t-bones, let them sleep in our bed and keep them forever.

Dry dog food and a spot on the floor? When will we realize that ain’t cutting it?

And when will we get it together and build a damn fence already?

Which leads me to the weirdest thing of all. With all of the trouble we have keeping the dogs we have raised and fed for their entire canine lives at home, we have now discovered that a stray puppy is living in our grain bins and seeking refuge in the culvert underneath our road.  We have tried and failed to capture the little guy, who is more like a wild coyote now than a dog, skeptical and resourceful, but a bit intrigued by the humans who poke their heads in on him to fill his food bowl. And now our dinner conversations have been centered around how that poor pup got their in the first place.

And how we might tame him.

That stray puppy is strange and intriguing and sad mixed in with a twinge of that feeling of childhood wonder and hope that we might save this thing…

Yes, out here, no matter how predictable we think our lives have become, whether or not we expect the daily visit from the cattle to graze and shit in the short grass outside our unfenced yard despite the fact that there are acres to shit upon, we seem to always be a little in awe…

About how the dogs always run away and how we never learn. By the sudden startle of a horse, a swarm of unwelcome wasps, and this pan that has been sitting on this hill for longer than I have been alive and I have no idea why.

Yes, life out here is wonderful, broken, dusty, shitty, beautiful, predictably unpredictable…and just weird sometimes.










Yup.

Weird.

Up here, I always feel the same.

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I was interviewed today on Trent Loos‘s radio program, “Loos Tales.” Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer with a passion for the rural lifestyle. “Loos Tales” is dedicated to exploring the interesting people and places of Rural America.
Listen to our discussion here: 

http://www.ruralrouteradio.com/affiliates/thursruralroute.mp3

Now onward! I have to tell you how I feel about roundup season!

There are some tell-tale signs that fall is in the air. The evenings are getting cooler as the sun sets a bit more quickly and I am thinking about canning tomatoes so we can have a piece of summer all year round.

Yes, I’ll try my hand again at preserving our garden vegetables, but haven’t yet found a way to capture the smell of the season changing and the color of the green and gold leaves against an overcast morning sky. This season is so unpredictable, sneaking up on us slowly in the middle of a hot summer day and leaving with a strong gust of wind.

But this year it seems to be settling in despite the heat. The trees that were first to display their leaves this spring are the first to display their colors this September and I’m reminded of roundup season and spitting plums at my little sister on her pony, Jerry, as we rode to the reservation to gather cattle.

Fall roundup has always been one of my favorite events of the season. My memories find me as a young girl bundled up in my wool cap and my dad’s old leather chaps braving the cool morning and a long ride through coulees, up hills, along fence lines and under a sky that warmed the earth a little more with each passing hour.

I would strip off my cap first, and then went my gloves and coat, piled on a rock or next to a fence post for easy retrieval when the work was done.

But moving cattle, even then, never felt like work to me. Perhaps because I was never the one responsible for anything but following directions and watching the gate–it was a task that provided me with the perfect amount of adventure, freedom and accountability.

It was during that long wait from when the crew located all the cattle in the pasture, grouped them together and moved them toward my post that I would make up the best songs, sing the loudest and find ticks for slingshots or the perfect feather for my hat.

Turns out today, as an adult woman, my role when working cattle with Pops and Husband hasn’t changed much. I am the peripheral watcher, the girl who makes sure the cattle don’t turn back or find their way into the brush or through the wrong gate.

I am given direction and then left to my own devices while the guys head for the hills and I wait to see if I will have to battle a horse who is whinnying and prancing and wishing he could go with them.

Sometimes I get lucky and he just stands still.

Sometimes I wait for what seems like hours for any sign of life coming from the trees–the best time still to make up a few melodies in my head and collect photo opportunities.

Because sometimes, most of the time,  it’s just nice.

Nice and easy like it was on Monday morning when Pops showed up with our horses already caught and saddled and asked us to help him move the cows home from the west pasture.

Who could refuse that kind of valet service? So we pulled on our boots and obliged, sitting on the backs of our horses walking slowly, swatting the sticky flies with their tails and anticipating that the calm and sunny morning was sure to turn into a hot afternoon.

I could walk these trails on the back of a horse forever and not get tired of them. Because each month the pastures change–a new fence wire breaks, the creek floods and flows and dries up, the ground erodes and the cows cut new trails, reminding me that the landscape is a moving, breathing creature.

And I am the most alive when I’m out here. I think the guys are too, making conversation about the cattle industry as they make plans for the day. I follow behind like I always have and look around to notice the way the light bounces off of cowboy hats and trees slowly turning golden.

I wait for instruction and find my direction while Husband cuts a path through the trees to search for hidden cows and Pops lopes up to the hilltop to scan the countryside.

I move a small herd toward the gate and wake a bull from the tall grass at the edge of the pasture.

Pops comes up off the hill to join me, the cattle he’s found moving briskly in front of him toward the rest of the herd. We meet up and discuss where Husband might be and turn around to find him waiting at the gate with the rest of the cattle.

And that’s how it went on Monday, the three of us pushing the cows along, Pops at the back of the herd counting, taking note of brands and numbers,

Husband on the hillside making sure they turn the right way,

and me watching the brush.

We pushed the cattle slowly with the sun warming our backs and sweat beading on our foreheads as morning turned to a sweltering afternoon.

We headed toward home and talked about lunch and the fencing that needed to get done that day.

And cattle prices.

And the deer population.

And a pony for Little Man.

And the weather and the changing leaves and all of the things that need discussing when you’re on the back of a horse, on the edge of a season, on a piece of earth that’s constantly changing…

even though, year after year, up here…

I always feel the same.

 

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.

Summer: A photo recap.

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September is creeping in on us as summer draws to a close.

Summer.

It’s my favorite season, but this year it has definitely been a challenging one. So I’m sad to see it go. I haven’t enjoyed it the way I should have. I haven’t ridden enough horses, I haven’t taken enough walks. I haven’t basked long enough in the sun or written enough songs about  the way the light floods through these windows in the morning.

So tonight I want to celebrate the moments of summer I was able to catch. We may not have had the chance to spend the time together, but the time she gave me was breathtaking and heartbreaking and awe-inspiring and peaceful and colorful and all the things summer is in my heart.

March 10. First ride of the new spring season.

March 21, my first crocus siting of the season…

April 17: My world starts to blossom

April 22: A spring joy ride…

with my favorite cowboy

April 25: Celebrating the green grass.

May 1: And the sky is a perfect blend of blue and white and fuzzy horse face.

May 6: Paddlefishing season!

May 10: The wildflowers bloom.

May 14: And the ranch comes to life.

June 2: The river calls again and it’s my turn to catch something.

June 5: The babies arrive!

June 7: The rain soaked the leaves…

and the badlands…

and the horses…

and the pug.

June 12: A country church along a back road…

June 17: And then there was the back road itself…

July 2: Summer settles in and we pick our favorite horses

July 7: We turn our faces up toward the hot sun.

July 10: We welcome the friendly bugs and watch our garden grow

July 21: The hot sun sets on us.

July 21: Checking the cows.

August 7: We’re home!

August 16: Bullberries in the morning.

August 18: Husband got himself another big catch!

August 26: And then there’s the dogs again…

Ah, summer, if I could put you in a jar beside my bed you know I would.

Enjoy the dog days everyone!

If you need me, I’ll be out catching salamanders…

My weird and mysterious backyard…

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When you live out here it is easy to see the big picture. All you have to do is climb to the nearest hilltop and take in the view.

From way up there you will see the Blue Buttes to the north, the creek bed lined with oak trees below, the rolling grasses and the stock dams under the big blue sky.

I like the view from up there, it puts me in perspective. It takes my breath away when I need something breathtaking and gives me a second wind when I am running low.

But for as much as we can all appreciate a great view from above it all, for me there has always been something magical about life on the ground level of the world.

I’ve written about it before, about taking a step off of the road to cut through the trees. I’ve written about looking down, about honing in on the soft petals of a flower or the way the dry grass glints in the sunlight.

All of those small things that live down there among the pebbles and budding seeds remind me that there is a world still unexplored and mysterious.

And kinda weird and disgusting.  

Fall Spider

I’ll tell you, out here, Husband and I are easily distracted by these sort of things. We spent this weekend cleaning up the construction debris that had accumulated in the yard of our new house. It wasn’t the most thrilling of tasks, throwing weathered pieces of broken siding, particle board and plastic warp into the back of the pickup only to unload it into the dump site and come back for another load, but Husband kept it interesting by hollaring at me to come and look at every creepy, crawly thing he found under the wood pile. He would take my guesses on what we would find as he flipped over big, heavy boards or moved sheeting.

I always guessed worms.

And hoped for something better.

It was like a treasure hunt, especially when we would discover a frog or a salamander.

Not so especially when we tallied up Husband’s spider count.

Husband hates spiders.

But the two of us share an affinity for reptiles and amphibians, both known to have kept lizards, snakes and frogs as pets in our lifetime. So when he yelled out “Jess! Found another salamander over here!” he wasn’t surprised that I was quick to throw down the current piece of junk I was hauling and drop to my knees to inspect the creature.

And then take some pictures.

I can’t imagine what Pops thought when he came into the yard to find me in the middle of our trash piling project pointing my camera into a dirt clump.

He did shake his head a little when I continued to interrupt our conversation with my obnoxious command at the pug to leave the salamanders alone.

My dad was so distracted by my break-up tactic that the man actually relocated the salamander to a safer spot to get me to shut up.

Pops is used to this sort of thing.

Anyway, this is the part where I ponder my fascination with the creatures that lurk and buzz and squirm below our feet. This is the part where I wonder why I’m so enamored with the tiny bodies and skeletal structure of the creatures who share my backyard.

But I don’t have much to say about it except that I know why I look down.

Because when I think all has been discovered, that there is no more adventure in the world, I just have to remind myself to look a little closer, to discover the barn spider and marvel at her web.

When I notice the perfect pattern on the salamander’s slimy back and the way the tiny frog blends in perfectly with the mud I am reminded that there’s always more ways to be in awe.

If I just remember to notice the small things. 

To be like the bull berries…

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I need to buy a dress the color of the bull berries.

I would wear it to remind myself that through rain, shine, sleet, snow, hail or blinding winds…

there is still color in the world.

And beauty that holds on through all of the storms.

I would wear it to remind myself to be sweet despite those things that are sharp and hurtful and unexpected.

I would wear it and remember to be constant and tough–an unshakeable splash of life among the thorns.

I would wear it to be like the bull berries…

in every season.

When you take the time to fish…

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North Dakota summers don’t last long.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again as I take notice of the days getting a bit shorter, the grass a bit more golden, the heat a little more dry and nights that cool us all down.

Today the kids of my community will be packing up their book bags and climbing on school busses and I will have the feeling I always get as summer winds down as fall waits around the corner.

I will miss my favorite season before my favorite season is even over.

I will wonder where the time’s gone, why my skin isn’t more tan, why the work isn’t finished, why I didn’t pick more wildflowers, why I forgot to plant cucumbers and why my requirements of summer have not been adequately fulfilled.

I think husband was thinking the same thing as last week drew to a close. He’s been spending every waking minute hammering nails, wiring something, tinkering with plumbing, sawing, planning and wondering if we are ever going to eat a meal before 10 pm again…

Because while my requirements for summer include a sun tan, evening walks to hilltops, numerous cocktails on the deck, floating in the lake and popsicles, most of the men in this area only have one summer dream…

Fishing.

And husband was wondering last week if that dream was ever going to come true.

Up the gravel road a ways my friend has her own husband with his own fishing dreams, but it turns out he’s a little more serious about them.

Because he has a boat.

So on hot summer evenings she has found herself sitting alongside her dearly beloved as he trolls through the waters of Lake Sakakawea searching for a monster walleye to bring back to the ranch and fry up for supper.

And while he scours the lake, she quietly hones her own skills, innocently and unexpectedly pulling in nice sized catches off of the back of the vessel.

While her husband theorizes about bait and tackle and the relationship the two choices have on his ability to catch a trophy fish, his wife chooses the prettiest lure, attaches it to her pink fishing pole, drops it in the water and pulls out a giant northern.

And then a walleye.

And then a bass.

And another northern.

And another walleye.

And another bass.

Her husband finds this amusing at first, until the tenth fish begins to inhibit his ability to concentrate on his own catch.

He re-baits his line to match her concoction:  “A purple lure, one minnow and a half a worm.”

He drops his line in the water.

She follows.

He waits.

She yells “Oh, yep! Yep! Got one.”

He grabs the net, she reels in her catch and the cycle continues until the sun sinks down below the horizon and casts sparkling light on the waves of the big lake.

I’m not sure this story would have been told this way had I not seen it for myself this weekend when our friends offered to take us along on one of their epic fishing trips. Husband was glad to oblige and I quickly loaded up our Cheetos and cooler of beer while he dug around the graveyard of lonely and unused fishing tackle to find the poles we last touched on our unsuccessful May catfishing excursion.

We were happy to leave our work behind and glad to have friends willing to take us on out on the water.

I was prepared to lounge in the boat, soak up some sun, drink a few cocktails and probably not catch a thing.

Husband was prepared to do the same.

But three minutes into the fishing excursion, two minutes after we baited our hooks, my friend started her roll.

“Oh yep. Yep. Got one!” she hollered off the end of the boat just as I dropped my line in the water.

And she reeled in a great big northern.

I opened the bag of Cheetos and she caught another.

I took my first drink of beer and she reeled in her third.

We all changed our lures to match her sparkly green one.

And then we put on one minnow and a half of a worm.

And as her husband steered the boat along the banks of his favorite spots he worked to set the hook on his first nibble as his lovely wife reeled in her fourth catch of the day.

My husband got a bite.

She got another fish.

I got a snag.

My friend caught a bass.

Her husband caught a tree, my husband caught some bait…

and my friend caught another walleye.

I cracked another beer and her husband suggested that perhaps she should give it a rest so the rest of us might have a chance.

Oh, somewhere in there I caught a few fish of my own and so did the boys.

But really, despite the jokes about luck and timing and never taking his wife along again, it wasn’t about the fish at all, except I couldn’t help but hold my breath every time my friend dropped her line in the water. Because the excitement that flew out of her lungs with each nibble was bouncing off the buttes and energizing the water surrounding us. All I wanted was for her to catch more fish.

I think we all felt the same way.

Because the season is short and fleeting around here, the sun doesn’t shine forever and the fish don’t always bite. But watching my friend squeal as she reeled in fish after fish gave me something to keep in my pocket for those days when December feels like years.

So I think our neighbors have it figured it–that summer isn’t about the time, but how the time is spent…

And it turns out you just can’t go wrong when you take the time to fish.