The saga of the missing suitcase…

Posted on December 9, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

My husband and I are at a weird stage in our lives. I think most refer to it as “middle age,” but, as most stages go, you don’t fully understand it until you reach it yourself.

I was talking to one of my friends recently who was lamenting this phase as well: “I have one kid planning for college and I’m packing ‘extra emergency accident clothes’ in another’s backpack. It’s wild.”

Which brings me to a little story I’ll call “The Saga of the Missing Suitcase,” which started in early October and ended last week with the serious revelation that I need to start taking those memory supplements my mother gave me for my 40th birthday.

Anyway, God bless all my friends, co-workers and family, who, for a solid two months, have had to hear about the absolute mystery of how I could have lost an entire suitcase that contained my expensive curling iron and hair dryer between town and home when I distinctly remember unpacking it on the floor of our bedroom.

What could have happened to it if it’s not in my car, the pickup, the garage or anywhere in my house whatsoever? My mom was looking. My husband was looking. Could it be in a ditch somewhere with my sanity? Did I hallucinate the fact that I brought it inside and unpacked it? Did someone come into the house and steal it? I was mixed up and totally frazzled, and so was my hair.

“Do you remember what that suitcase looks like?” my husband nudged. “No one is going to steal it. More likely it got thrown in the trash.”

After a month of searching with no success, I broke down and bought myself a new, too-expensive curling iron and dug out the old hair dryer we use to warm up cold, newborn calves in the spring. I decided only God truly knows the fate of my wares and wondered how early is too early to check myself into the nursing home …

Fast forward to last week when I was organizing my closet and preparing to pack for a trip. Because it’s barely been above zero for the past few weeks now, I decided it was time to store the last of my summer clothes in the big blue summer clothes bin. To get to that big blue summer clothes bin, I needed to climb the stairs, open the door of the closet, and remove the stack of old picture frames and purses I need to give away from the top of that bin to get to the lid.

What I’m saying here is that it took effort.

As in, I had to dig and un-pile piles. I had to get on my hands and knees and rearrange items. It was a whole thing. Which is relevant only because when I finally got to the part where I opened the lid expecting to toss the summer dresses into storage with my shorts, tank tops and sandals, I found instead … my suitcase.

Of course I did.

Because that seems like a logical place to store an only partially unpacked piece of luggage.

Why? I really couldn’t tell you. I have no real memory of the task. But at least I was right about my missing beauty appliances sitting inside as the only things I didn’t bother putting away. I apparently just needed to spend money on a replacement for the mystery to be solved.

Anyway, now that I’ve brought you through that wearisome journey, I bring you back to where we started, which is that weird stage we’re in where our pants are hooked on the barbed wire fence between youth and a front porch rocking chair. Because after I gave a little hoot at my discovery and promptly texted all my friends who have had to hear about this saga for weeks, I ran down the steps to tell my husband, who I found was in the middle of a shower. But the news couldn’t wait. I pulled open the door and chirped, “I have a very important announcement! Can you guess what it is?”

My husband stopped scrubbing the soap in his armpits and frantically searched the expression on my face through the steamy glass door. His heart sank to his stomach. He looked terrified. I paid it no mind. I was too happy.

“I found my suitcase!” I sang with delight and then went on to explain the whole ordeal you all just had to endure, totally oblivious to the fact that there could possibly be a more important, more heart-pounding declaration at this point in our very adult lives.

“Oh, Lord!” my husband replied with a big exhale. “I thought you were going to say you were pregnant!”

Increasingly forgetful with a small side of “I guess it’s still possible” … that’s where we’re at.

If you need me, I’m probably looking for my phone I put down around here somewhere.

Peace, love and Prevagen,
Jessie

Celebrating doing what we love at the sale barn

Posted on December 3, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Last week, on the tail end of the season’s first blizzard that shut down schools and created precarious road conditions, we bundled up in long johns and Carhartts to work our cattle and haul our calves to the sale barn 60 miles south of us.

There’s nothing as important, nostalgic or nerve-wracking as shipping day at the ranch. The culmination of a year’s worth of water tank checking, fence fixing, winter feeding, spring calving, bum calf saving, bottle feeding, branding, vaccinating, missing and injured bull drama, pen rearranging, haying, equipment breakdowns, and number crunching comes down to four minutes, three pens of calves and an auctioneer.

In the modern days of ranching, there are plenty of different ways to sell your calves and cattle, from online sales to direct to consumer. But for decades, we have sold our calves at Stockmen’s Livestock Exchange in Dickinson, with its wood-paneled walls, steep, concrete bleachers, and familiar faces sitting along linoleum countertops eating the best hot beef sandwich in town because you’ve been gathering and sorting all morning and drove a big trailer through the breaks and you need to thaw out, which you will, because it’s warm in there and this is what we do.

And maybe every sale barn in America looks and sounds and smells like this, and maybe every rancher or rancher’s kid who walks through the doors of a place like Stockmen’s is immediately transported to his or her first sale, if only for the moment the sharp aroma hits their nostrils. And I say aroma because we wouldn’t dare say it stinks, the scent of grit and hard decisions and risk and long days in and out in the weather.

“When I was a kid, oh man, if I could be that guy, I thought that would be the best job in the world,” my dad said, nodding toward the young man pushing calves up through the alley and into the sale ring in front of the auctioneer crow’s nest.

I sat between him and my husband on those wide, concrete bleachers, listening to the men take guesses on cattle weights, Dad coming in a bit short and Chad even shorter nearly every guess. Per tradition, our daughters got to skip school to come with us to the sale, and even at the fresh ages of 9 and 7, nostalgia took the wheel immediately upon entering the doors.

“I remember this place, where the guy sounds like he’s yodeling,” my 7-year-old declared, her backpack stuffed with markers and papers to help fill the time spent waiting for our calves to take the ring. “Let’s sit in the top row like last time so we can spread out our coloring!”

And so, we spread out the way families do here, among the buyers and the spectators and the other ranching families. I spotted a little boy with toy tractors and plastic horses playing farm beside his mom, and I said what I’ve said for the last five years or so: “Girls, when you were little, we brought you here in your pink cowboy hats and you cried so loud when you realized our calves weren’t coming home with us that I had to take you out of the building.” They laughed because they like stories about themselves and spent the next half-hour asking if it was our turn yet.

And when it was, that familiar jump hit the bottom of my stomach and did some flips as the auctioneer said our names and graciously praised our calf crop.

“It’s not lost on me the absolute privilege I have to sit next to my dad and my husband, with our daughters wiggling and scootching between our laps, at the pinnacle of what it means to carry on a family agricultural endeavor,” .

And in these particular moments, it’s not lost on me the absolute privilege I have to sit next to my dad and my husband, with our daughters wiggling and scootching between our laps, at the pinnacle of what it means to carry on a family agricultural endeavor. It is and always has rung profound to me in a way that makes the candy bars we got to buy at the Stockmen’s Café every year when we were kids some of the most precious treats of our little lives.

Because somehow, even at such tender ages without a prayer of deciphering the auctioneer’s yodeling, we knew the weight the day carried.

And if you’re lucky and the market is good, in those moments after the sale, the weight feels lighter and you take the family out for pizza and arcade games because it’s a tradition you’ve added to the long list of little ways to celebrate being able to do the thing we love for yet another year.

Taking care

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It snowed for the first time on our drive town this morning. It started with rain and then suddenly we have a new season on our hands. I was not prepared, of course. My oldest daughter doesn’t fit into her snow boots, snow pants or coat. Two of the three things are still coming in the mail. The third I forgot about until the drive to town. I wonder how a weather change could have snuck up on me like this, as if I haven’t lived with the promise of snow any moment my entire life.

I wonder how I am surprised every time I realize my kids grow, as if I don’t watch it happening with every second helping of oatmeal and spaghetti.

Waiting around every corner is a way to fail at parenting. I spent the past three days away from my family, on the other side of the state performing and singing for my supper as I do. I never worry about leaving the kids back at the ranch with my husband on the scene because, honestly, he has about as much control as I do at any given minute, which means sometimes he doesn’t. We’re aligned in that way. Neither one of us is too uptight because we’re both bordering on being a little too laid back. And so I understand that a spic and span house is not in the cards for me when I arrive home from a long weekend away, because, frankly, it isn’t really in the cards for me when I stay home.

But when I’ve been driving for six hours and surviving on coffee and fast food and I arrive home past bedtime and find a bowl of crusty butter noodles and a bag of open and half-eaten sour cream and onion potato chips on my bedroom nightstand I couldn’t help but wonder—if the kids were going to eat every meal and snack of the day in my bed, they could have at least hidden the evidence.

Judging from the countertop relics, it looks like they had fun without me. They made brownies and quesadillas. Ate Halloween candy and made friendship bracelets. The entryway indicated they rode dirt bike and shot bows. A phone conversation said they had friends over and ate goat steaks and who knew, goat steaks are good!

I reported from the road that things were going fine. I was on my way home and I still had hours to go, so my husband stayed on the line to visit. We talked about the cows and the water tanks, holiday plans and shipping calves and the big drama that occurred when our youngest found the elf on the shelf hanging out in a drawer like a civilian stuffed animal.

It was almost a tragedy, but he saved it somehow and he thinks the magic can continue.

Like I said, a parenting fail just waiting around every corner…

On our way home from school on Election Day, my six-year-old asked me if I would be happy if she wanted to run for president. I said I would if that’s what she wanted. And then she said, “No, I don’t think I would like that. It would be like having 100 bazillion kids to take care of. That’s too much.”

The next morning, we woke up and the nation decided on a new president. Some were devastated. Some were elated. Some were just happy it was over.

And despite the six-year-old’s sentiment, or where you fall on the scale of scared and elated, I’m here to remind you, the taking care of one another has always been up to us.

Do your boots still fit? Do you have a warm coat? Can you stay for supper?

Red Barns and People Get Old

Posted on November 5, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The Official Music Video for Red Barns and People Get Old has just been published. Please take a moment with this special and personal story about generational ranching and the hearts and land involved.

Thank you for listening and thank you for sharing with the people in your life who may see a familiar story in this song.

Red Barns and People Get Old: Written by Jessie Veeder
Starring: Cody Brown, Carol Mikkelson and Rosie Scofield
Special thanks to Patty Sax
Directed by: Nolan Johnson DoP Editor/Editor: Steven Dettling
Video by ‪@quantumdigital1404‬

Recorded at ‪@omnisoundstudios‬ ‬ Nashville, TN
Produced, Mixed and Mastered by Bill Warner, Engineered by Josh Emmons and Bill Warner

jessieveedermusic.com

Night worries

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

This morning I dreamed of the rain.

The window to our bedroom was open and in my dreams I smelled it and heard it falling on the oak leaves still clinging tight to the branches. In our bed, between my body and my husband’s, our youngest daughter slept. Sometime during the darkest hours of the night, she wedged herself there, as she usually does, on a sleepy hunt for her father.

She is still only six. Or, she’s almost seven! She should sleep through the night on her own by now! We go back and forth on where we land with this, but in the middle of the night when the child needs someone to hold on to, neither one of us feels the need to fight it too hard. She’ll be grown soon. The bed is big enough. She won’t need us like this forever. I pull back the covers and I let her in.

I woke this morning to my alarm singing. Last week at this time, the sky would have been pink with the sunrise. This morning it was black.

“It’s time to wake up,” I huffed into the dark as my bare feet searched for the floor.

“Did it rain? Or did I dream it?”

My husband rolled over to try to wake our daughter and told me it wasn’t a dream. I pressed my face to the window screen to smell it the way I smelled it in my dream.

Even with the rain falling, my sleep wasn’t restful. My mind woke my body to worry about bills and things I shouldn’t have said and the work I should have done by now. And then enter the state of the suffering in the world, then of people I know and love, and things I can’t possibly change. Not at 3 am. Not ever.

Why is the quietest part of the night the loudest in my head?

Last week I visited a tiny town in North Dakota to play some music for a special event. In my career as a touring musician, I’ve had the privilege of learning how so many rural communities choose to bring people together, on a blocked off Main Street, in a Legion Club steel building, in an old high school gym, in parks and on patios. I perch myself up behind a microphone to tell stories to people listening intently or to a room full of folks who just want to visit, my music the backdrop to their conversations about the weather, the hay crop, the football team, the latest local tragedy or scandal. I use the word privilege because I regard the opportunity that way, even when the night is long and it feels like no one is listening. I get a front row seat to watch it all play out, who’s refilling the punch bowl and swapping the casserole dishes. Who’s folding programs and is the only one who knows how to turn on the old sound system. Who makes her rounds to each table to say hello. Who sticks around after to put away the folding chairs. Who’s kid grabs the big broom when the room is all cleared out.

Usually, I’m sent down the road with an extra centerpiece or noodle salad or a bag full of sandwiches and plenty of kind words and “thanks for coming all this way,” sometimes apologetically, as if their community isn’t as deserving of a visit as any other community in this country.

The air feels heavy as the weight of an election year makes big waves, moving through our conversations, across our kitchen tables, streaming through our speakers, screaming in the street. I lay awake last night and wondered, after all my life experience on the road and working in small towns, why it’s easier to holler enemy than try to understand one another. We’re making rivals out of our neighbors. It’s unsettling.

If I’m being honest, I’ve written and re-written the next two paragraphs a dozen times. Because I’m not sure what to say next. Here’s what I chose: Maybe you too were up in the quiet hours of the night with a loud head and a heavy heart. Maybe you felt lonesome or helpless, even with someone lying right next to you. Maybe you stood up and walked to the kitchen to feed your body and look at the moon. Maybe you slept soundly and dreamed about rain. Maybe you didn’t sleep at all.
And maybe, in the midst of your insomnia, your daughter crawled in bed with you because she needs to be close. She needs to feel safe and loved. She needs something to hold on to.

And maybe, in the most tumultuous times, we could be brave enough to consider she’s all of us…

And the magic followed us home

Posted on October 21, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

When we were growing up my little sister and I would spend every minute the weather would let us out in the trees behind our house. We’d get off the bus, take a snack break and then we’d get out there. Because the creek and how it changed with the seasons was more magical to us than anything else in our world in the 90s.

My sisters and I are spread out pretty far in age. I’m in the middle of a lineup that puts my older sister seven years ahead of me and my younger sister five years behind me. I never got the bathroom to myself. Ever. But also, that age gap seemed to make things a little quieter on the ranch back then.

Now that my little sister and I are raising daughters close in age and right over the hill from one another, we find ourselves trying to re-live our childhood adventures with them. They’re not babies anymore, so we’re excited to take them down to that creek to follow it, wade in it, and help them float sticks and build little boats.

Just to give you a glimpse into what we’re dealing with here….

And so that’s why we found ourselves a mile or so in the back woods by a little beaver dam with all four of our daughters last weekend on a perfectly beautiful fall day. As usual, it took forty-seven years to get all four of them in their shoes and out the door at the same time because someone needed to pee, someone needed a new hairstyle, someone had a hang-nail and someone was already outside somewhere and we couldn’t find her. It’s either that or they are so deep in their own game of Barbies or Babies or Animal Doctor or Orphaned Children on the playground that convincing them to follow us into the woods takes a lot more prodding than we expected. And when we finally got them all together and moving the same direction, well, someone always has to pee.

Anyway, marching with four girls aged four, six, seven and eight out into the wilds of this place is a little noisier than when it was just me making up Disney-style songs and my little sister trailing secretly behind. Now, as moms searching for that same feeling of wonder and freedom, the two of us walk out into this magical and familiar world with our daughters and, well, yes there is singing, but think more like, “This is the Song that Never Ends,” only with words Rosie is making up as she goes along and also, like really, really loud.

“Look at these beautiful trees,” my little sister exclaims as her youngest daughter drags her long hair through a patch of sticky cockleburs. Her oldest picks up her thirtieth stick.

We have gone fourteen steps.

My eight-year-old, Edie, who has suddenly developed a plague that didn’t exist when we were in the house ten minutes ago, sneezes and a giant green snot string dangles ominously out of her left nostril. We have now gone fifteen steps. I gag and she sort of just stands there. Rosie screams “Snot Rocket!” and I give a lesson on choosing the right leaf because no one has a tissue. She chooses a giant piece of oak-tree bark.

We have now gone sixteen steps. Rosie’s gone 345, mostly up hill.

We stop for the youngest to pick up another piece of moss to add to her acorn and tiny stick collection. She asks her mom to hold it. She refuses. She asks me. I say yes, of course, because she’s my adorable niece.

Rosie finds a fluffy turkey feather. Edie finds another giant piece of bark that she intends on floating down the creek, but the creek is running pretty low and slow, so she’s saving it for the beaver dam. She asks me to carry it. I say no. She asks her aunt. She says yes. Because of course, she’s her adorable niece.

The breeze picks up and in the golden light of the morning the trees sway above our heads and gently sprinkle us with falling leaves and in that moment, we feel like we’re in a fairytale.

“SPOOKY, SCARY, SKELETON SENDS SHIVERS DOWN YOUR SPINE!” blasts from Rosie at the top of the draw.

The youngest falls down.

The seven-year-old has to pee.

We reach the beaver dam.

“Look at how the blue sky reflects on the water girls,” my little sister says as that same water spills over the top of Edie’s shoes. She flops the bark in the shallow end. It pops up and goes nowhere. She sneezes again and sits in the tall dry grass.

“I’m sick,” Edie declares.

“SPOOKY, SCARY SKELETONS SPEAK WITH SUCH A SCREECCCHHH!!!”

“Time to head back girls! Do you think you remember what way we came from? Follow the trail,” my little sister takes a cue and we watch three girls head the exact wrong direction.

Edie lays down. My sister and I look at each other and laugh weakly, hands full of sticks, we holler into the woods, “Follow us now!” and off we go, the magic and adventure follows us home…

He got stuck..

Posted on October 10, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Photo out our back window on Saturday of the Bear Den Fire raging just five miles or so to the North West of the Ranch. Chad and countless other first responders, ranchers and community members spent hours and hours in 50-70 MPH winds trying their best to battle the dangerous spread.

On Saturday we had wild fires rage across Western North Dakota. Over 100,000 acres of cropland, federal land and private ranch land has burned. Two fires, one just to the northeast of our ranch surrounding the town of Mandaree, is only 40% contained as of yesterday. The National Guard has been working to contain this one and one in the badlands to the south west of us for the past five days. Homes, pastureland and livestock have been lost. Worst of all, two lives were taken by these fires, men who were trying to fight them in the area around Ray, ND. Please send us prayers for rain. And if you feel inclined, here’s a link to help aid the ranchers who lost so much this past week.

The North Dakota Stockmen’s Association and North Dakota Stockmen’s Foundation have teamed up to support cattle-ranching families in North Dakota who have suffered catastrophic losses in the horrific wildfires. In addition to their own $50,000 gift, the NDSA and NDSF are inviting others to join with them to provide financial support to help these ranchers rise from the ashes and rebuild their herds, their homes and their hope. Checks can be sent to the North Dakota Stockmen’s Foundation with “Out of the Ashes” written in the memo, or credit card gifts can be made at https://app.givingheartsday.org/#/charity/1576. The NDSA and NDSF will distribute 100% of the money raised to the victims of the wildfires through an application and nomination process. Applications will be available later this month. The NDSF is a 501(c)3.

The latest information about the state of these wildfires can be found here

Many of you have checked in on us as this news has developed. We were lucky as the wind was favorable to blow these fires away from our homes and the ranch, but many of my friends weren’t as lucky. And with the dry conditions and hot spots still looming, we’re not out of the woods until the snow falls. Thank you for your concern and thank you to the first responders who are working to keep us safe.

With that, lets move on to a more light-hearted predicament we found ourselves in last week on the ranch. I write about it in last week’s column:

He got stuck…

Last week I looked out the window to find my husband walking through the home pasture gate in the middle of the morning, like I do when I take a little stroll except my husband hasn’t taken a little stroll in his entire life. So naturally, I could only conclude that something did not go as planned.

And probably, more than likely, the man got something stuck somewhere…

Around here, no one really gives anyone guff about being stuck, because you never know when it could be you. Because, inevitably, it’s gonna be you.

But the man, he walked almost two miles in pretty cold 50 mph winds just to avoid the call to me or his father-in-law for help. I asked him why he didn’t use his “phone a friend” option and he said a guy who gets himself stuck so stupidly probably deserves to walk a good mile or so, you know, as a sort of lesson or punishment or something.

But walk-of-shame or not, he did need help, so he rounded up another side-by-side and me, his wife, who was wearing the entirely wrong outfit for traipsing around in 50 mph autumn winds miles from civilization (which is almost always my outfit choice in times of impromptu crisis.)

When I tell you this is not side-by-side or ATV country, I mean it. The denial of this fact is what lands us all in the sort of stuck-up-to-the-floorboards predicaments my husband found himself in that day. Because we live on the only quarter of North Dakota that isn’t entirely flat. We live where the hills drop down to form coulees ripe with springs and creeks that hold water and mud at different levels at different times depending on the season or the mood just to keep it sketchy and iffy and dangerous. And in those coulees the thorns and the brush patches thrive and twist and tangle over cattle and deer trails, letting enough light in to make you think you can make it through without a tree branch to the face, but usually you can’t, especially if your little sister or big brother is riding in front of you, scheduling that branch release to land just right.

Anyway, you can avoid the brush and the big canopy of oaks and ash trees if you keep to the hilltops, but you can never avoid the rocks and the holes and the craters on the edge of the badlands, so this is why we ride horses mostly. And, well, honestly, we’ve had to pull a good handful of horses out of thick mud and ravines in our days too…

But we forget all this somehow when we think we’re just gonna go check something quick, as if the fact that we’re in a hurry changes the landscape in some way. And that’s what my husband was doing that day he hopped in his all-terrain-vehicle and decided to go look for a missing bull, you know, real quick.

“What were you doing?” I asked him when het got into the house, cheeks flushed and a bit winded from the ordeal.

“Yeah, I’m stuck. Like, way back east.”

And I tell you, between being raised by my dad and being married to my husband and being, well, me, I have seen a lot of serious stuck-in-something-or-other predicaments and so I wasn’t surprised to find that this most recent one was no different. A classic case of “the crick bottom looks dry enough” and then, surprise, surprise, it gives way to the stinkiest, stickiest, black mud that Mother Nature makes. I know. I’ve been here before myself, I just happened to be a little closer to home.

And I tried not to say anything. I did. I stood there and took my directions as he hooked one bumper to the other with a random old calf roping rope that was in the back of the second ATV. I wondered to myself silently why on earth my husband didn’t bring a tow strap or a chain since he knew the task ahead of him. But I didn’t say anything. Not even when he instructed me to gas it but try not to spin the tires, but gas it, but try not to spin the tires, but gas it, and we went on like this not moving a nudge for a good 30 to to 60 seconds before his makeshift tow-rope snapped.

Then I couldn’t hold it. I had to ask, why. Why no tow strap? Why no chain?

Because he thought he had one.

Fair enough. Been there. But I was certain then that both of us would be walking home in no time and wished I wouldn’t have worn these stupid leggings and no wool cap like a dummy.

So then, because I couldn’t help myself looking at the cliff-like, brush tangled terrain in front of the stuck-side-by-side, I had to add ,“Where were you gonna go if you actually made it? “

I didn’t get a real clear answer on that one…

But the man is nothing if he’s not determined. So out came the shovel (he did remember that), a bit more rearranging of the rope, a bit more shoveling and five or six more “gun its” and well, what ‘do ‘ya know, we were out.

So off we went, me following him following our tracks back to the house. It was a miracle! I never doubted it! Sorta felt like a date then. I wonder if he learned his lesson…

And now, because I am publishing this for you and Jesus to read, I suppose to be fair, some day I’ll tell you how I got the side-by-side stuck between a tree and the dog kennel in our yard this summer. Well, my side of the story at least.

Stay safe out there. If you need me I’ll be hosing the black mud off the side-by-side and my stupid leggings…

Memories in the closet

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

My husband and I spent an entire Sunday cleaning out the closets and drawers and nooks and crannies of our bedroom in our loft in an effort to officially move into the new bedroom he built for us on the main floor of the house. This room was part of a home addition project that went on longer than…well…let’s just say babies have been born and have had their first day of school in the time it took us to finally paint the walls.

But the fact that I won’t have to climb the stairs to our bedroom with my laundry when I’m 90 and my knees are bad is something I will thank us for when I’m 90 and my knees are bad.

For over ten years we’ve been working on and living in a house that we have no plans to ever move from. And so, unlike other families, we haven’t had the whole “moving house” excuse to force us to sort through my husband’s 30-year t-shirt collection or deal with my need to have two or three pairs of boots in every color. I think the last time we tackled that project was when we moved into this house over ten years ago.

Anyway, since it should be obvious that absolutely none of my boots need to be given or thrown away, let’s talk about my husband’s inherited traits that beckon him to save things like tiny little washers and screws, bits of wire, one thousand stray plumbing parts, non-working batteries and every feed store and oil company ball cap he was ever gifted throughout his entire adulthood. The instincts he has to fight when presented with the idea that maybe he isn’t a polo-shirt kind of guy even though he owns four to five perfectly good polo shirts is distressing.

Dear Husband, you never wear these. Well, ok, maybe that one time we went on a cruise fifteen years ago. But maybe it’s time to let them go. They have collected literal dust while hanging in this closet. Maybe give the shirts to someone who spends his weekends golfing instead of fixing fences, water tanks and tractors. You are more of a snap-shirt kind of guy. Which is a good thing, because you currently own 325 of them.

Anyway, when it comes time for a great-closet-clean-out, I have implemented a system to help the poor, tortured soul. And it basically looks like me pulling out shirts and jeans so worn you can practically see through them, holding each item up so he can get a good view, giving him a beat to process his attachment, and then forcing him into a decision. Keep? Give? Toss? It’s easier if I’m the one with the garbage bags. And I don’t give him any pushback if he says keep. I have to remain an ally.

But truly, I must hand it to the man. He is as loyal as they come in the world, and that loyalty applies everywhere –even t-shirts. Which you can argue is a result of his low-key sentimentality, especially when you realize that he still has the one I bought him for his sixteenth birthday. Ask me someday about the pair of underwear he kept for long enough that the holes finally connected to turn them into a skirt.

Sentimental to the core. And a bit superstitious? Maybe.

Anyway, lately my husband and I don’t spend long stretches of time together. With both of us working two to three jobs and running after our rapidly growing daughters, our idea of a date has turned into me riding along in the side-by-side to check water tanks without the kids.

And last Sunday, on a perfectly beautiful fall day, one of the last things I wanted to do was sort through piles of decisions and problems of our own making. But I caught my husband in a weak moment where he thought cleaning out the bedroom was a better option than cleaning out 85 years of stuff that has accumulated in the ranch shop, and so he joined me up there in my pursuit of a normal, tidy life.

And who knew moving dressers, throwing away three generations of cell phone boxes, flipping through half-read books and, eventually, piles and piles of t-shirts, would turn out to be a fun little exercise in reminiscing. We excavated that weird and worn “bear with the antlers” shirt he got from a thrift store in 1999 and suddenly we were back driving backroads in his Thunderbird. Two vintage camo-t-shirts that were his dad’s and he was twelve, bored in a hunting blind, waiting on a deer to walk by. Even I couldn’t let him part with those. Oh, there were plenty of plain ‘ol shirts in the pile, but when we came across one from a music festival or a band we loved, or a trip we took, we both agreed to keep those shirts, and we remembered to be grateful for it, this little mess of our own making…

Does this mean closet-cleaning qualifies as a date? In our world, probably.

Anyway, if you need me, I’ll be tackling the bathroom closet, for the rest of my life…

Tangled.

Posted on September 4, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

This week I revisit a little predicament I found myself in back when we were working on landscaping our new home…

Happy Hay Hauling and Fly Swatting Season. Happy September!

Out here on the ranch there are people and animals and machinery and water and buildings and growing things and plans thought out but maybe not discussed with one another…

When you combine all the moving parts sometimes things can go kinda weird, get tangled up so to speak.

Like last week I came home from something or other to Husband pushing dirt on the Bobcat, just like every other dry summer day. We have been working on landscaping and planning for a fence to keep the cows out of yard, so getting the dirt in the right places has been the longest and first step in the process.

Anyway, so I get home and I drop my bags, shuffle the mail pile on the counter and look out the window at the hill where the horses generally graze, and then down at the plum patch on the edge of what will be our fenced in yard one day.

Then I notice a piece of wire or string or something stretched across the edge of the yard, from the plum patch, across the open toward the dam, with no end that I could see…

With Pops and Husband involved in this place, a few scenarios run through my mind about the existence of this piece of wire or string or whatever.

1) Maybe Husband is staking out where the fence will go, which is good, because I think he’s right on in the placement.

2) Could Husband have strung a piece of electric fence or wire or something to temporarily keep the cows off his dirt moving masterpiece?

3) But it sorta looks like a piece of twine, and Pops was out here on the 4-wheeler the other day driving up the hill to check on things. I bet a peice got stuck to the back of his machine and he drug it a ways…that’s probably it…

4) Who the hell knows…these boys never tell me anything…I gotta call Pops, I’m too lazy to try to catch Husband on that Bobcat right now…

I dial…it rings…he answers.

“Hello.”

“Hi, it’s me. Yeah, did you like, string some twine across our yard, or like, maybe drag a piece on your 4-wheeler when you went by the other day…”

“No. No I didn’t. I noticed it too. It was there when I drove past…piece of twine, goes all the way up to the dam as far as I can tell…a cow musta drug it I think…”

“Well that’s a theory…really? Weird…I wonder how far it goes?”

“Yeah, I don’t know…”

“Well, ok, just checking…I guess I’ll go investigate…wrap it up…”

“Yeah, ok bye.”

I hung up.

Wonder where a cow picked up all that twine? Wonder where it got hooked? On her foot? On her ear? On a tooth or something?

How did she pull it all that way without a snag or a snap?

I headed down to the plum patch, which seemed to be the middle of her destination, twine strung up in the thorns and heading toward the dam in one direction, to oblivion in the other…

I grabbed it and followed it along the cow path that lead to the dam…

To the edge of the dam where she grabbed a drink…

and then literally into the dam where she must have hung out to cool off.

And then turned around Then turned around to head to the shade of the trees up by the fence…

Where it looked like she might have taken and a nap and detached from it…

But that was only the beginning. because there I stood with a pretty substantial roll of twine around my arm looking for the end, which seemed to be trailing back toward my house again, up the hill and toward the barnyard, with no end in sight.

I backtracked, to find the source, coiling as I went…

It was going to be a long trip…

Back past the plum patch, up along the cow trail that turns into the road on the top of the hill. Past the old machinery and the broken down three-wheeler and lawn mower that we need to move for crying out loud. I have to get on that.

Then down toward the shop where the cow seemed to have gone back and forth, back and forth, zigzagging in front of the old tractor and little yellow boat. Then up to the old combine to scratch her back or something…

Then back up to the top of the hill, across the road, to the scoria pile we’re saving for a literal rainy day, then back down through the brush on the side hill toward the old combine again, tangling up in the thorns of the prairie rose patch somehow…

Then over toward the barn yard…wait, turn around, not yet…back in front of the shop, hooking on every stray weed and grass along the way, but never coming undone…no…where the hell did she pick this up?

Why did we leave a big-ass roll of twine just laying around for some creature without opposable thumbs to go dragging for miles and miles across the countryside?

Why can’t we get our shit together around here?

How long is this damn roll? How long is this going to take?

Do you know how long this is going to take!!!

And how does this even happen?

Where did it even…

Begin? …

A 4-H Horse Show

Posted on August 28, 2024 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

My daughters participated in their first 4-H horse show recently. And I am wondering if there is anything more wholesome than kids showing up early to the county fairgrounds scrambling to get their white shirts buttoned, numbers pinned to their backs, horses brushed and saddled and nerves settled?

In the chill of a late August morning this was our little family bringing the horses to town. It’s my eight-year-old’s last year as a Cloverbud so I thought it would be a good time to start in a 4-H program that I loved when I was a kid, to learn the ropes a bit a refresh ourselves on all the rules. Because, and I think I’ve said this before, there are a lot of rules.

A week prior I brought the girls to the big Ag Expo arena town to an official practice and let the ranch horses get used to the area, practice walking over the little bridge and tarps and lope and trot around in circles with the other kids and learn from them too. We were preparing to enter most of the Cloverbud events like the walk-trot class, the barrel racing, pole bending, the egg race, and, my ultimate favorite, the costume contest.

Oh, the horse and rider costume contest! Seriously, if they would have thought of this when I was eight-years-old I would have dedicated my life to it. It would have been my sole reason for existing. And so, you can imagine the amount of hype and enthusiasm I had in explaining it to my young daughters. We even made a special trip to the craft store to pick out ribbons and tule and everything you need to turn a sorrel horse into a unicorn and a palomino into a blue water horse.

I think my husband would have appreciated it if I moved any amount of that enthusiasm over to the task of sewing the 4-H patch on the girls’ white shirts. When I told him my plan was to just pin it (or, you know, there’s also glue) the level of disappointment thrown in my direction was so thick I could chew it.

“Scofields don’t just pin things,” he said through the pursed lips and scowl you need to thread the world’s tiniest needle that came with the only sewing kit in the house (thank God for Christmas gifts from Mother-in-Laws).

So I left him there with his judgement, Rosie’s shirt and that micro-needle. I had a costume bag and snacks to get together.

And weed-eating to do.

Anyway, turns out we arrived at the horse show a good four hours before any of the girls’ Cloverbud events. But that’s ok. We ate our lunch at 10 am and watched the big kids work through reigning and horsemanship patterns, we cheered them on and listened to the judge explain about bits and hand positions. We warmed up in the empty field, we played in the dirt and made some new friends. We were cold and then we were hot and then it was their turn to trot and walk and make the barrel and pole pattern. And, most nerve wracking of all, balance an egg on a spoon as they walked around a pole and back. Not one egg was dropped. It was a miracle.

And they did great. Really. They were smiling and they did it all right. 4-H horsemanship is the opposite of a race, even when it, technically, is a race. It’s about going at your own pace and learning how to better understand your horse, how to get them to work through a challenge, how to best sit a saddle and best treat your animal.

And then, of course, sometimes it’s just about tying ribbons in your horses’ hair, dressing up as Elsa and a Fairy princess and being the most adorable little duo there is. Which, maybe, if I’m being honest, was my favorite part.

Anyway, it was a great day. If you need me, I’ll be planning a 4-H horse show for adults. And, my costume. Call me if you want to register!