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Boomtown

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20

Good morning all. I just wanted to pop in for a quick hello and to let you know that after completing my call out to winter last night and shouting it to the world, all hell has indeed broke loose this A.M.

It is snowing.

Hard.

So winter has indeed arrived as I type this sitting at a computer in my hometown after  braving the thirty miles of ice with my neighbor trailing behind me creeping at 45 mph on the slick roads.  It has begun, our battle with the winter.

Ahh, yes, I like to talk about the weather here, it’s in my nature, it’s non-controversial and I think it’s something that we all have in common. But besides that this morning I would also like to share a little piece of what’s happening out here in my hometown. Our Little Boomtown.

The impacts of the oil industry and activity in Western North Dakota has recently made headlines throughout the country. If you’re not from around here, you’ve undoubtedly caught wind of it. If you’re a former resident it’s captivated you. If you live among it you know it has the power to consume you.  Regardless, we can all agree that it is indeed a story, this town of 1,200 expanding  to over 6,000 + residents and growing. It is indeed a spectacle to see the oil semis and service trucks roll on the ribbons of highway that used to carry only school children and quiet rural commuters on their way to work at the banks and stores in town. Now, because of what we have discovered below the surface 10,000 feet, something we have known was there for 60 years and we can now get to, we have something amazing to offer here on the edge of the badlands to those who are up for a challenge,  adventure, willing to work hard and sacrifice a life they knew.

Jobs.

Jobs and opportunity and challenges in what I have come to refer to as the “Wild Wild West.”

And love it our hate it it’s happening. We can have that discussion later. But all I know is that in a time in our country where people have lost their homes, their jobs and pieces of their lives that provided them comfort and security, it is out here on the prairie that people are looking for their hope.

And hope is the reason I am back here with husband. Hope that we can keep the family ranch in the family, hope that we can have a family of our own one day, hope that we can have a good life with good friends and the freedom for a little bit of adventure.

So as we count the out-of-state license plates or the headlights that pass us on our way out-of-town, as I answer the phone calls from people looking for employment and describe to them the type of winter that is settling in around here,  I like to think about all those stories, all the memories, all the struggles and triumphs and roads that brought these people here, to the edge of the buttes so far from what they know, to live in apartments or hotel rooms, to build a new house or rough it out in a camper on the edge of town. It’s hard to imagine what they have sacrificed to find their place, to find their future, to find a better life…

So yes, my little hometown has become a boomtown, but it’s not scared. It’s been there before. And yes, I have to wait in line at the gas station and the post office, something that we are not used to. We are having growing pains and there are challenges here, so we must be on our best behavior. We must be a little more aware, we must ask a few more questions, listen more carefully, take a little more time to understand what is going on around us so we can make this place the best that it can be…

We must be patient and find in us our compassion.

Please visit the link below to hear our story on Bismarck’s KXMB news channel and get a sneak peek of my new song “Boomtown.”

Scofield sings about “Boomtown” Watford City.


Catch me and Pops singing this tune and many others this Sunday at the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center
2-5:oo pm
Fort Buford State Historic Site

Visit the Jessie Veeder Music Link for more performance dates.

The waking up

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18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

My husband is the only thing that makes me cool…

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26

Well it’s been pretty quiet here at the ranch. The sun has been shining giving us some beautiful days to work with, but it gets up a little later and goes to bed a little earlier.

Just like me during this time of year, hunkering down and getting ready for the cold.

Yes, we’ve swooped into November free and clear of snowfall and biting temperatures, a gift from above for the late spring we were given. But I’ve heard rumors that we should expect snow and wind in the next few days, which would be pretty typical for these parts…

yeah, you heard me...

I guess the fact that it’s typical doesn’t make it any more fun for some of the creatures around here

Yeah, during this time of year more than the weather and sun make changes to their attitude and behavior at the ranch. The cows stay a little closer to home and the horses hang out by the hay stack, happy for the reprieve from the bugs and heat and happy to work on growing their shaggy coats. The pug snores a little louder for a little longer as he snuggles a little further into the blankets on the couch, the lab whines at the door and the herd of cats come running out from the out buildings at any sound that resembles the shaking of their food bag.

And me? Well, I acquire the qualities of all of these animals put together:  the big fluffy clothes, the munching constantly on carbohydrates, the whining and shivering at the door, the sleeping really, really hard and snuggling down with the passion of the pug.

Now I’d like to think all of these behaviors are acceptable in moderation, you know, if there’s someone around to notice that you’ve worn the same fleece pants six days in a row, to tell you to save a few noodles for the next guy, and to give you a reason to get your ass up in the morning before the sun.

But that has not been the case at the ranch this week. Nope, not at all. On Monday morning husband got up wwwayyyy before the sun and hopped a plane down to Texas for work. And while he’s been hanging out in khaki pants in corporate offices in Houston, eating at fine restaurants and experiencing valet parking,  I have been here in my fleece pants, alone with the animals, eating party pizzas and what’s left of the less than delicious noodle casserole I made on Sunday evening. And I tell you what, I have NOT been experiencing valet parking.

This is as close as it gets around here...

Yes, we’ve entered into the time of year when you need to start your car a few minutes to warm up the frost on the windshield before you get in and drive away. I’ve tried my damnedest to train the pug to do this for me, but I can’t wake him up before 10 am. So I’ve been left rushing out, robe flapping in the cold morning breeze to turn the key on my vehicle only to come storming back inside panting and rubbing my hands together, while the pug snores softly on my favorite blanket.

Oh, if only you had opposable thumbs...

Anyway, it’s day four of husband’s business trip and his absence has got me thinking about what I might be like as a single woman…and I am not convinced the outcome would be the best for me.

See, I’ve known husband since I was eleven years old. He’s been my best friend starting somewhere around fifteen when he was old enough to get his drivers license and drive out to the ranch to visit me, talk guns and horses with Pops, and teach my little sister to play chess. We went to college together, we got married, we’ve moved six times. He’s been the person in my life that unclogs the shower drain, keeps my wardrobe in check (whether I appreciate it at the time or not) and the sole reason I am not watching television on my dorm room sized TV, movies on VHS and talking on a Zach Morris era cell phone.

Here we are, Seniors at our Future Farmers of America banquet. I guess no one is really cool in a corduroy blue jacket...

Now husband and I have spent time apart, don’t get me wrong. When we were dating in college, he went back home to work and I stayed put. But in the course of our relationship it has generally been me who leaves on business trips, music gigs, and Vegas vacations with the ladies for weeks on end.

Yes, you heard me. I usually leave him at home to tend to the cats and train the pug and fend for himself. He’s good at it, you know, with his cooking skills and all. Usually by the time I come home from wherever I had been the pug is doing flips on command, there are six different gormet meals in the fridge left over from husband’s cooking experimentations, only one fork, one knife, one plate and one cup have been used the entire duration of my absence, the bed is made because he’s been sleeping on the couch, the cows are not in the yard, the garbage is taken out and he is handsome as ever…

am I right ladies?

What happens when husband leaves me?

Well, I found out a few weeks ago when he was off on his first business trip…and truth be told, it ain’t pretty.

Nope.

I retreat. I get into my projects, projects that I get distracted from when husband’s around reminding me that we need to cook and that he’s out of underwear so I should probably do laundry. Five days of husband’s absence and I turn into a complete recluse, cat woman who leaves her crafting projects on the table for days on end and eats nothing but peanut butter and jelly toast for breakfast and frozen meals for one at night. And when it’s time to turn in for the evening, I let a smelly little dog sleep in my bed with me while the big dog snores on the floor of my room with the idea that somehow these furry creatures will protect me if I happen to have an intruder…(which turns out is a bunch of shit because last night when I heard something rubbing against the side of the house outside my bedroom window those dogs didn’t move a muscle. I was left to fend for myself against the aliens with my biggest, pointiest high heeled boot in hand only to find out it was a cow munching on my lawn. Damn you cows! Now, if it’d been a raccoon,  it’d be a different story…so I’d like to think the same if it were an alien…) anyway…

My watch dog

When I am home alone I don’t call anyone, because I talk to my dogs. I don’t clean anything because I am too busy crafting,  I don’t listen to music because I am singing to myself…out loud, I don’t get anywhere on time because there is no one there to tell me to get my ass moving, I don’t do the laundry because I have extra underwear thankyouverymuch and I don’t take the garbage out because that is hubby’s job.

Yes, it’s a scary realty, me being in a house to fend for myself. And when husband left again this week, I fell into the same routines, proving that there was a reason the good Lord didn’t allow me to be single…no matter the man-repelling qualities I possessed…

Yup, that's me as a teenager...

So in day number four of living my life as a single woman, I’ve come to this conclusion (and I can’t believe I didn’t realize this much earlier): The man that I call husband, Cowboy, dearly beloved,  is the only thing that stands between me and the label “crazy cat lady.”  It’s been this way since I rolled into town school as a frizzy haired 7th grader in a kitten applique sweatshirt.

Just one look at this laid back, cute, trouble making boy gave me the wake up call I needed to pay a bit more attention to the details and, well, take some risks already…something he’s been teaching me since I first saw him throw spit balls in band class and get away with it.

Yes, husband makes me cooler. He always has.

The evidence is right here:

Without prom date....

With prom date (by the grace of God)

Maybe not a huge improvement, but at least I got that hair under control…

Yup, husband’s been the reason I found myself at parties with the cool kids in high school where I might have otherwise stayed home at the ranch to puffy paint another cat sweatshirt, the big reason I decided to experiment with a hairstyle other than a ponytail and the one who grabbed my heart by taking me on the roof of his parent’s house to look at the stars.

Reason number thirty-thousand I needed to ditch the scrunchies and find a way to keep this guy…

Who knows how many pet lizards, hamsters, puppies and pot bellied pigs I would have if I didn’t have someone across the table sorting through the consequences of such family additions? I would have found out how long that Chevy Lumina I was driving in high school would have lasted with 200,000 + miles on it had I not had someone rational there to tell me that normal people trade in their cars?  I would be watching my tiny TV with binoculars and writing this blog with dial-up internet on the refurbished 1999 version of the leftover computer from my momma’s office.

I would still be dressing like this:

Garth Brooks western shirt buttoned up to the top and a scrunchie on top of my head...yeah, that's what you're seeing here...

Don’t get me wrong here though, it’s not that husband pushes to make me a different person or tells me who I am is not good enough. In fact, I know he would love me should I ever decide to pull out that kitten sweatshirt again, which I fully intend on doing once I hit that age where I’m allowed to wear purple and red hats. No, this is what it is. Husband is the calm, cool, collected to my hyper, nerdy, scattered. He is the dog person to my cat, lizard, goldfish, pet parakeet person. He’s the “knows the right thing to say” to my “say a whole bunch of words and hope something is right,” the muscle to my Olive Oyl arms, the Drano to my drain clogged with frizzy hair.

He watches out for me so that I don’t need to rely on the pug to save me from the aliens. And I do the same for him, making sure that his hair doesn’t grow past his shoulders, fluffing the pillows and tucking the sheets in on the bed he slept in last night and by listening when he tells me he needs clean underwear…

When he’s not here I’m myself, yes. My scattered, nerdy, pet-cuddling, drain clogging, laundry avoiding self…just a little less balanced…

I can't help it, I was born this way...

And and a lot more starving…

Hunny, please come home soon, the leftover casserole is getting moldy…

Halloween in Boomtown

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11

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

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

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

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

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

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

The neighbor girls...

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

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

Momma and Pops on Halloween

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To live a good life.

To have a Happy Halloween.

Whether on sidewalks or better yet, country roads.

Cowboy Cooks Garden Tomato Soup

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16

Ok speaking of tomatoes…(because we were speaking of tomatoes weren’t we?) I am so excited to share with you some news I’ve been waiting for all summer while we grilled burgers outside at 10pm because we just got in and the sun hadn’t set yet. I love those days. I do.  And I love burgers, what girl doesn’t? But as the summer winds down and the days get shorter the one thing that keeps me from whining like a little girl who wants to stay up past her bedtime is this: longer nights divided by more Cowboy time in the kitchen = rich, hearty food that tastes like heaven…which results in a little something to take the edge off the cooler weather and inevitable winter…oh, and a little extra padding on my rear-end to help keep me warm.

Yes, cream and butter and hearty seasonings have blown back into my life with the autumn wind and I’m in the market for bigger stretchy pants because, you guessed it…

Cowboy’s cute butt is back in the kitchen…

And here he is, with his favorite ingredient: heavy whipping cream

and this time he’s outdone himself.

Now, I don’t like to push the man. Really I don’t. He has been busy this summer working on getting our new house squared away, building me picture frames, chasing cows around, fixing things I’ve recently broken, and, you know, working. So I haven’t asked him if he has any new recipes brewing up there under his hat. I haven’t mentioned to him that I am sstttaarrvvinng over here.  No I haven’t. But this weekend as he watched his dearly beloved sob and stomp and whine and worry and nearly lose an eye as she tackled the age-old tradition of vegetable canning only to clean it all up, put her hands on her hips, reach for her goggles and declare that she was now going to attempt tomato soup…at 6 pm…I think he felt the need to run interference.

Because he must have been starving too…and he couldn’t wait until 3 am to enjoy his wife’s amateur tomato soup attempt.

So last Sunday Cowboy swooped in and rescued his maiden in fleece pants from her overzealous self by suggesting that perhaps he could try cooking tomato soup. That maybe he had an idea for a recipe. That possibly it would be good for her to find her camera and computer and do what she does best…document it.

And boy am I glad I did. Because the thing with Cowboy’s cooking is this: it’s all in his head, like a story or a song–if it’s not written down the melody might change a bit or the plot might thicken sooner the next time around.

So I gladly handed over the metaphorical apron, grabbed my camera and notebook and watched as the man I married whipped up a little piece of heaven right there on the very same table where I was nearly murdered by a jalapeno pepper. It was a beautiful thing and I know you’re going to love it….

and I am only just a little jealous of the ease at which this man tackles life…and soup.

So grab your favorite autumn brew and those pesky tomatoes…and then grab a few more because you’re going to want to make a double batch of this stuff:

Cowboy Cooks Garden Tomato Soup

Ok, here’s what you need, gathered and deliberately documented by following Cowboy around the kitchen using the journalist skills I acquired in college, and that cute little reporter hat, pen and paper pad.

  • 3 cups diced fresh tomatoes
  • 1 cup, or 3 medium garden carrots (use more if you wanna)
  • 1/4 large purple onion
  • 2 cloves fresh garlic (I have to tell you, I was looking everywhere in this tiny kitchen for fresh garlic when I was making my salsa. I whined and dug and threw things around. Cowboy mentions he would like some garlic and it just magically appeared in the cupboard. This is my life. I get a mess, Cowboy gets a magic cupboard…anyway moving on)
  • 1 12 oz can of tomato sauce
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tsp celery seed
  • 1 tsp dill weed (haha, dill weed)
  • 1 Tbsp basil (fresh would be best, but I forgot to plant basil, so dried tastes great too)
  • 1 Tbsp fresh, chopped cilantro (or dried will work too)
  • 1 tsp rosemary (we had a little rosemary debate, you know, now that I am an expert. I didn’t win. But if the little rosemary seed floaters annoy you like they annoy me, just put in a 1/2 tsp)
  • Ground black pepper to taste
  • 1 (heaping) tsp chopped chives
  • 4 bouillon cubes
  • 1 stick butter (or 8 Tbsp if it makes you feel better)
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (get your cream out of the fridge before use and set it on the counter for a bit. This way, when you add it to the hot soup it will blend well.)

Step 1: Call your Pops who is home alone to invite him for supper. I mean, he was kind enough to grow these tomatoes (and carrots) for you.


Step 2: Serve you and  your cook an Autumn Ale, you know, to keep with the mood of the season. 

Octoberfest. Perfect.

Step 3: Sharpen your knives.

In Cowboy’s kitchen, this is the step that takes the longest. I mean, he has a knife briefcase. 

Really.

And in that knife briefcase lives this mamajamma.

I know this looks weird, but Cowboy tests the sharpness of his knives by attempting to shave the hair off his knuckles…just like John Wayne or something, I dunno.

I think I said something like “Holy Shit!”

Step 3: Chop and simmer the veggies

  • Dice three cups worth of garden tomatoes


and put those babies in large a pot to simmer on low while you prep the other veggies

  • Dice three garden carrots. Look at these heavenly creatures!

I especially like this one. Pops said he was holding the rest of the carrots together when he found him.

What a nice little carrot. I liked him so much I ate him.

Ok, yeah, anyway,  dice about one cup worth of carrots.

  • Now dice up 1/4 of that large, purple onion…

..sniff, sniff..please don’t cry.

  • Add the onions and carrots to the pot with the tomatoes
  • And pour in the tomato sauce
While the veggies and sauce simmer on low, move on to
 
Step 4: The seasoning
First, plop in the butter
Yup. The whole stick…or if you’d like, just 8 tablespoons.
Now, in no particular order add the seasonings to the pot, tasting and testing as you go to make sure you just love it.
1 bay leaf
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp dill weed
1 Tbsp basil
1 Tbsp fresh, chopped cilantro
1 tsp rosemary
Ground black pepper to taste
1 (heaping) tsp chopped chives
4 bouillon cubes
Beautiful.
Now let the concoction simmer this way on low for a bit.  Have some more brew. Set your table. Read Cowboy magazine, whatever. You must cook this all up, letting the flavors blend and allowing the onions and carrots to cook.
About 30 minutes.
Onward!
Step 5: The best part

Need I say more?

Once the veggies are nice and cooked, measure yourself out a heaping cup of your room temperature heavy whipping cream and slowly stir it into the soup.
Now say “mmmm….mmmmm….mmmmm….” while Campbells sobs silently to himself…
Let warm for a few minutes and…well…what you will have there people is some damn good tomater soup.
Damn good!
So waste no time…
Step 6: Serve it up!
If you want, make yourself a grilled cheese to go with it.
But honestly, you won’t want to touch that stupid sandwich. My photos in the dim lighting of my home do not do it justice.

All you will want is this soup.

Forever.

And Ever.

Amen.

A long story about a woman in fleece pants and a bunch of tomatoes…

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Once upon a time in a land  far, far away there lived a woman with unruly hair, a one eyed pug, a tiny kitchen and a Pops with a garden full of tomatoes.

Now, this wild haired woman was good at some things…like the game Catch Phrase, making guacamole, eating tortilla chips and wandering among the buttes and singing songs to fields full of pretty birds, deer and wildflowers (picture Snow White, without the impractical dress and minus six or seven dwarves). She had a good life, yes indeed. She felt fulfilled living in her small cabin, waking up to a pink sky and a sun rising over the red barn and taking on a day filled with creative things, like taking photos, writing stories, playing guitar, riding horses and, well, eating guacamole. Her life was complete and organized just the way she wanted it.

Having lived in this cabin in the middle of nowhere for over a year, the woman was indeed comfortable. She had seen the summer sun, felt the snow on her tongue and watched eagerly as it melted into water in the spring sun and filled the creek beds. She had basked through two glorious summers and wound down with the wind that blew the leaves off of the trees in the fall. So when the weather began to shift,  the breeze turned crisp, the horses and the pug started to grow their long coats, and the woman’s tan skin began to fade back to its pasty white appearance, the woman with wild hair knew what was in store for her. Winter was coming and she was excited to celebrate accordingly. She took longer coffee breaks, she wore her down vest when she was out on her paint in the golden hills, she put another blanket on the bed and at night and traded in her shorts for her favorite thing in the world: fleece stretchy pants.

All was well and right in her autumn world as she sat in her recliner, feet adequately slippered, sipping on hot homemade soup and watching “Project Runway” with the surround sound engaged. Then, just as Tim Gunn was telling the latest fashion loser to “pack their needles, or sewing machine, or weird, creepy mannequin body and go,” the woman with wild hair heard someone at the door.

"Who's there?"

“Tap tap…hhheeelllooo”

She set down her soup, un-reclined, rolled her fleecy body out of her chair and went to the door.

It was her Pops. And he was carrying a giant box….

full of tomatoes…

And a really, really big and heavy looking garbage bag. …

“Hi Jess, whatcha doing?”

“oh, hi, umm, nothing. Cleaning. Yeah. Cleaning the house. Whew, been working on it all weekend,” the wild haired woman replied.

“Oh, ok. Yeah. I don’t want to interrupt that then, but I thought I’d stop by and bring you some of these tomatoes…my garden was full of them and I had to pick them before the frost…”

“Oh, ok. Yeah. Great. Tomatoes. Wow, there’s a lot of them aren’t there. Haha. Yeah. That’s a lot of salads…,” she felt her face begin to flush and her armpits go sweaty.

“Yeah,” said her Pops. “I had a great garden this year. Lots of tomatoes, and, well, say, I was thinking maybe you could do something with these. You know, like salsa or soup or something…you know how to can don’t you? I mean, that strawberry-rhubarb jam you made this spring  was pretty delicious…” He smiled a toothy grin and the woman felt an unruly curl spring out of its place in her unkempt ponytail.

She was full-on sweating now, regretting her fleece pants and recalling the overconfident, naive, head first dive approach she has used to attack every new kitchen experiment in her life…and the piece of rhubarb she’s been meaning to clean off of her ceiling for months.

Her voice came out of her lungs a few octaves higher as she replied, “Oh, sure Pops. No problem. I’ve always wanted to try canning salsa. Never had the opportunity. Look there, I could make jars and jars with that yield…and, umm, so well what’s in that giant garbage bag there?”

“Oh this?” he replied, hefting a thirty ton bag up from the ground and over his shoulder. “These here are crabapples! I picked them from the tree behind our house…”

“Oh really? I remember that tree…”

“Yeah. Your gram used to make the best crab apple jelly. I absolutely loved it. I was thinking you could try it? Don’t you think? It shouldn’t be that hard. Oh, it’s so good. Nothing better.”

The wild haired woman paused, recalling for the first time in years the sweet taste of her grandmother’s crab apple jelly on a piece of hot toast. It was delicious, there was nothing better. He was right. She could handle the thirty tons of apples–jelly she had done before without killing anyone.

But how does a giant box of tomatoes turn into restaurant style pacante sauce?

And how could she say no to a man who sees her as his only chance to taste, once again, his favorite homemade goodies?

She smiled and hefted the thirty ton bag of apples over her own shoulders as her pops set the boxes of tomatoes on the table in her quaint kitchen.

“Can’t wait,” chirped her Pops as he flew out the door.

“Me too,” whimpered the woman as she assessed the situation.

“You have not seen the last of me,” said the eliminated designer over her surround sound.

And so there she was, alone. Alone in a house filled with autumn’s harvest. Fruits of her father’s labor and a nearly 100 year old apple tree. The woman poured herself a glass of wine, accepted that television wouldn’t be an option for three to four years, sat down at the table, closed her eyes and tried her best to channel Martha Stewart…

…then woke up the next morning with a tomato stuck to her cheek and a vague memory of a dream involving Martha and a mini mansion made out of pumpkins.

She grabbed a cup of coffee and turned to the only thing she knew: Google.

Yup. She Googled it. She Googled  “tomato canning,” “salsa,” “what the hell is a hot water bath?” “can I poison relatives if I attempt to make homemade salsa without the supervision of a professional?” and “Martha, help me.”

Finding, again, no direct answers and no home phone number for Martha or Paula Dean, the woman put on her town clothes, went to work and talked to her neighbor….the same neighbor who got her out of the plum jelly mess of 2010.

And her life was saved as her lovely, experienced friend presented her with her mother’s own original tried and true salsa recipe. And as the wild haired woman marched her weary butt to the grocery store to pick up the rest of her ingredients, it occurred to her that the very recipe she had in her purse could possibly have been made by her grandmother. The two women were best friends!

Revitalized by that thought, the woman drove home, ran inside and unloaded her ingredients and set them alongside her hand-written recipe. She dove in…ignoring the fact that it was 8:30 pm on a Tuesday.

Tomatoes? She had ’em.  Onions? Check. Tomato paste, spices, celery? Yes! She even mustered up the strength to purchase two green peppers and six jalapenos–scary, scary ingredients for this pasty woman with scandinavian blood. This was going to be good. Easy. Just follow the recipe…

She boiled water and submerged the fresh, ripe tomatoes for one minute, then transferred them to ice water. And although this was a new process, this tomato peeling thing, she was getting it. She had it down. It looked like a regular tomato massacre had occurred in her kitchen. Boy, time flies when you get the hang of something, she thought to herself, because by the time she was done with step #1 it was already 11 pm. No worries, she could power through. She must! Jalapenos here she comes…wait, a minute…where were her caning jars?

Shit.

She stormed the three steps to her bedroom and laid down face first on the bed and passed out. Tomorrow was another day and she hoped the naked tomatoes could wait.

The next morning the sun rose like it always does over the red barn as the tomatoes sat chilling in the refrigerator. The woman pulled on her fleece pants and called her momma in town to ask her to bring some jars home with her. See, the woman had a big project due that day, and unfortunately that big project didn’t involve a trip to town…or the tomatoes. It was 7 pm before the woman looked up from her work to a knock on the door. It was her momma, and the jars.

Thrilled with the arrival of her final supply, the woman got to work. She mixed herself a margarita, chopped up the naked tomatoes, cut up the onions…and proceeded to weep like a baby, stepping outside every few moments to compose herself. This salsa thing was serious business. Then she moved on to the green peppers. She crinkled her brow against the sweat that always forms in response to these green vegetables. But really, it was no problem. Check. Phew. On to the jalapenos…she needed six.

Six? Really?! “Are you sure?” she muttered to herself as she examined the recipe for the sixteenth time. “I thought this woman was a Lutheran!”

But despite her questions, the wild haired woman, whose hair tends to grow larger in stressful situations, has always been one to follow directions. So onward she went, carefully cutting the foreign peppers, removing the seeds, wiping her eyes and….

“ahhhhh, my eeeyyyeees, my eeyyyyeeees, they’re burning! BUURRNNINNGG!!,” she screamed as her husband jumped six feet off the chair and appeared in the kitchen.

“What, what is it?” he asked calmly.

“Myyyy eyyyyeesss, they’re on fiiirreee,” she screamed again as she swung open the bathroom door and submerged her head under the running water of the sink.

“Good Lord, Jessie. Don’t touch your eyes when you’re cutting up peppers! Mercy, calm down,” her husband instructed as he leaned in over the sink with her.

“ugghgghghghgh,….gargle gargle….I…hateah…pepphhaaas…” she sobbed.

She sat down on the toilet as her husband examined the damage. With a clean bill of health and her characteristic determination, the woman with wild hair and blood shot eyes, returned to her work in the kitchen. She finished slicing. She finished dicing. She finished seasoning and measuring and put it all in a pot to cook while she prepared for the next step: the hot water bath.

It was now closing in on 10 pm on day three of what she was now referring to as “The Great Salsa Debacle of 2011.”

The woman reached into her cupboards, dug around and pulled out the biggest pot she owned. Her instructions clearly stated that the “jars must be submerged in the boiling water for 30 minutes to ensure that when consumed the salsa will not poison every person in your life you loved enough to gift with homemade salsa.”

She grabbed a jar, tested the depth of her biggest pot…then threw her body to the floor…

her husband handed her the phone.

She dialed…

“Hi, you’ve reached the Veeders…leave a message and we’ll call you back…” said the answering machine.

“Heelllooo, momm, are you theeerreee. I am in the middle of a canning crisis and I need a bigger…”

“Hello, yes. Jess. What do you need?”

“Oh, thank the LORD. You answered. I am in the middle of canning salsa…I need a bigger pot. I know you have one. You HAVE TO HAVE ONE!”

“It’s 10:30 at night”

“I know, I’m coming over.”

So she did. And made no apologies. The wild haired woman in fleece sweatpants with blood shot eyes got in her car and drove the mile to her mommas to get a bigger pot. She was determined and was pretty sure she was sweating jalapenos out through her skin. Sweet Martha, she was itchy. But she got her pot. She got her pot, went back home, solicited her husband’s assistance, filled the jars to the top with the peppery, tomato-ey, spicy concoction, accidentally rubbed her eyes again, ignored the sting this time, because dammit, this was getting done, submerged the jars in the water bath, put the timer on 30 minutes, sat down on the couch to watch the latest episode of “Modern Family,” dozed off, drooled a little and was startled awake by the beeping of the timer.

Thank goodness she remembered to set the timer.

And thank goodness for neighbors, mommas, husbands,  big pots and tried and true recipes.

and  for winter and a break from tomatoes.

Oh, and really…thank the Lord this story, this project, this drama has a happy ending…

Yes, once upon a time in a land  far, far away there lived a woman with unruly hair, a one eyed pug, and a tiny kitchen who thought she had her comfortable world figured out…until a box of tomatoes not-so-effortlessly turned into a shelf full of delicious, homemade salsa…and the wild haired, red eyed woman with a tomato stuck to her face into something that resembles…

the exact opposite of Martha Stewart

The End. 

A moment with Pops…

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On this Sunday evening I would like to share with you a few moments in the life of my pops. It’s a scene I’ve witnessed a few times before, but I imagine it hardly ever occurs as he’s out traipsing the pastures, working, making sure nothing is amiss…

But when it appears all is well, the garbage has been taken out, the cows are in the proper coulees, the horses are watered and fed and the dogs are taking a break from terrorizing the above animals, pops finds himself a quiet spot to rest…

just for a minute…

just to examine the back of his eyelids…

Really. You understand don’t you? It takes energy to lean against this autumn wind.

I knew you’d agree.

So while we are all at home thinking, “Man, pops has been gone a while…he must be working hard…fencing maybe…cows must be out…wonder if he needs help…he must be hungry…or chilled on this brisk fall day…I’ll put on some coffee for when he gets in. He’ll like that. Poor guy, working overtime all the time out on this rough landscape in this harsh weather…he’ll need a nap when he gets in…”

…maybe…

Yup.

Hope your weekend had some moments like these…
And these…

‘Cause  it was a rough couple of days at the Veeder Ranch.

The behavior of men and elk…

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Out here on these acres of ranch land there are things I know are there and places I roam everyday. I know there are cattle somewhere between the east and west pastures, if the sneaky animals haven’t found a hole in the fence. I know that if I let the pug out too early in the morning without a bowl of food he will high tail it off down the red road to my parent’s garage where his girlfriend lives with one of those automatic dog feeders.

I know how to catch a horse and where the creek winds. I know where my favorite birch tree lives….and my favorite oak. I know there is a pair of geese that live in the dam in front of where we will put our new house. I know that they mate for life. When it comes to chokecherry picking, I know where to look. The same goes with plums, raspberries, tiger lilies and Christmas trees. I know who rides what saddle and to expect my pops, if he’s home on the weekend, down in the horse pens as soon as the light and weather will allow.

These things I know, these places I have shown you. I have taken you picking those berries, cutting that Christmas tree, down through that winding creek. I have introduced you to my favorite tree and shown you a photo of those geese. I have complained about the pug. These are things I can speak to, I can describe adequately and take you along through words and photos and feelings.

But on Friday evening as I saddled my horse and followed husband out of the barnyard and down the road to meet pops, I realized I haven’t successfully explained or portrayed to you my role out here on these rolling, rugged acres among the men of the Veeder Ranch.  Especially during a season that calls to their inner mountain men, that keeps their eyes wide open, their ears perked, their binoculars close to their sides and rifles tuned.

Yes, it’s nearing hunting season, and if I was ever a tag along, a nod and a “uh, huh” or “yeah, sure,” in their lives during the rest of the year as they explained to me where the fence was down and where the cattle were out, how to manage the water tank situation, how not to run over the biggest rock in the yard with the lawn mower, or where to stand and how to wave my hands when helping one of them back a pickup up to a trailer, ’tis truly the month for observation now, for quiet cheering, for watching these two men finally get a chance to play, to breathe, to flex their man muscles after a year filled with work and stresses.

So on Friday that’s what they did, we saddled up our horses and went scouting for elk–the elk that have been roaming in and out of our lives mysteriously all year, the elk that were behind our little brown house, across our road, by the cattle guard between the two places and then magically appear by my parents’ mailbox.

Because pops has his license this year, a kind of “once in a lifetime” chance at this majestic creature who he can hear bugling in his pastures in the evenings. But here’s the thing that I have learned about pops in my years of sitting next to him in the pickup as he leans his head out the window, his binoculars to his face…as much as the man is looking forward to the season and to the prospect of elk meat in his fridge for the winter,  what means more to him is the observation of this creature. He thrives on learning about their patterns of movement, where they water, where they bed down for the night, where they can be expected…or how they can be so unexpected.

And he wants to share in the experience, tell his story, see if he can show you the same thing. Which is precisely what we were doing on Friday as pops lead the way to the west pasture, talking quietly about how he came right up on these elk on Tuesday evening and got to watch them graze and hear them bugle from nearly 250 yards away. It made his month, that encounter, and he intended to find them again.

To watch.

To learn.

To listen.

And so I followed as the two men lead me down through the creek bottoms, up a rocky pass  across a grassy pasture and through a draw to the top of the hill where pops expected he might find the herd again. I followed as they whispered about guns and bows and where husband shot his whitetail deer a few seasons back. I watched them as they watched the hills, pulled binoculars to their faces, stopped short at the cracking of a tree branch or rustle of the leaves. They pointed things out to one another or stopped in a draw to whisper a few stories, pointers, to say what they expect or hope to see.

It as inspiring really as I moseyed behind, snapping photos and breathing in the fall air. These two men–one who raised me, one who I grew up with–have taught me things I may have never learned without them. Here they were, friends. Best friends out here under the sun that was setting fast and turning golden trees to dark shadows…best friends on an age-old mission, a ritual.

As we pushed our horses up to the top of the butte and dismounted, I watched as the two of them snuck to the edge of the hill, dark silhouettes of men out in an element that was made for them, silent and peering out into the big oak draws below.

My heart pumped hard as husband spun around with that expression I know means business and the two men nearly jogged back to the horses to get a closer look…they had heard the bulging and we were going to get a closer look.

Now here I would like to explain to you what that was like, sitting at the top of that hill with a herd of elk grazing and moving along the trees below us. I want to tell you what these men were saying and describe how the breeze was heavy, the light was low, how I was holding my breath nearly the entire time as the horses grazed behind us, listening for that unmistakable, mysterious bugle. I would have loved for you to be there, really, to learn a little about the behavior of elk in the men’s sporadic and enthused but quiet conversation about what they were seeing.

I could have sat there forever like that surrounded by good things, with the moon above and the grass under my body. I could have listened to these men in their best moments, watched these unsuspecting animals so far away in their habitat, doing what they do to survive out here.


I could have listened to those coyotes howl all night and fallen asleep under the stars at the feet of my horse.

That’s how I felt. 

This is what we saw…

And these are the sounds. They are something you may have never heard before so I wanted to share so badly. It’s nothing thrilling, no fast cars or complicated music, no political banter or celebrity gossip that you might typically find on an internet video. No. This is just the sound of quiet, of calm, of good men in awe of  nature, an elk bugling, coyotes howling and a woman listening…watching…observing the world through their eyes…

The sights and sounds of elk scouting with the men of the Veeder Ranch:

Why you shouldn’t wear ball gowns in the barnyard…

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Ahh, autumn’s beauty. Serene. Peaceful, golden hues, warm setting sun, a light breeze, one perfect horse grazing on the hillside.

From here it looks like I exist in a damn painting. From here it looks like something in a coffee table book.

Or a page in the Western Horseman, Cowboys and Indians, the photo that goes with October in an outdoors calendars,  or the art that I imagine hangs on the wall of one of those fancy ranch houses in Texas.

Only this is real life people. You know it. This is no painting. No sir. At this distance our horses are sleek and groomed, with slick, shiny coats glistening in the bug free air.

True rugged beauty.

Unbelievable.

Yes.

Unbelievable.

Oh, come a little closer pretty boys. Let us run our hands through your manes, bury our faces in your coat, ride like the wind as the autumn air whips through our gorgeous hair…just like that woman on her steed in the clothing poster in the dressing room.

Yes, come closer, I’ll be her…let me get my long, flowing dress and giant earrings…


Oh, pretty boys yes, I’ll take your photo. We’ll show them what it’s like out here in the wild west of North Dakota. You are specimens. You are what those stable horses dream to be.

Free.

Agile.

Spirited.

Untamed.

Wild.

And….

well….

umm….

ah shit…

I weep.

I twitch.

I scratch.

And then fall to my knees and ask the sweet Lord to have a chat with the Devil himself. Because the Lord that I believe in created  all things indeed. The worms for the birds, the mosquitos for the frogs, the mice for the snakes, the snakes for the hawks, the weeds for the goats. I get it. I know how the chain works. I see the big picture. Lord, I do indeed.

But burs?

I just don’t get it. The only answer to the riddle of why these beastly, nasty, gnarly, poky, sticky, velcro-esk, buds of torture exist has to be this…bare with me here: While the sweet Lord was busily and happily creating things, he had mercy on the Devil and gave in to his plea to let him have a chance at inventing something. And the Lord, ever trusting, always willing to give second chances, thought to himself, “Ah, what the heck, maybe the Devil has turned himself around” and then suggested that the King of the Underworld start off with something small, like a nice little green plant, maybe a pretty insect or a flower. So the Devil rubbed his spindly little hands together, swished his tail and snickered with glee as he concocted a plan for a plant to take over barnyards everywhere.

“It will start out innocently enough,” he growled to himself while God had his back turned, busily inventing baby ducks. “Some people will mistake it for rhubarb and happily collect it to bake in pies for unsuspecting neighbors. Bwahahahah….cough cough” (the Devil coughs, you know, because of all that smoke inhalation).

“Wheeeze…ahem…and then it will grow. It will grow tall and strong in the most inconvenient places, like in front of the barn, and along the water tank, or the edges of creeks and under shady trees, you know, everywhere a beautiful horse with a long luscious mane might want to wander,” the Devil snorted.


God moved onto lilypads with those pretty little yellow flowers and then finished out his day with penguins and cotton-balls, all the while trusting the Devil to do the right thing, like go along with the useful insect idea. But no. The Devil had plans…

“It won’t need sun,” he was pacing now. “Oh, no. In fact, being the spawn of the devil, this “plant” (the Devil loves to use air quotes…it’s so annoying) it will prefer the dark places. But when the sun does hit it, no worries. It will just sprout the best part, the best part of it all…poky, sticky, scratchy little balls that will jump off the plant and stick to anything remotely fuzzy, kinda like how the velcro on your baby cousin’s shoes collect lint…only worse…WORSE I TELL YOU!!”

He laughed, he roared, he used his pitchfork thing to strike the new earth while he declared… 

“This is good…I mean bad…because sticking on tightly to anything and everything that moves about the place will allow my weed to spread to every corner of the prairie. And it will multiply and grow and thrive! Mwahahaaa…Why you ask?! Because nothing. NOThing. NOTHING WILL EAT IT!”

And with that, and a swipe of his red hot pitchfork thing, burdock was invented…

And there aren’t enough chainsaws in the world to remove it completely from the ranch.

Now I wish I wouldn’t have put on this long, flowing, ball-gown for this horse frolic photo shoot, because I am pretty sure I have a bur stuck to my butt…

Oh Lord, grant me the strength, proper equipment, cosmetics and attire to deal with ten horses who have been convinced by an evil man with pointy horns, red tights and a tail that the best grass is the grass growing underneath a cocklebur bush.

Scratch. Scratch.

Sniffle.

Sob.

Waahh…


67 minutes, a half bottle of Show-Sheen, twenty newly invented cuss-words and a broken comb later…

Yawn...

Ready…

For your…

Close up…

Ok. That’s better.

And I’d like to tell you that will be the first and last time I post a photo of a horse’s butt, but I just can’t make any promises…

Take that Devil…now I think it’s time we  have a chat about wood ticks….

DAAAMMMAAAIITTT!

Alone and breathing in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

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Well fall came dancing along in all its glory around here and we sure didn’t need the calendar to tell us so. Just like the uncharacteristically warm weather, the leaves on the trees were not about to take the subtle approach to the season change. Overnight the ash leaves turned from greed to gold, the vines bright red, the grass and flowers exploded seeds and even the slow and steady oaks began letting go their acorns and turning one leaf over to gold at a time.

It has been magnificent. But that’s the way it is around these parts, when it comes to the landscape and the great outdoors, you really can’t accuse it of being understated.

So after a challenging week I was ready to celebrate autumn the way it deserved to be celebrated. I was ready to frolic in it, to let go my agenda and my worries, ignore my pain and troubles and just climb a big damn hill and feel the warm breeze in my hair. So on Friday after a trip to the big town for an appointment, I moseyed on down the busy highway filled with lines of trucks and pickups and SUVs. Vehicles that moved busy humans at full speed along that paved ribbon of road that winds through buttes and half cut wheat fields, across the Little Missouri River that sparkles and meanders under the big blue sky and slowly sinking sun. I wanted to meander too, I wanted to meander among the things out here that are allowed a slow change, a subtle move toward hibernation, a good long preparation for a show like no other, a recital of how to slow down gracefully.

And I couldn’t help but wonder while I tried hard to keep my eyes on the road, despite the neon yellow trees waving at me from the ditches, if these people who were sharing my path were seeing this. Did they notice that the tree was waving to them too? Were they commenting on how the crows have gathered? As we came down through the brakes that move us through the badlands of Western North Dakota, our home, did they notice how the layers of the buttes–the line of  red scoria, the black coal, the clay–did they notice how in the late afternoon light the landscape looked like a giant canvas and the buttes seemed created with wisps of an artist’s brush?

Did they see that river? I mean really see it when they passed over the bridge? Did they take note of how it has receded a bit? Did they feel like stopping beside it to rest for a while? And as they approached the sign that read “Theodore Roosevelt National Park-North Unit,” a sign that indicated they were indeed on the home stretch to their destination perhaps, only 15 miles to the town to stop for gas, to make it home, to take a rest on a long truck route, were they enticed like I was at all on that Friday afternoon to stop for a bit?

Because what could be better than breathing in fall from inside a place that exists raw and pure? A park. A reserve. A spot saved specifically to ensure that nature is allowed to go on doing what it does best while undisturbed by the agenda of the human race, which at that point on Friday afternoon I was firmly convinced didn’t have a grip or a handle or an inkling about how to live gracefully among a world designed for us…let alone accept and live harmoniously among what we can’t control or may not understand–like the change of weather and the seasons and the sun beating down on the hard earth we wish would soften, or a body we wish would heal and function properly.

And I was guilty as well of taking this for granted. I was guilty of driving by this spot time and time again as it called to me to take a rest, to visit, to have a walk or a seat or a climb.

But not Friday. Friday I needed its therapy. I needed to park my car and stretch my limbs and take a look around from the other side of my camera.

From the top of Battle Ship Butte.

From the trail at the river bottom.

From the flat where the bison graze.

So as I pulled my cap down and took to the familiar trail that wound up that big, daunting and famous butte along the road, I took notice of breeze clattering the drying leaves together, the birds frantically preparing for the chill, the grasshoppers flinging their bodies at the dried grass and rocks…

and then I noticed I was alone.

Alone out here in this wild place I’ve visited before as a tourist, as a resident of the area, on dates and outings, family functions and educational tours surrounded by inquiring minds and cameras.

But I’d never been out here alone.

Alone as I scrambled and pulled my tired body up the steep and rocky and slippery trail toward the top of my world  as twobison grazed on the flat below the buttes.

Alone as I reached my destination with no other ears around to hear me catch my breath and then sigh in awe at the colors and solitude.

Alone as I watched those bison move and graze, a spectator in a different world, a spy on a giant rock.

Alone as a ran my hand along the cannonball concretions, scrambled to keep my footing and wipe the sweat from my forehead on the way down.

Alone to take my time as I noticed how the trees sparkled on the river bottom against the sinking sun. No one to tell me that’s enough…enough photos, enough time, enough gazing.

Alone as I walked toward the river, keeping an eye on the time, but wishing there was no such thing. And there was no one there to stop me from following it a little bit further, to see what it looked like on the other side of the bend.

No one there but me and a head full of thoughts and worries that were being pushed out of the way to make room for the scenery, the quiet, the beauty, the wildlife tracks and magnificent colors and trails before me.

And because I was alone, because it was quite, because in here there was no speeding or trucks or access to my phone, because unlike on the ranch, I was unfamiliar with the trails and the directions I was forced to really pay attention, to use my senses, to make new discoveries,  I was able to notice that after a few weeks gone missing I was becoming myself again.

The self that understood this was my habitat, my home and surroundings. The self that knows the weather will be predictably unpredictable, but the seasons will always change, the leaves will dry up, the acorns will fall, the birds will fly away from the cold or prepare for it, the grasshoppers will finish their rituals, the snow will come and coat the hard earth, then melt with the warm sun, changing the landscape, if only a little bit, as the water runs through and cuts the cracks in the earth.

And the bison will roam because we let them and the antelope will too knowing or not knowing that their lives are fragile.

Just like ours.

So we must remember to be present,  live in it…breathe.

Thank God I remembered to breathe.

Please, remember to breathe.

For more photos of my hike around Theodore Roosevelt National Park, click here to visit my Flickr photo album 

Oh, and if you missed it, take a stab at my North Dakota Trivia Game from last week’s post for a chance to win a prize! There haven’t been many brave attempts (I think you’ve all been out enjoying the beautiful weather), so I’m giving you more time!  Get your ND history hat on a play!