Tag Archives: life

Sunday Column: Living with the wild things

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Well, party people, look what the weekend drug in.

Snow and rain and not a green thing in site. Thanks to everyone who’s been sharing thier spring photos on the Facebook page and email. Every pretty flower cheers me and every snow flurry makes me feel less alone in this arctic tundra!

It’s not too late to get in on the game! Whether the birds are chirping in the warm sunshine or retreating back to the southern climates, abandoning the whole migration idea all together, show us how spring is shaping up in your neck of the woods and I will post them  all on the website Monday. Our favorite photo will win a copy of my new album “Nothing’s Forever” and a print of a warmer and prettier spring day at the Veeder Ranch.

So make (and warm up) my day and post your photos on the Facebook page or send me an email at jessieveeder@gmail.com

In the meantime, read  my Fargo Forum column on the other unpredictable thing around here–wildlife.

Coming Home: Humans, beasts learn to coexist.
Jessie Veeder, Fargo Forum
April, 21, 2013

Because like snow in April, some things just need to keep thier distance.

Peace, Love and Sunday Pancakes,

Jessie

How spring is springing. Contest Alert!

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It seems I woke up today to find that my positive attitude about all of this snow storm bullshit has melted away.

Unlike the snow itself.

No, that snow is not melting any time soon. In fact, it’s settled in nice and compact and crusty on the top of my car, which I attempted to dig out of the icy, hard snow this morning on my quest to get to town.

But, as most simple tasks go around here, it didn’t happen without a fight. Nope. Even after letting the defrost do its thing for a good twenty-five minutes I had to attack the three foot snow drift on my windshield with the power and might of Wonder Woman if Wonder Woman’s weapon of choice was an ice scraper.

Which it is not. I guess I’m not sure what Wonder Woman uses to combat evil, but it has to be something besides her leotard…wait…I’m  Googling it…

en.wikipedia.org

Oh, look at that, it’s the Lasso of Truth.
And indestructible bracelets.
And, of course, her tiara.

But since the snowdrift wasn’t lying about making my morning difficult and beating the car or throwing a fancy but dangerous  piece of jewelry at the thing wasn’t going to help me with the task at hand, I summoned, unsuccessfully, the aid of the Hulk instead.

But he must have been busy trying to control his uncontrollable rage, something that coincidentally I was practicing at the moment as well, so I was on my own.

On my own with the windshield wipers and my ice scraper as I freed myself from the drift and headed up the icy hills sending snow chunks flinging off my car in every direction, just rolling down the highway like Cruella DeVille.

And then I heard on the radio that it’s supposed to snow this weekend.

And then I screamed: Waaaahhhhhh!!!!!

Screen shot 2013-04-17 at 4.14.12 PM

So, to make myself feel better I decided it’s time for another contest ya’ll (Yes, I’m bringing ya’ll to the North Country…maybe it will make us warmer).

I know there are a few of you out there who are living in much warmer climates. Climates that are actually accommodating and welcoming green things by now.

I want to see them.

But most of all, I want to see what spring is doing in other parts of the world.

So whether it’s blossoming or blowing snow,  whether you live in the North Pole or down in the heated heart of Texas where, unlike me, they actually pull the whole “ya’ll” thing off, I want to see your photos!

Here’s how it works. 

  • Visit Meanwhile’s Facebook Page www.facebook.com/veederranch and share your Spring 2013 photo on my wall. (you may also shoot me an email at jessieveeder@gmail.com)
  • Tell me where you live and how your spring is shaping up and Husband and I will take a look and pick a winner.
  • I will share all of your spring photos on Monday’s blog and our favorite submission will win a copy of my CD, “Nothing’s Forever” and a matted print of my favorite spring photo. 

Let the games begin!

Peace, love and  lilacs already!

Jessie

Sunday Column: What quiet means.

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We’re in the middle of a full-on April blizzard, blowing in strong and fierce across the state, promising feet of snow to settle on the tops of the buttes that were drying out quiet nicely last week.

It’s the kind of weather that’s hard on ranchers and calves being born. The kind of weather that makes North Dakotan’s say, “Well, enough is enough,” and  book flights to Arizona, or Houston, or Jamaica, or someplace where people don’t remember what snow looks like.

But a flight out of here for us is out of the question, and just last weekend those hills accumulating snow were working on drying out quiet nicely. So I climbed to the top, looking for a chance to clear my head.

Looking for some quiet.

And I thought about what that  meant as trucks rolled by on the red scoria road and birds came home.

Visit the link below to read my Fargo Forum column, “Coming Home”

Finding a new quiet in Boomtown
Jessie Veeder, Fargo Forum
Published 4/14/2013
Fargo Forum

The Fargo Forum is a newspaper out of Fargo, ND, in eastern North Dakota’s, the state’s largest city.
My columns on life in Western North Dakota appear each Sunday in print at online at www.inforum.com 

Close up!

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I’m obsessed with observing. I could sit on the top of a hill in the spring and listen to the wind, watch the bugs come to life and inspect the ground for any sign of green for hours. I’ve been known to do it.I’m also known for bringing my camera every where I go, another little obsession and one my family and husband don’t always appreciate, but will thank me for when they are old and gray and trying to remember where they put the glasses they have dangling around their necks or pushed up on their heads.

I will show them these photos and remind them how young and beautiful they used to be.

And they will love me for it.

Anyway, on Tuesday a little treasure I’ve been pining for for a few years showed up in the mail, and I was like a kid on Christmas, rushing to get home so I could try it out.

A few years ago I wouldn’t have guessed that something like a camera lens would provide me such joy, but there I was, running around the countryside, putting my nose near the dirt next to an acorn, squatting down to inspect the mud, leaning in to see what that horse hair looks like dangling from the  barbed wire, because now, with this new little miracle piece of equipment, I was able to capture it.Because I’ve always been fascinated with the way our world looks close up. I generally don’t care so much for bugs, but when a photographer can show me the sparkle of their wings or the dynamics of their eyes, I suddenly think flies are beautiful.

So when my lens arrived I went on an all out mission to find a some sort of living, flying thing out there so I could test my macro-photography skills.

Little did I know that the only living insect in North Dakota was currently coming back to life in the windowsill of my bedroom.

But that’s ok. I needed practice on non-moving things before I moved on to tiny, living things that move really really fast.Taking a look and seeing the familiar a little bit differently is a nice little adventure.  And so I relished it a bit because I knew what was waiting for me when I got inside involved mortar and holding heavy things.

So here’s what our world looks like right now up close.

Green grass,and mud,and barbed wire,and horse hair,and left-over flowers,and rocks,and lots of brown things.



And although my little sister, who once declared brown as her favorite color because she felt sorry for it, would commend me for finding the beauty in the mud, I just really can’t wait for wildflower season.

And I really can’t wait for this house to be done.

So if you need me, I’ll be avoiding it and out looking for some color.

So that was Tuesday.

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Today is Tuesday.

It started like this.

And ended like this.

And in between I wrapped my robe around me and cursed the blasted cold that came in with the blasted snow in a real-live and never unexpected spring blizzard, officially making April my least favorite month of the year, only because it’s turned into a merciless tease.

I mean, last night the temperature nearly dropped below zero and this morning my car groaned and moaned while it worked to turn over.

And when I finally got it all warmed up and pointed it toward town, I passed the creek next to the highway that was open and flowing on Sunday, welcoming the geese home by providing them a nice place to float. Today those geese were all tucked up in little balls on top of the frozen water, occasionally lifting their heads from under their wings to look at one another, tap the ice and say “what the hell?”

What the hell indeed, I said as I followed a truck for the remaining 20 miles as it dropped and flung dangerously large clumps of mud and rocks at my windshield, just tootling on his merry way.

But I didn’t get another rock chip. Not right then anyway and not that I would notice considering I’ve accumulated about a dozen or so on my journeys through the oil patch.

No, I saved the rock chip for the way home from Boomtown, where I saw a man walking down the street rocking a legit kilt and looking damn good doing it, which is something you just don’t see every day around here and that pretty much made my day so I didn’t really mind the rock chip that came next.

And so I made it home safe to make bacon for dinner, which is always a good idea, but then I had to deal with all of these strawberries, because in a delusional, Martha Stewart type moment last week I ordered eight pounds from the food co-op. But now I don’t know what to do with them, because it’s still too damn cold for rhubarb and the only thing I know how to make out of strawberries is strawberry-rhubarb jam and strawberry smoothies.

So unless someone from a warmer climate wants to send me some rhubarb, it looks like I’ll be having strawberry smoothies until next fall.

And I was just about to sit down with one, maybe add a few swigs of peach schnapps and turn on some mind-enriching television programming, when Husband informed me of his plans to build a fireplace, beginning at approximately 8:30 pm and that I should get my mortaring jeans on because it’s happening.

So I did, because I want to get this house done more than I want a smoothie. I mean, I can have like twenty smoothies tomorrow.

But it took like a half-hour for Husband to find his trowel and another half-hour to figure out how to get the T.V. off the wall and another half-hour to decide we were missing some essential supplies, so Husband decided that was enough progress for the night and now my coffee table looks like this:

and my living room looks like this:

and Husband left me sitting on the couch watching a History Channel special series on Hell while he got in the shower, leaving the remote out of my reach, and now I’m kinda getting scared considering that it’s 11:00 already and I’m deep into a lesson about the devil and how he could return to earth one day.

So, yeah…

that was Tuesday.

Sunday column: On living with the time we’re given.

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Every Sunday I write a column for the Fargo Forum, an eastern North Dakota newspaper out of the largest city in our state, Fargo. The column focuses on life out here in Western North Dakota and what it means to be making a life back home in the buttes and oil fields.

Those of you who follow Meanwhile, back at the ranch on Facebook and @Veederranch on Twitter have probably caught these columns as I post the online versions there each Sunday.

But I’ve been thinking it might be worth while to share the columns here with you each Sunday as they are published to give you another perspective of life out here and something to browse while you’re enjoying your morning pancakes and coffee.

And if you haven’t yet, I recommend checking out Meanwhile, back at the ranch in the big, wide, world of social media to get more photos, more observations, more chaos and more pictures of the one-eyed-pug you all love so much despite my best efforts to de-fame him.

Click the link below to read this week’s column on how to live within the time we’re given. 

Coming Home: Time marches on no matter what you wish

I hope you’re enjoying your Sunday, my favorite day of the week!

Love you all and thanks for reading!

Spring Resolutions.

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I tell you, brown and blue have become my favorite colors.

Because it means the snow is melting and the sun is shining.

Soon that brown will be replaced by the best color in the universe. Green.

I’ve seen a little of it lately. Poking through the mud, just eager to make an appearance.

Last year at this time I’m sure I was out counting crocuses.

This year, I’m still snow bank hopping.

But I know it’s coming. Spring always comes. It’s the one constant we can rely on when everything else is crazy and unpredictable or gray or dull or blizzardy.

Spring. Spring will come and so will the baby calves and soon it will be summer.

So I’m waiting and doing what I’ve done since I was a little girl…following the new creeks and rivers that are escaping from the snow.

I follow them because I like the sound the water makes. The rushing, bubbling, quiet roar as the it rolls down hills and through gullies, across logs and over polished rocks. It reminds me of breathing and heartbeats and freedom and a world that gets another chance to clean up and show us what she’s got.

Everyone makes resolutions in the new year, in the middle of winter when the world is still in a deep sleep, frozen and unambitious.

I make my resolutions in the spring, in solidarity with the regrowth and new things blooming under the watch, guidance and encouragement of the warm sun.

I resolve to open up my heart as wide and fearless as the chokecherry blossoms, because our lives are short.

And I promise to be as dependable as the pair of geese that return to our dam year after year because love means loyalty.

I will work to be as strong as the oak, even under the harshest winds. Because that wind is steady only in its unpredictably and I don’t want to be a woman who backs down.

But I’ll listen close like a deer at the snap of a branch and I will take time to understand my home and what is meant to be here and what is a threat.

I will sing at the top of my lungs like the chickadees,

splash the brown world with color like a wildflower,

and I will run wild like the water in the creeks roaring down the banks and through the trees and warming up for a new life in the bright spring sun.

An Easter snowsuit.

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Only in North Dakota would a little girl have to bundle up in full snow gear to hunt for Easter eggs.
An Easter egg hunt in a snowbank is not something any of us were too thrilled about.

But we’re hearty northerners and six feet of snow has never stopped us from fulfilling our traditions.

But looking back on my childhood now it occurs to me I should have prayed for snow on Easter…


Because a snowsuit  would have covered up my embarrassing Easter jumpers.

Easter Flashback

And we all know a snowsuit is timeless.

Turns out, so is a swimsuit.

The verdict’s still out on the OshKosh Hat.

Hope your Easter was less snowsuity and more swimsuity.

Peace, Love and Egg Hunts,

Jessie

And then came the sun.

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This morning I woke up to another dreary, snowy, cold, white, un-springy day, a husband who couldn’t make it to work on account of a night spent puking and a pug literally hiding with his head under the covers and his ass facing the world.

I felt like doing the same thing, not puking, but, you know, just letting my ass face the world. Because, I mean, look at it…not a crocus in sight…

I was going to tell you all about it, after I took a few photos of the icicles hanging off the eaves,

the gray, dreary sky, the white flakes fluttering across bare and brown branches,

cold, leftover leaves,

big brown dog’s big brown cold nose,

and  ground just begging to warm up…

I was prepared to feel like the pug who doesn’t wake up to face the dog dish until well after the noon hour, going to absorb the sad, gray, so unspringlike day into my veins and mope a bit over peanut butter toast and coffee that just couldn’t be black enough, ignore the dishes in the sink and just say well shit, it’s snowing. It’s snowing again.

But then the sun came out.

and the gray turned to sparkle,

the bland to beautiful,

the gray to blue,

and the leftovers looked a little less lonely.

Ah, the sun.

The sun!

Look at that, the sun.

What a difference you made.



 I hope you found your sun today.

A boot in a snowbank and a puppy in the house.

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And now, for a brief story about how my momma came home one evening last week to find one of her fancy boots laying haphazardly in a snowbank in the front yard…as told by my mother, to me, over wine sloshing in a glass while she waved it in exasperation and disbelief.  

Jessie, I have to tell you something. Did I tell you this already? I don’t know. Well, oh my gawd, yesterday I left the house to go to work, and, well, oh you know that puppy just makes me so nervous when I’m backing out of the garage. She jumps around and follows me, it’s like the most stressful part of my day trying to get her to stay out of the way. She’s so cute but, ugh, I don’t want to run her over…

Anyway, so I go to work and come home that night and open the door from the garage to the house, and, Jessie, I know that door was shut when I got home, and I’m sure I closed it when I left for work. You know that puppy tries to follow me in the house and I say, ‘no, get back’ and shoo her out of there, so I know I shut it.

But anyway, I open the door and I get in the entryway and I feel like something’s off, you know. Like someone’s been in here. Then I notice a FedEx package, so I figure that was it. The FedEx guy dropped off a package, no big deal. But I walked a little further into the house and I see little tracks on the kitchen floor leading into the living room, like the puppy had been in the house! And then I get to the living room and some of my shoes and clothes from my bedroom were strung out into the living room. And I look around then and there’s other things too, like dad’s gloves and hats from the garage are in the house. It was weird. So I wondered if somehow I accidentally let the puppy in before I went to work, but I’m sure I didn’t. I’m sure of it. And she was in the garage when I got home, but if she got in how did she get out?

Anyway, so I start picking up the stuff from the living room and notice one of my new Corral boots, you know, the fancy ones, the ones I just bought…yeah, those…one of them is missing! I can’t find it anywhere in the house. It wasn’t in the living room or kitchen or back in the bedrooms.

Well, you know where it was? Outside! Outside in a snow bank.

I looked out the window and there it was. And I don’t get it. How did she get in and how did she get out? Oh, that puppy, she just loves to drag things. Dad told you she got his box of gloves down from the shelf in the garage last week, somehow, I don’t know how she got up there, anyway, she pulled them down and spread every glove out on the garage floor and out into the yard. She’s even found his power tools, has been chewing on them.

Anyway, so my boot was ok. Thank gawd. Thank gawd it wasn’t snowing or anything and she didn’t eat it. But I still don’t know how she got in the house and out of the house while we were gone? I know I shut that door when I left and I’m pretty sure I didn’t lock her in there.

The only thing I can think is like maybe the FedEx man accidentally let her in when he dropped off the package. You know how she can sneak in the door behind you and if you’re not paying attention she’s gets in the house…but how did she get out? Maybe the door isn’t latching the right way…I don’t know…

I don’t know. It’s a mystery. But my boot? Can you believe it!? Ugh, thank gawd it was ok…

Oh, Juno...