The animals of winter…

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Well the wind blew winter in this weekend and I breathed in the frozen air, a kind of sigh of relief that the season didn’t skip us altogether. Nope, the snow and the cold made it just in time to keep us wondering if there will be lions or lambs trotting in for the grand opening of March.

Oh, it doesn’t really matter much anyway. Around here we can’t trust in spring until the first weeks of June no matter how easy the winter season was on us. But on Sunday morning I was reminded of how much I missed winter all of these months when it was supposed to be snowing. The months I have come to call the extended fall…the early spring…

But we had winter yesterday and I couldn’t wait to get out in it. I squeezed into my long underwear, pulled on layers, tied my scarf around my neck, made sure my wool cap covered my ears and zipped my coat to my chin. The snow was fresh and the wind was blowing it in sparkly swirls around the barnyard. The hay bales were adequately frosted in neatly stacked white drifts, remnants of the small blizzard that blew through the ranch in the evening and was lingering into the late morning hours.

I stuck out my tongue to taste the snowflakes and snuggled down into the collar of my coat like a turtle as I walked toward the horses munching on hay below the barn.

I wished I had their fur coats, thick and wooly and brave against the wind.I wished I had their manes, wild and tangled and smelling of dust and autumn leaves, summer heat and ice. They keep it all in there, all of the seasons.

They nudged and kicked at one another, digging their noses deeper in the stack of hay, remembering green grass and fields, tasting warmer weather in their snack. I lingered there with them, noticing how the ice stuck on their eyelashes and clung to the long hair on their backs.

I scratched their ears and pulled some burs out of their manes and imagined what grove of trees they picked to wait out the storm last night, standing close and breathing on one another’s back. A herd.

I followed them out of the protection of the barnyard and into the pasture where the frozen wind found my cheeks and the dogs cut footprints in the fluffy snow in front of my steps. They played and barked and jumped and sniffed and rolled in the white stuff, like children on a snow day.

I found the top of the hill and remembered that I hadn’t felt this cold for months.

I had forgotten how my cheeks can go numb, how my fingertips ache, now my eyelashes stick together at the close of a blink and how the wind finds its way through the layers of clothing and freezes my skin. I forgot that sometimes it doesn’t matter that you took care to wear wool socks and three pairs of pants, we are never as prepared as the animals. Sometimes the weather just wins.

I wished I had fur on my ears, tufts on my feet, whiskers to catch the snow.

I wished I had hard hooves to anchor me in the snow, my own herd to lean against, to protect me from the wind.

I wished I was part of a pack, chasing and jumping and rolling through the drifts.

Oh, I would have stayed out longer if I had these things. I would have explored how the creek had froze, stuck my nose in the snow, walked along the banks of the coulee, leaned against the buttes and followed the indecisive sun.

But my scarf wasn’t thick enough, there was snow in my boots and my skin is fragile and thin. No, my body’s not wooly and my nose is not fuzzy. In fact, I wasn’t sure if my nose was still attached to my face. And my fingers? Well, I decided then as I turned my body back toward the house with a billowing chimney that there was a reason for those fingers I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep. Yes, those fingers knit sweaters and sew together blankets, our hands build fires and houses to protect us, our arms wrap around one another, our feet propel us toward shelter or sun and our brains invent things like warm, spicy soup and hot coffee and buttery buns.

No, we might not have fur coats, but we have opposable thumbs.

I pointed my frozen feet toward the house and flung open the door, stripped off my layers and stood over the heater vent, happy to have experienced winter, happy for my warm house and man-made blankets.

And happier still for a promise of spring that isn’t too far away on this winter day…

When I could break untamable horses and catch fish with a spear…

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

When I was younger, a little girl all wrapped up in the magic of this place, my favorite book of all time was “My Side of the Mountain.” I’m sure you’ve read it. It’s about a boy who finds himself living away from home in the wilderness of the mountains inside of a giant hollowed out tree. I can’t remember the exact story now or why he was alone out there, funny how those details escape me no matter how many times I went over the pages and marked my favorite parts. The parts where there were diagrams of how to build a fire with no supplies and something about a windmill and making a spear for fishing.

I still have the book buried somewhere deep in the rubble of the basement. It was one I could not give up to charity or to my younger sister. She just wouldn’t understand. She was a normal girl after all. A normal girl who read about horses and babysitting and a guy named Harry Potter.

Oh, I read about horses too. Horses that needed to be rescued from an island and a kid who became friends with a wolf, and another kid who overcame obstacles and won the Iditarod with a pack of misfit dogs and a whistle. I read about little girls growing up on the prairie during the homesteading days, riding in covered wagons, getting lost in blinding snow storms and making dolls out of corn cobs. I made one of those dolls myself.

I wanted to be these kids.

I wanted to be the free-spirited girl who broke the free-spirited horse. I wanted to live in a time where there was no “Garfield and Friends” on television, where we ate what we planted and went to school in a one room school-house. I wanted to be the girl who beat up the bully and wore pants when dresses were the rule.

I wanted to break the rules. I wanted to tame a wolf puppy, train a wild falcon to hunt, catch fish with a spear I sharpened out of a tree branch and exist in a far away time where those things were necessary for survival.

Screw microwave popcorn and Super Mario brothers, I wanted adventure!

And I wanted to live in the wilderness like the kid I came to love in “My Side of the Mountain.”

I am sure I wasn’t unlike most kids at 9 or 10 or 11 years old. We all wanted to prove our capabilities, stand out from the crowd, be the best at something. At that age most of us were lost in some sort of fantasy, whether it was flying to the moon, getting a puppy or discovering that elves really do live under mushrooms like in that book we just read. We all had a little more confidence than we had experience at the real world

So I’d like to think that it wasn’t that unusual that I, a 10-year-old girl who already lived about as far out in the middle of nowhere as anyone could live, had convinced myself that I could survive out in the wilderness alone. Without a house. Or a toilet. Or my momma’s cheeseburger chowder.

Yes, there was a time that was my plan. And let it be known that as a kid, I was pretty serious about these kinds of things. In the evenings I would step off of the bus from a day at country school, grab a snack, and head out up the creek behind our house. For months I would work on building what I called “secret forts” all along the creek that winds through our ranch. In the oaks and brush that grew along the bank I would identify just the right tree, one that was bent over just so, growing parallel to the ground, a perfect frame for which to create a sort of tent like structure out of fallen logs. And then I would begin the tedious process of locating and moving fallen branches, branches that took every ounce of muscle and try in my spindly little body to budge out of their place under overgrown vegetation and fallen leaves. But when it was dislodged from its space, I would drag it back to my tree and hoist it up to rest next to the last one I had managed to maneuver.

It would take a few days, but eventually I would have my secret fort enclosed with every moveable log and branch within a 100 foot radius. And when it was complete I would look around to make sure my little sister hadn’t followed me here like she did last time, identifying my plan and ruining the secrecy of the secret forts.

And then I would lay down inside of it. And under the flawed “shelter” of fifty logs leaning on a tree, providing nothing but a faulty wind break for the day dreaming girl laying on her back in the grass and leaves and twigs underneath, I would think about my next move. I would need a door. Yes. That would be necessary. I could make the door the way I imagined Huck Finn made his raft. I would need some rope. Some rope and a knife. I wonder if dad would let me carry a knife? I need some sort of blanket. Maybe there’s something in the barn. Oh, and a fire. Of course!

I would be scouring the creek bottom for granite rocks to arrange in a proper fire circle when the sun sink down below the banks and I would decide I wasn’t quite ready to spend the night. Besides, I forgot to bring a snack and the wild raspberries weren’t quite ripe yet. Taking one last look at my creation and deciding to reevaluate the next afternoon, I would turn my back to it and follow the cow trail back toward the house where my little sister was likely lurking in the shadows, having found out my secret again, begging me to let her help next time. Begging me to let her in the fort as the sun gave off its last light and we argued and grappled until we could smell dad’s steaks on the grill or mom’s soup on the stove.

This was my daily ritual for months and one of my signature childhood memories. Eventually I gave in and helped my little sister build her own fort. A much smaller fort. Across the creek. Out of site.

I thought I wanted to be alone out there, left to my own survival skills, but it turned out that having company was a nice addition, no matter how stubborn and annoyingly curious that company might be. So we built a tin-can telephone that stretched from my fort to hers and brought down old chair cushions from the shed, searched for wild berries, tried to catch frogs and minnows in the pond and spent our evenings planning our next move: spending the night.

But we never did it. We never spent the night. Summer gave way to fall and the leaves fell and covered the floor of our paradise. We would pull on our beanies, mittens and boots and trudge down the freezing creek to clear out the fire ring we weren’t yet brave enough to use. And then the cold set in and the snow came and the neighbor girls called us to go sledding and our dream of being wilderness women collected snow and waited on a warmer season.

I can’t help but think about those girls on days like these. Days when the cold sets in and the house seems smaller. Days when the toilet is doing the thing where it leaks, burnt casserole from the night before sits waiting for a clean-up on my countertop, the television’s blank and broken.

There’s no morning news today.

No one but me and the wind out here. The wind that seems to be calling me this morning to get out of the house. Come out of behind those curtains, from under the shelter of the shingles. Come have an adventure girl. Come dream about hollowed out trees, living on wild berries, building a fire for warmth and living a life like no one lives anymore.

I step outside and follow the trail to the creek bed, trying to remember where I set that first fort. Trying to remember what pulled me out here all of those years ago. Trying to remember the fantasy, the magic as the cold bites at my cheeks and the snow crunches under my feet.

I turn around and I miss my sister.

I turn around and I’m alone. Alone with a woman who used to be a girl I knew, a girl who thought she could tame wolves, fight off the bad guy, break untamable horses and live alone in the wild.

I follow the creek and look for her. I know she’s here somewhere. I hope she hasn’t given up.

I could really use her right now.

Your story in a song…

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I have been focusing quite a bit of my energy on my music these past few months, getting new songs ready to hit the studio to record another album. I’m pretty excited about the leap I decided to take after realizing, out of the blue it seemed, that I might have enough music, enough stories I’m proud of to get this done.

It’s been six years since my last studio endeavor.

So much has happened since then. Six years ago I was on the road in my Chevy Lumina, Map Questing my way around the country, finding where I was going on the road, from small town to the occasional big city, all the while wishing in between that I could Map Quest the path my life was going to take.

Well, I imagine there’s a reason you don’t get a chance to see your future, to look into the horizon of your life and know what’s over that hill. Because I wouldn’t have believed what I saw.

I wouldn’t have believed that moving back to the ranch, to my childhood home in the middle of nowhere, with my husband and two mis-fit dogs would have put me smack dab in the middle of a world that provided me with the same inspiration it did when I was a little girl walking the hills.

I wouldn’t have guessed that traveling all over the country alone with my guitar, living in the mountains with my new husband, struggling through life lessons and “responsible adulthood” wouldn’t have been enough to inspire me those years in between. Not one decently honest song made it out of me during those years of wandering.

And then I wandered home and suddenly my pages filled up. All of the sudden I had stories to tell and things to show you and people to write.

And I was reminded that the writing was the best part. The writing is the discovery of myself and of the people walking about, living their own lives around me, minding their own business, that I wouldn’t have noticed until they nod their heads at me in the lyrics I’ve jotted down in my disheveled notebook late at night while my world is sleeping.

I wouldn’t have believed it then, at 21 out on the road looking for a break, a place to stand with my guitar in my arms, an honest ear to listen, that seven years later at home, at the ranch, in the middle of the wild-west, I would find myself at the center of my music…and at the center of my world again.

So this morning as I pack up my fancy boots, a dress or two and my favorite scarf, getting ready to head out to play music for the weekend, I want to take a moment to explain to you why telling these stories is so important to me.

And why telling yours, or hearing it from someone else’s pen, might become important to you too.

Because a few months ago I was reminded. A few months ago I had unwrapped one of my songs after I was asked to play a piece of music to help tell the story of our booming community for one of the local news stations. So I told my story, standing on a busy Main Street as the camera was pointed in my direction, answering questions about changes and traffic and waiting in lines and what it means to have oil pumping from the earth in your backyard.

And what it means to have so many new faces in town.

I answered. And then I played my new song. A song that hadn’t previously made it out of my tiny house in the buttes. A song about those faces, what they have given up to be here, where they came from, and how they found their way here, to a strange place or, back in a familiar place, back home, with nothing but hope at a chance for a better life.

I told you about it here.

I played my song, the segment aired, I went about my business building my own life out here in the middle of nowhere…in the middle of everything.

And then one quiet Thursday afternoon while I was sitting at my desk writing something or paying a bill, the phone rang.

“Hello”

“Yes, hello,” said a man on the other line with a kind voice tucked into a thick southern drawl. “I’m looking for the girl who sings that song ‘Boomtown'”

“That’s me,” I replied. “I wrote that.”

“Well, alright then. My wife heard you singing on the T.V. the other day and she recorded it for me so I could watch it when I got home. She said I had to hear it. She said I think this girl wrote this song about you.”

“Really?” I laughed, unsure of where this was going.

“Yeah, so I listened to it. And well, my name’s Donny, I’ve got a truck, I just got married and I’m from Arkansas…”

“Really?” I had no other words, because, those words he spoke were my words…and they were in my song…

“We listened to it over and over and finally my wife thought I should give you a call…because, well, I’m wondering, did you write this song about me?”

I laughed again in surprise as this man who I had never met waited on the other line for my answer. A man who no doubt had a story to tell me, a story that I was going to learn a little bit more about about after I came up with my reply.

“Well, no Donny, I just made that man up. I figured he was out there, and well, oh my goodness, he is! ”

He laughed too as we talked more about the similarities he found to his life in the song, about how his company transferred him from Arkansas to North Dakota in the last year because that’s where the work is. We talked about his wife and his daughters and the struggle to find a place to live in this booming place.

We talked about how he likes it here.

I thanked him for his call.

I was so glad he called.

I was so glad I wrote his song, a song I will never again sing without hearing his voice on the other end of the line.

Listen to “Boomtown” and hear Donny’s story below.

I’ll be singing this song at the Fargo Theatre tomorrow as part of the Celebration of Women and their Music show. And I’ll keep you updated on the latest in my studio session and new music. I can’t wait for you to hear the new music, because, well, maybe my stories, Donny’s stories, our stories out here are pieces of your stories too.

Peace, Love and Music from the Ranch.

Are you warm yet?

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Uff da, it’s kinda cold here in Fargo. It’s normal for February, but with all of the 50 degree temperatures we’ve had in January, we’ve been spoiled and confused about what season we’re living in. Which makes today’s -32 windchill feels a little mean.

Yes, today in Fargo it’s winter indeed and I am happy I remembered to pack my giant sweater.

But we’re in the middle of February and even though the light at the end of the winter tunnel is approaching I think it’s time for a little reminder of what this land looks like with a change of clothes.

Because even a mild winter can feel long up here. So we need to be reminded that all that brown and white…

will eventually turn green.

That snowflakes

turn to raindrops…

and the frozen creeks will melt

and babble and sing again.

And the bare trees will bring fruit that tastes sweet on our lips,

The sun will once again flush our pale cheeks,

and strip the thick coats from the back of the beasts.

Creatures will emerge,

flowers will bloom again,

and the sun will soon rise on a new season.

There. Are you warm yet?

Community in a time of change…

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I interrupt the regular programming of walking the hills, chasing Little Man, scolding the pug and cooking with my husband to talk for a moment about community. I want to talk about belonging somewhere, calling it home, embracing its flaws and standing up for a place…taking care of it.

No matter where you live in this country you’ve probably caught bits and pieces about the changes that are occurring in Western North Dakota due to new technology that allows us to extract oil from the Bakken and other large reservoirs that lay 10,000 feet below the surface of the land…the land where our roads wind, our children run, our farmers cultivate, our schools and shops sit. The land we call community. The land we call home.

For the people who exist here oil is not a new word. Neither is the Bakken. My county is celebrating its 60th year of oil discovery soon and its county seat isn’t even 100 years old. So you can imagine many long time residents of the small “boomtowns” you’re hearing about have had their hand in the industry at one point or another in their lifetime. Some have stories about finishing high school or returning home from college and working in the oil fields in the 1970s, moving up in industry, making their place, seeing it through the rough times and coming out on the other side as leaders and veterans of the industry.

Veterans of the industry like the ranchers and farmers in this area working to exist and tend to their land while the search for oil below their wheat fields and pastures carries on around them. During rough times, times when cattle prices were low, or the rain didn’t fall, some of those landowners have taken a second job driving truck or pumping for oil to make ends meet, to pay off some debt, to get their kids through college.

These people have served as members of the school board, city council, 4-H leaders and musicians in local bands. They have helped build up their main streets, keeping small businesses in business and the doors of the schools struggling with declining enrollment open. They’ve coached volleyball and cheered on their hometown football teams. They’ve helped a neighbor with his fencing, brought their kids along on cattle drives, drove the school bus to town and back every weekday, filled the collection plate at church and then helped rebuild its steeple.

These people continue this way to this day and I expect many in this generation, my generation, will be telling similar stories when it’s all said and done…stories that start with back breaking, 80 hour a week job and end in a life made.

A kind of life we are all living out here surrounded right now by oil derricks and pumping units and wheat fields and new stop lights and cattle and badlands. And I know you’re hearing about it. It’s big news in a tough economy–an oasis of jobs, opportunity and money in what some have come to refer to as “The Wild West” or “The Black Gold Rush.” It’s a story of hope, yes, but what we really like is the drama don’t we? We like to hear about the guy who came to North Dakota on a prayer only to live in his car in the Wal-Mart parking lot while he hunted for a job that allowed him to send money home to his wife and kids, or build a house, or a booming business. We like to talk over the dinner table about how the bars are full and the lines are long at the post office, about how a new building is going up and how the new stop lights and three lane highway is not doing enough to control the traffic.

We talk about how our lives are changing. I have been trying to wrap my mind around what this means for the place I have and always will call home. But the bottom line is that without this change, I probably wouldn’t be here to contemplate it at all.

Yesterday I worked with a small group of elementary children who are full of life and love and energy and ideas…and nearly all of them have moved with their parents to this town within the last couple years. They come from all different backgrounds, from several states away. They come with ideas and insight into a world that extends outside this small and growing town where they now live. Some of them have left the only house they have known behind, some have left pets and horses they used to ride, wide open space and friends to live in a new place, a place much different from where they came from. A place that has work, but doesn’t have an abundance of houses their parents can chose from with big back yards where they can play.

When asked where they are from they will tell you Wyoming, California, Montana or Washington.

When asked about their home, they say it is here.

Change? Compared to these children, we know nothing of it.

Because last night I returned to the ranch after dropping off the last student only to pull on my tennis shoes and drive down the road with Husband to meet up with neighbors to play a few games of volleyball. And there we were at a small, rural recreation center surrounded by some of the community members who raised funds to build the place nearly fifteen years ago. Fifteen years ago when the pace was slower, but the most important values were there.

The value of having a space to get together to play a game, to craft, to hold meetings and New Years Eve parties and baby showers. In that very gym where I skidded across the floor last night to hit a volleyball my neighbor passed to me was the very gym I served pancakes in as part of a youth group fundraiser when I was twelve years old. It was where I gathered with friends and family after a community member’s funeral. It was where I attended 4-H meetings and put on talent shows with my friends. And it’s where I’m going to craft club next Tuesday. Yes, nearly fifteen years after that talent show this is still my meeting place and I still get to call all of the teachers, ranchers, accountants, stay at home moms, business owners and yes, oil industry professionals who are running after fly volleyballs, laughing and joking and skidding across the floor, my neighbors.

But you know what I need to remember? Those students and their families and the people who are on their way here to look for a better life? They are my neighbors too. And they have a lot to teach us.

So if you ask me how life has changed, I might tell you about the traffic. I might tell you how there are a couple oil wells behind my house and how that was hard to get used to. I will tell you about the new business coming to the area and how we now have stop lights in town. I will tell you about the challenges. And then I will tell you about the people who are keeping their fingers on the pulse of this development and discovery. I will tell you about those who are asking the right questions about our environment and making the tough decisions about our infrastructure in order to better accommodate new students in our schools and new residents of our towns so that they feel they belong here the same way I belong.

They are on the front lines welcoming visitors to the museum, taking the time to ask questions at the grocery store, spending their retirement as County Commissioners, City Council and Chamber of Commerce members. I will tell you about the people who are not only sticking it out during these growing pains, but who are working every day to make their home a better home for the next generation.

Yes, right now our community is overwhelmed. Whether or not we saw this coming, whether or not we thought we were prepared, many days for many people it feels like the phone calls, the needs that can’t be met, the questions that don’t have answers yet, are overwhelming…and it’s tempting for many to pack up and leave a place they don’t feel they recognize anymore.

But here’s what I’m proposing to those living in the middle of the Wild West and to those in any community really:

Stand up for it. Go to meetings. Ask questions. Play Volleyball together. Exist in it. Don’t be afraid to be frustrated, but then do something. Anything. Invite a new person to your quilting club. Put on a talent show. Volunteer. Attend a basketball game. Mentor a student. Instead of complaining about the trash in the ditches, get your friends together to pick it up. Set a good example. Set your standards and then be prepared to put your muscles into it.

If it’s your community, make it your priority. Because it’s your community and it’s worth loving and fighting to take the frustrations and turn them into solutions. To turn the complaining into action. To shift from fear and uncertainty to a place of positive energy and open-mindedness.

It isn’t easy, but those who have seen this through, those who have walked the main streets when the stores are full only to turn around to see them empty, those who built that school, owned that store, lived in that house for 50 years, they will tell you, not only is it worth the effort, it’s our responsibility.

Want to keep up with what’s happening in Western North Dakota and my hometown?
Visit: mckenziecounty.net for the latest in news and progress and the North Dakota Petroleum Council for information on North Dakota’s oil industry.

On a green January day…

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Well, we are nearing the end of January and outside my window the sun is trying desperately to peek through the blanket of clouds and I feel, at 45 degrees, at any minute this brown, damp landscape is going to erupt in colors of green and orange and pink and purples.

What a weird winter it has been. And when I say weird, I also mean a little wonderful.

But I’m wonderfully freaked out.

Remember last year? Remember the countless times we were snowed in? Remember my run in with the FedEx Man in a FedEx Van who, by the grace of Martha, I was able to pull out of my yard in order avoid an awkward afternoon of coffee in this little house in the middle of nowhere with a man who delivers my boots.

Yes, last winter we snowshoed, we sledded, I made snow angles and a snow man. I let the snow man wear my hat and my scarf, because, well, I was wearing a hat and scarf.

There were drifts that reached up over my head, which made driving into our yard feel like driving in the tunnel of a snow fort. I began contemplating purchasing cross country skis to give myself another option of getting around the ranch.

It was a damn winter wonderland.

But what we have this year people is a damn phenomenon and I’m not quite sure where I am and what they’ve done with winter , but it sure is keeping me on my toes.

I mean, there we were hunkered down after a stretch of sub, sub, zero temperatures only to wake up to rain and the smell of spring in the air. In another winter in another time this type of weather would send the snow melting in the coulees and me running to creek beds to float sticks and homemade boats.

But today the ice on the creek has melted just enough for the dogs to grab a lick, the banks brown and muddy,

red bare stems poking up from the ice,

orange berries dangling from twiggy branches,

golden dried wildflowers.

These are the colors of this North Dakota winter. And the feeling is all around poky.

And this is disarming to me, because it my mind, winter is supposed to be soft.

I am all out of sorts in this in-between, schizophrenic season. So yesterday while the boys were working on our new house, I skipped work and took a cross-country hike to momma’s on a full out search for any signs of winter. I needed to find something worth snuggling into, something that beckons me to come and lay down in it, something that sparkles.

But what I found was not what I was expecting really.

See as I followed the deer trails through the trees toward the creek, I tried to recall if I’ve ever been able to hike through these coulees so late in the winter. A walk this long through this much rise and fall in terrain last year would have induced near death huffing and puffing for sure, or at least a bloody nose. But yesterday, after leaning in to examine the thorns that stuck out from the blueberries bushes, the bare flowers, dried up and bending in the breeze without their petals, the dry grass that crackled as the wind pushed through its stems, something else caught my eye.

Under that dry grass, at the base of the oak trees, clinging to the rocks in the frozen creek was green, vivid, wonderful, lush, bright green. What is usually buried under a thick layer of white were remnants of a warmer season coated in the drizzle of this unusual January weather.

Fuzzy moss.

Silky grass.

Furry leaves.

And the more I looked, the closer I got to the ground floor of my world, the more green I found. Soon I was stripping off my wool cap, untying my neckerchief, folding back the flaps on my mittens as the uncharacteristic color of winter transported me and I was convinced I was living in a warm May day.

Oh yes, the creek was still frozen on the top, the dogs spinning out as they chased after a squirrel who too, was awoken from his deep sleep by the warming up.

But underneath their furry paws the creek was following them, running too while it can run… on a green January day.

Oh, I could have stayed at the bottom of that creek bed nestled among the birch trees and towering oaks all afternoon, holding my wood cap in my hands and shoving my mittens in my pockets. The fallen oak leaves were a warm blanket covering the cool ground, the moss on the trees invited me to touch, the biting breeze was blocked by the deep banks the creek has cut and the trees who make those banks their home.

Oh, yes. I found soft.

I found soft on a snowless winter day where, on gifts of days like these, if you look close, under all that brown and red and orange, and frozen gray

the earth waits patiently for it’s chance to shine again.

Days spent like this…

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I have been hanging with Little Man a lot lately. We’ve been chillin’, drinking bottles of milk, throwing snack foods on the ground, giving the kitties kisses, watching Mickey Mouse, practicing our walking skills and pooping our pants…wait…that one is just him.

He is a blessing, a joy, a wonder of new accomplishments and experiences. He tests the limits of what he is made of about 64 times a day because that’s what being a child is all about. Reaching, learning, climbing on the table when no one’s looking just to see if you can.

I wish I could be more like him. He’s taught me so much already in his short little year-and-some-months life and the time I get to spend with him one-on-one opens my eyes to things I didn’t know about life before I met him.

Like a tiny kid in tiny Carharts might be on the top of the list titled “Cutest things in the world”

This is also on that list:

And, well, he stands alone pretty well on that list too.

I have also learned that cute can get into your cupboards, pull the lab’s tail, wake up at 3:30 am, throw his vegetables on the floor, then his fruit, then his sippy cup, laugh hysterically about it…and then get you to laugh hysterically about it too…while you happily clean up the mess.

Because cute is cute, even when he’s the reason you went to work with mashed peas stuck to your butt.

In addition, in my previous life I did not pay adequate attention to The Disney Channel. And to that I would like to formally apologize to Walt Disney himself. And then I would like to thank him. Because Walt, The Disney Channel is a little gift from heaven. Because that’s where Mickey Mouse lives. And Little Man loves Mickey Mouse just enough for me to be able to have a moment to tame my hair and brush my teeth.

Macaroni and cheese is also a gift, especially when the vegetables, fruit and sippy cups fail.

So is the song “You are my Sunshine.” Works every time.

And you know what else I’ve learned during the time I’ve been spending with this little bundle of smiles and snorts and boogers?

Well, I’ll tell ya, days spent like this:

And this:

They are my favorite days.

Poop, peas, Mickey and tail pulling included.

Who woulda thought?

Obsession…

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I have been having some issues this past month and I decided it’s high time I let you all in on one of my little quirks. Because I think it is one of my duties to make you all feel better about yourselves and life in general and what better way to give someone the gift of self-assurance than to flat out confess that I might be a little crazy.

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

See, you feel a bit more normal already, don’t you?

Anyway, I may have mentioned in passing that I have a few addictions. One of them is coffee,

Like I said, it started at a young age...

Another is bagels, and, well, get me in a room with puppies and I am in danger of an overcommitment similar to that of the Megan character in Bridesmaids.

Yeah. 9 puppies in a van. That would be me.

Look at me, I'm possessed....

Obsession. We all have it in us. Sometimes it’s a great thing. Sometimes obsession pushes us to test our limits of capabilities and finds us climbing uncharted mountains, speaking foreign languages, running marathons or, you know, at the Grammys or something.

But sometimes it ain’t so pretty. Like when you snap out of a chocolate chip cookie induced coma to find that you have been watching a marathon of “Dance Moms” on a Sunday afternoon, for like four hours straight. The realization that you may never get those brain cells back is a tough pill to swallow. And the realization that there are actually women in this world who are that awful…and they get their own t.v. show…can also be something that puts you at risk of a late night call to your therapist.

Yeah, I’ve had my fare share of obsessions. From my addiction to blending things, the semester in college where I couldn’t fall asleep without watching re-runs of the Cosby show on TV Land and the six months I spent determined to find myself a pair of the original Zubas…in my size…in pink and black…just…like…I…used…to…wear.

Needless to say I had to wean myself off of Ebay the same way I had to quit Theo.

It was painful, but necessary.

Yes, I have been known to go overboard. You witnessed it a few months back when you caught me sitting at my kitchen table in my sweatpants, crazy eyed and determined to craft something. It goes wwwaaayyy back people. Back to my days of 4-H and wildflower hunting and learning to ice skate on the frozen stock dam, practicing for hours so that one day it might be possible for me to compete in the Olympics.

I am delusional. But in those moments, the moments I am spinning on ice and getting ready to use my toe pick to launch into the triple axel I am so utterly confident I can land, I believe myself. And then I crack my tail bone on the ice and decide that perhaps I should get back to latch hooking.

Yeah, I’ve been known to possess the not so productive, not so calorie burning or brain-cell friendly obsessions in my lifetime. And I will admit that not many of them have turned out the way I had intended.

But some have. Like my this one right here:

Ummm, hmmmm, that turned out alright sisters.

Yup. I am the woman who finds something she likes for breakfast and then eats it for breakfast like….every….single….morning. When I have a favorite menu item at a favorite restaurant I order it…every…single…time. Like a song? I press repeat. And then I press it again. Then I buy the album and NEVER take it out of the CD player until I find another album to torture my friends and family with for months at a time. Seriously, I have literally worn out CDs….

And so I guess that explains my five year marriage to a man I met when I was eleven, in case you were wondering.

Yup.

Which brings me to today. I’m flaring up.

And I am blaming the advancements in technology. See, it used to be out here in the wilderness you were protected. You didn’t have access to a shopping mall, so maybe you wore the same boots every day and didn’t know any different. You were happy. You fell in love with the music that you heard coming through the radio on drives in the tractor or in the feed pickup.

All seven of them.

And you were happy humming to George Strait. George Strait is the man. And Zubas were only a fond memory. A memory that had absolutely no potential of becoming a reality again because there was NO SUCH THING AS EBAY!!!

But now I’m screwed. I have high speed (well, high speed for middle of nowhere) internet and I just found out that Pinterest was invented AND I NEED FURNITURE AND LIGHT FIXTURES AND I NEED TO CRAFT THOSE LIGHT FIXTURES OUT OF RECYCLED WINE BOTTLES AND THE FURNITURE OUT OF BARNWOOD AND PILLLOWS I HAVE TO LEARN TO SEW FROM SCRATCH! IDEAS! I’VE FOUND ALL THE IDEAS!!!

And then, my little sister came home and introduced me to Spotify, an online music sharing site that gives you access to any artist and all of their albums. So I downloaded it and have been crying in my office at work for like three days in a row as I listen to Lori McKenna‘s new album on repeat for eight hours.

I mean, who writes lyrics like this?

I was just a little girl
When your hand brushed by my hand
And I will be an old woman
Happy to have spent my whole life with one man”

Who is this woman and why is she singing about my life?
Can we be friends? Lori? Lori? Can you text me? I’m dying. Sniff. Sniff. Sob.

I think I’ll stalk her on YouTube

Lori McKenna: How Romantic is That

But here’s the worst thing of all. Something I’ve known is out there for years. Something that has fed an already brewing obsession. Something that allows for that obsession to be delivered to my door with a click of the button. Something that is filling my already to capacity closets to the brim, inhibiting me from making wardrobe decisions, has me standing in front of the mirror in jeans on one leg, and then the other… It’s keeping me up late at night.

It’s costing me hundreds of dollars.

And the worst thing of all is that I can’t quit. They don’t make a patch, they don’t have a help line, I can’t call my momma cause she has the same problem…my sister is hooked too. It might be hereditary. It might be the devil…if the devil was fashionable and sexy….

Yes…you guessed it. It’s online boot shopping…and I need one of the following in every color.

I need fancy boots for singing, practical boots for riding, comfy boots for walking (because these boots are made for walking), boots that look like slippers, slippers that look like boots…

I need boots that go over your jeans, and ones that go under, and a pair that do both just in case. I need high heeled boots and mid heeled boots and well, normal heeled boots. And I need high heels that look like boots.

I need snow boots for trudging, and snow boots for shopping, and muck boots for slopping around in the shit in the corrals.

I need hiking boots to climb the hills and boots that go in my snow shoes. I need hunting boots. I need cowboy boots, and sexy cowboy boots, and boots that kinda look like cowboy boots, but aren’t.

I need hippy boots and professional boots that go with the suit I might wear some day. I need square toe, round toe, pointy toe and the ones that are kinda square and kinda pointy…

There out there…they are. I’ve seen them all!!!! Mwahahahahaha….. (*whisper* hhheeelpp….meee…)

I’ll just be a little longer… Can you hand me another chocolate chip cookie?

Shit.

How you spend your weekend…

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Weekends around the ranch, no matter how well intentioned and thought out, are usually pretty unpredictable. Where some families have a nice and lovely routine that includes pancakes in the morning, taking kids to practices, catching a movie and maybe going out to eat with the family on Sunday after church, around here we try to keep our plan simple so as to not disappoint: wake up when the sun gets up and see if we can’t get something done between the hours of sunrise and sunset.

Sometimes we rock it. Sometimes we accomplish our goals of moving cows, mowing the lawn, fixing fence, taking down the little Christmas tree, taking a walk, nailing something to something else and feeding all the damn cats in time to cook supper together and kick back in our respective spots on our comfy furniture with our feet up before hitting the sack.

Other times our biggest accomplishment of the weekend is getting out of our sweatpants.

And usually those Saturdays come after the Friday that the band plays in town.

Uff. Da.

Because when the band plays in town we don’t roll back to the ranch until 2 am.

And, well, you know what I say about 2am? Well, usually nothing because usually I’m sleeping. But if I happen to see it, I scold it. Because nothing good happens after midnight…and nobody is beautiful at 2 am…especially not yours truly.

I’ve known this to be true even during my stint as a younger woman who may or may not have been the only one caught sleeping at the completely innocent and organized after prom party.

2 am and I never got along.

But making that drive to town to listen to the band play “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and “Can’t You See” and John Prine songs that make me think about dancing the two step is worth the inevitable next day spent shuffling around the house in sweatpants. Especially because one of my favorite things in the world is singing with these men, my pops, our neighbor, and two or sometimes three of the greatest musicians around.

Oh, and then there’s the talent that just might saunter through the back door sometimes, like the squeeze box player from New Orleans, the fiddle player from the badlands or the base player from the next town.

The music is always good.

And the next day after I have pulled off my boots and washed the smoke out of my hair, no matter the hour we arrived home to our bed, I am always a little rejuvenated, despite that my blood-shot eyes might indicate otherwise.

See, when I was younger and looking over the edge of the nest, waiting to take that inevitable leap, I have to tell you, I think I was realistic about how much I really knew about life. And that’s why I was scared to death. But the few things I did know, like what it felt like to be loved, which direction my car needed to be facing to get me home, how to make a killer bowl of ramen noodles and the fact that leaving this place was inevitable were a good basis for what I now know will be a lifetime spent learning how I might exist here with purpose.

Which brings me to my point. I have one, I think. See, when I left home ten years ago I don’t remember being too delusional about life, although I am sure it snuck its way in there at times as I imagined myself singing on big stages, selling at least enough CDs to pay the bills or writing a best-selling novel. No, I didn’t see myself as a CEO of a company or a big PR Executive even though that might have been the direction my professors were leading me. I didn’t dream of climbing to the top of big mountains, but I would have taken you up on your offer. And I didn’t picture myself with 4.5 children, a white picket fence and a casserole in the oven, although I was open to it if it happened to turn out that way

Casseroles weren’t something I dreamed of then.

But when the clock would hit that magical 11:11 at night, something that I always found so thrilling to catch, do you know what I wished for every time?

A happy life.

Yes. Even though I had no idea what that meant, what my version of a happy life was, I wished for it.

And so here we are a good nine days into the new year and I’m not going to lie, it’s been a tough nine days around here. Because it turns out even my safe-haven, even the rolling hills of the ranch and dreams coming true can’t protect us from pain and uncertainties that can come speeding down the pink road. But it has put this question on my mind as I roll out of bed, trying to move through the fleeting thoughts that come with knowing there are things I may never have and people in my life who may never have the happy life I speak of.

And as I talk to friends and family who might be hurting or reaching for something that they are continually denied or failing to see themselves, to really see themselves, I tell them: try every day to live honestly…and be true.

And so I tell myself.

But what does that mean? Really? What am I saying?

Ok, well, let me bring it back around to those men who play guitar and sing while closing their eyes tight on Saturday nights at the bar in their hometown. Or the woman who gets up in the morning before her children, before her husband, just as the sun is peeking over the horizon to lace up her running shoes and spend an hour propelling her body over the earth, sucking the morning air into her middle-aged lungs. Or the father who sits patiently with his teenage son to teach him the art of wood-turning, the artist who sees the sunrise as a painting, sees a face in the clouds or the single man who finds himself committed to conquering fears and the adrenaline rush that comes with skiing down the face of a snow packed mountain.

What do they have in common? It’s not the result of the painting, the physique that comes with the run, the money made on the piece of art or the applause after the song is over.

No.

It’s the beauty of the wood discovered underneath the bark and the conversation with his son that he might not have had otherwise. It’s giving herself the chance at a morning quiet enough to hear her own heart beat out in the open space she loves, it’s taking notice that the world is the masterpiece and the understanding that the end result can’t possibly give her as much joy as the process of creating it.

It’s singing out loud next to your father and his best friends for the sake of singing. For the sake of committing to doing something that you love with people you care about.

Because in order to live honestly you must know yourself and the tools you need to cope in a world that can be downright unpredictable and overwhelming and sometimes unbelievably sad.

It’s knowing there are things inside you that need to be nourished, things that need to be shared with others, created, or kept safely next to you on your bedside table. And it’s trying your damnedest to find out what those things are and doing them, even if it means staying up until 2 am.

And so it’s worth it sometimes (if you have at least one pair of clean underwear left) to let the laundry wait until you get back from your walk, finish that painting, go to your yoga class, visit a friend…

Because the secret to living honestly, staying true and living a happy life, just might be how you spend your weekend….