An Easter snowsuit.

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

All in a day’s work…


So there I was, legs dangling and flailing as I maneuvered and shimmied myself out of the window of my friend M’s big blue pickup parked outside the front door of the pizza place in Boomtown.

It was a perfect parking spot for a spectacle that could only occur when my friend and I get together. And it was the perfect time of day–6:00 PM, the dinner rush hour when hundreds of men are flocking in from the oil fields in search of dinner, a cold beer, and if it happens to be an option, maybe some entertainment.

Well, if the gentlemen were paying attention as they shoved their hands in their pockets, talked on their phones and shuffled past that blue pickup and on through the door for some grub, they might have paused a moment to wonder what the hell was going on in there.

Why was the pickup shaking?

Why did it just park, backup, and then park again?

Why were those women laughing so hard?

Why weren’t they getting out? What are they doing in there? Wait…is she climbing out the damn window? 

If they would have stopped to ask I would have answered:

Yes. Yes, I’m climbing out the window. Why? Because the damn doors of this pickup, the ones we used to get in here, worked just fine thirty miles ago. But now? No. Now they are stuck. All four of them. 

We tried our best to open them, punching and flinging our bodies at the doors in an attempt to dislodge whatever is potentially lodged, so that’s what the shaking was about.

We tried cutting the engine and starting it again, the sort of control+alt+delete thing that works on computers, but as you can see from my ass hanging out the window and my legs dangling and flailing as I attempt to reach the ground, kind sir, that didn’t work either.

And we’re hungry, but not surprised. This kind of shit happens to us all the time. And her husband will never believe it. She’s calling him now. He’s going to ask her if she unlocked the doors.

We did.

But I got this. I got this. No big deal. I’m climbing out the window. No, don’t worry about the gravel road we accumulated on the way here, I’ve had plenty of gravel road on my outfits in my lifetime. Yup, we’re starving and I’m climbing out the window to get the pizzas to bring home to our husbands who will shake their heads and wonder what we did wrong. 

We will say nothing. They won’t believe us. Thanks for asking.  Now if you’ll excuse me…”

That’s what I would have said if one of those men had asked. But none did. Thankfully. They probably knew better, knew not to get involved as my friend made the call to her husband and I lowered myself to the ground, laughing uncontrollably and wondering how the hell I was going to get back in that big truck of hers with two pizzas and a box of cheese balls, a dinner clearly made for adventurers like us.

Adventurers and friends who have found ourselves in the throes of a small photography business we created that sends us along muddy back rads to chase toddlers through fields, try to fit babies in buckets and race the sun with a senior in a prom dress to the top of a butte in an attempt to get the best shot.

We’ve been nearly a year in business and we’ve learned a lot about our craft and our friendship, but mostly we learned that it isn’t a day’s work until one of us twists and ankle, trips over our own feet, drops a camera, slips and dangles dangerously from a ladder, or, you know, runs out of diesel twenty miles from town.

So we weren’t surprised about this door thing, because we were due for another mishap, that dark cloud that hovers over our fluffy hair hadn’t quite delivered that day.

But it was a mystery, I declared as I handed the pizzas in to M through the open window, giggling, mumbling, grunting, hoisting and stretching my legs up there in an attempt to follow.

And then I said, “You know, when you get home to show your husband, these doors are going to open right up.”

My friend laughed and said she was sure of it, “but really, what the hell?”

And we laughed for the next 15 miles where I said goodbye and got in my car, praying the doors would open and that it would start, because, you just never know.

road

But we did know. We knew it was going to be a mystery forever.

We knew we would laugh about it now and be glad we had one another for witnesses. Because when she got home to declare the pickup in need of repair,  those doors opened right up.

Ah, well. Just another days’ work…

And then came the sun.

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.

Three princesses.

When you’re an aunt to three princesses your world can turn from dull to pink with the simple opening of a car door. Suddenly the wind blowing quietly through the brown bare trees and the sound of the snow softly falling on the roof is eclipsed by tiny, high pitched voices asking tiny high pitched questions about where the horses are, why we have a giant hole dug in front of the house in the shape of a garage, can they put on their cowgirl boots, do they have to wear their mittens, where are the dogs, where is my dad, who is my dad, where is my mom, where is Little Man, can they get a drink of water, can we go ice skating, can we go sledding, can we climb that tree we climbed when we were here this summer, can we walk in the deep snow up through the trees and to the top of the hill?

Can you and Uncle C come with us?

When you’re an aunt you answer all questions. Every. Single. One. No matter how hard it is for you to sort through all the talking at once, because your world has been quiet and brown lately and it takes a while to adjust to a different pitch and all that sparkle.

And when you’re an aunt to three princesses you have a duty to really think through your answers. Because I was a princess once I’m pretty sure, and princesses don’t ask questions they don’t intend on remembering the answers to.

Same goes with promises.

So I keep those, especially the one I make when I’m half sleeping about homemade chocolate chip pancakes in the morning without thinking about the ingredients I may or may not have in the fridge.

When you’re an aunt to three princesses who lives thirty miles from town and you have made a promise about pancakes only to discover that there is no Bisquick for miles, you figure out pretty quick how Betty Crocker does it.

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When you’re an aunt you let them wear their cowgirl boots in the house and suggest they wear their mittens while you take them sledding and climbing through the trees and skidding across the frozen dam because real cowgirls wear mittens on 20 degree snowy days in March because cowgirls need all of their fingers.

And then you take them to see the horses and promise them that as soon as the weather turns they will come out with those cowgirl boots and you will take them riding. And they will believe you.

Because once you were a princess too and princesses keep promises.

When you’re an aunt and you load those three princesses up into your car to take them home only to promptly get pulled over by a very detail oriented police officer, you secretly hope the cuteness he finds when he arrives at your window will help get you out of the offense while you calmly explain that cops are nice humans who are just looking out for other humans like their aunty who forget about important laws like putting the new tags on your license plates.

Then the princesses will shrug their shoulders and say that’s ok, the same thing happened to their daddy.

When you’re an aunt you will take a similar calm and assured approach to the blizzard you suddenly find yourself in with precious cargo in tow.

You will ask them to sing “You are my sunshine” while you white knuckle it on icy, snowy roads, the windshield wipers on full blast, praying that the Good Lord helps deliver you the last twenty miles to their house where you let them eat Girl Scout Cookies while you make them supper.

And then you might eat a whole box of Thin Mints all by yourself, blaming it on the stress of driving three princesses 90 miles through a blinding blizzard, the 3,000 calories a reward for getting them there safely and without any screaming.

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When you’re an aunt to three princesses you don’t forget when it’s Saint Patricks Day, even if it means that your fingers may be permanently green from all the food coloring you put in their noodle soup and thirty seven glasses of milk they insisted on drinking before bedtime.

When you’re an aunt you don’t think about things like maybe they shouldn’t have thirty seven glasses of milk before bed because little princesses have little bladders.

But when you’re an aunt to three princesses you just say “Oh well, it’s alright” and then you ask them to put on their sparkly dresses and twirl while you watch and laugh and clap and remember what it was like to be small looking up to your big sister and chasing your little one around the coffee table…

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and you don’t ever mention to anyone the soft spot you have for the middle one, because you were a middle princess once too and you know how it is.

But you will quietly thank her for reminding you as you watch them all dream, tucked in snug under the covers of their parents’ king sized bed, little pink arms and legs sprawled out so that there is no room for you to squeeze in.

When you’re an aunt to three princesses you accept your fate, grab a pillow and make a bed for yourself on the couch, wondering how you will go back home tomorrow to all that quiet and beige, cupboards without fruit snacks, clothing without sequins, pancakes without chocolate chips, trees and hills and soon to be melting snow without children waiting to break in those cowgirl boots in the puddles…

And then you will close your eyes and dream of fairies and horses with wings, dolphins who can sing, puppies who can talk, diamond encrusted crowns, beautiful dresses and matching shoes, monkeys jumping on beds, leprechauns and all of the things princesses teach you to remember exist…

And then you might snap out of it to find that you’ve been watching three straight hours of  the Disney Channel…

Together.

Yesterday Little Man hung out with me while I worked around the house. Here’s a fuzzy phone photo of him trying to lift Big Brown Dog.

Big Brown Dog is his favorite. Little Man likes to walk behind him so the dog’s tail whacks him in the face. He thinks this is funny and he laughs hysterically while saying “owie owie owie” and then I get confused, but as long as he’s laughing right?

It was a good day of trying to guess what the kid will eat, bundling him up in his snowsuit for a trip to feed the horses, unbundling him from his snowsuit, reading books, licking peanut butter off of bread, throwing the ball up the stairs, pulling on the pug’s ears, looking for his socks, laughing hysterically, watching Mickey Mouse, herding the dogs into each bedroom ten times, shutting the door on them and then letting them out again before eating macaroni and passing out on the couch.

And that was all before noon.

I can’t believe the little guy is already past two years old and knows what I’m talking about most of the time, even if he choses not to say much.

Because of all of the things that make this place a home I love—the oak groves and the sunrises and the horses and the open space and familiarity of it all–the biggest gift has been that we have our family here.

Ten years ago I would have never thought it possible. Ten years ago if you would have told me that my Big Little Sister and her little family would be living in a new house in our little home town, I would not have believed you. If you would have told me she’d be followed by Little Sister, now a young new teacher, I would have been certain you were lying. Mostly because I always thought little sister would be a lawyer, you know, with all those negotiating skills she’s been practicing since birth.

Anyway, Husband and I have always known that someday we wanted to build ourselves a home and life on the ranch, but that was as far as the plan stretched for a while having left a place alongside others who were leaving too.

If we were to make a life here, we would have had to make a pretty good life somewhere else first to help us get started.I thought our chances were pretty slim for making it work, especially in the beginning stages of our careers and life together.

Wedding Tree

But things have changed out here as the country knows and as I have explained. Each day this place changes. Each day it shifts and grows as new technology has us drilling frantically for the oil 10,000 feet below the surface.

And each day someone who left has decided to come home, to ranches, to farms, to the city streets they remember but maybe don’t recognize anymore.

Each day hundreds across the country call us, look us up, pack up their cars and head this way for a chance at making it their own.

I don’t blame them. It’s a good place to be, albeit, it’s a little hard to keep up with all the buzz. That little town I remember is stretching out across the prairie more and more every day, a bittersweet realization for those who like the familiar.

I admit, I am one of those. I know where my favorite oak tree grows and I want to protect it. I miss the old drive-in and the taste of the burgers there, the Chuckwagon on Main Street and the quiet safety of the pink road where I used to ride my bike, all things changed a bit in the face of a booming industry.

But you know what I don’t miss. I don’t miss my family. Because yesterday I got to hang out with Little Man and watch him train my dogs. Last weekend Little Sister showed up at the ranch in time to help us unload our pickup from a trip to the lumber yard and then we had drinks and ate leftovers and laughed hysterically as I made plans for where we would help her build her house across the coulee so she could be reached with a tin-can phone just like the old days.

Today I’ll visit Momma at her store to see if any of the pretty things we picked out in Vegas have arrived, this weekend I will babysit my nieces and tomorrow night I will play music with Pops and the men I’ve been playing music with since I was a little girl on Main Street of Boomtown to familiar faces and hopefully, a whole lot of new faces in town looking for work, a fresh start, a place to kick back, and maybe, a place to call home.

I think that’s what everyone’s looking for. I hang on to that in times I’m feeling overwhelmed by change that’s moving down our road sometimes and unprecedented speeds.

Because we made a decision years ago that home is here, although I don’t know if I ever had a choice they way the mud stuck to my boots and never let go.

And I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but today, my family is holding to that same decision.

Today we’re all together out here, along these crazy roads and under this unpredictable sky making supper plans and helping each other build houses and checking in and stopping by and teaching Little Man important things like how to high-five and train the dogs and laughing and getting on each other’s nerves, drinking coffee and just living.



And for those out here working and thinking you would give anything to have yourfamily close by, I tell you, I don’t take this for granted.

Not for a moment.

Restless waiting.

This is what March looks like from the inside of my house with the door open as I watch nature do her thing.

In ten to fifteen minutes the wind will really pick up, whistling through the branches of the trees and blowing that fluffy snow in white, blinding swirls.

I will think about Husband out there on the roads that were coated in rain yesterday afternoon and likely frozen solid today and I will worry until I hear the sound of his boots clump up the steps and the creak of the door as it swings open.

Home, safe and sound in the middle of a full-blown March blizzard.

Oh, we get one or two in this month that promises spring pretty soon, but not quite yet.

Kids all across the state are celebrating the first snow day of the winter by bundling up to head outside and build forts and fling snowballs or snuggling in their jammies under a blanket with popcorn and a movie.

Teachers are taking this free day to catch up on paperwork, housework or finish that book they haven’t had time to start, dads and moms are shoveling sidewalks and driveways, college students are drinking beer or playing video games, grampas are watching the radar, ranchers with cattle under their care are worrying about calving and throwing an extra straw bale out on the snowy ground and the southerners up here for work are wondering what the hell they’ve gotten themselves into.

Me? Well, I’m in my long underwear staring out the window at the way the snow swirls and drifts and makes the walls of this house moan a bit. The snow is melting from my boots and making puddles on the warm floor in the entryway and the dogs are snoring on their spots, a result of our morning trek outside to admire the way the snow had settled on the trees overnight.

That was before the wind picked up and shook it off.

That was before Husband was home safe and sound.

That was before I ate a sandwich and wrote a song I think I might have written before and thanked the heavens from where this snow was falling that I didn’t have to be anywhere but home.

Because an hour ago I was making my way to the top of the hill to see what the overnight snow had done to yesterday’s brown landscape. The dogs reached the summit before me, their ears blowing in the wind and their eyes squinting against the snowflakes landing on their eyelashes with growing force.

I knelt down to snap a photo of a frozen, sleepy flower and headed for the shelter of the oaks.

No matter the wind and the weather those trees are a haven and a sort of quiet mystery to me. I know that’s where the horses are, somewhere in this pasture huddled together in the oak groves. I know that’s where the deer bed and the elk hide and the squirrels and grouse and maybe even the mountain lions go to wait out the weather.

To wait  for spring.

And I know I won’t see them today, the blizzard growing more severe and the dogs more obnoxious and curious as they snort and roll and climb in and out of the banks.

This time of year I get restless. This time of year I get worried that I won’t have another great idea, that my skin will never be brown again, that I won’t ever warm up.

Last night I declared these worries out loud to Husband who lay next to me in bed, relaxed and assured and breathing softly in the dark.

In the quiet calm of a Sunday night, a night working on brewing a storm that would keep us tucked in our houses the next day, I said, “What if I never write another song? What if all of my ideas are used up? What if I’m not good enough to keep up with the plans I have? What if I get sad and stay sad? I can’t be sad. I don’t have time to be sad.”

He was silent for the moment after the words I chose, the ones that went… “I wish you understood…” and then he said, “You can be sad. And you can do nothing. Sometimes you need to do nothing. And then, you need to get up, go outside and live a life that gives you something to write about.”

So I went out in the storm today, not because I don’t know what it feels like, but because I wanted to feel it again. Because I wanted to be reminded.

And I wanted to be cold and out of breath and far away from the house and the work and the worry and sheltered by nothing but the heavy branches of the oaks.

I wanted to be quiet and let nature–uncontrollable, unpredictable, fascinatingly, frustratingly, beautifully unyielding nature–do her thing while the rest of the world made snowmen and banana bread, mopped floors and read newspapers, navigated snowy roads, called friends, made plans and wrote novels.

And I, like the deer bedded down and undetectable, did nothing but wait.

Snow on the backs of horses.

This is what it looks like when you put a house cat out in the snow for the first time in its life.

Coincidently this is also the face that was staring back at her after I peeled her out of my arms like a piece of velcro with really strong legs ..and then again off my head…and then again off of my boots.

We’re in a fight, but don’t feel bad for her, the weather is warming up and I think it’s time she gets acclimated to this wild place.

Yes, tomorrow it will be March and my longing for green grass, crocuses and creek beds overflowing with melted snow will summon me to pull on my muck boots and go exploring for the slightest change in scenery.

It will be March tomorrow, and I feel the chilled surrender that January brings start to break up and separate inside of me, even as I stand under a gray sky that blends into the horizon as if it weren’t a sky at all but a continuation of the snowy landscape…below us, above us…surrounding us.

Flakes fell from that sky yesterday afternoon, big and soft and gentle they drifted down to the icy earth and summoned me from behind my windows to come outside and stick out my tongue.

When the snow falls like this, not sideways or blowing or whipping at our faces, but peaceful and steady and quiet, it’s a small gift. I feel like I’m tucked into the mountains instead of exposed and vulnerable on the prairie. I feel like, even in the final days before March, that someone has shaken the snow globe just the right amount to calm me down and get me out of my head.

When the snow falls like this I go look for the horses. I want to see what those flakes look like as they settle on their warm backs, on their soft muzzles and furry ears. I trudge to the barnyard or to the fields and wait for them to spot me, watching as they move toward that figure in a knit cap and boots to her knees, an irregular dot on a landscape they know by heart.

I know what they want as they stick their noses in my pockets, sniff at my camera and fight for the first spot in line next to me. I know they want a scratch between their ears.

I know they want a bite of grain.

They know I can get it for them.

Our horses in the winter take on a completely different persona. The extra layer of fur they grow to protect them from the weather makes them appear less regal and more approachable.

Softer.

I like to take off my mitten and run my fingers through that wool, rubbing them down to the skin underneath where they keep the smell of clover and the warmth of the afternoon sun. I like to put my face up to their velvet noses and look into those eyes and wonder if they miss the green grass as much as I do.

On this snowy, gray, almost March afternoon the horses are my closest link to an inevitable summer that doesn’t seem so inevitable under this knit hat, under this colorless sky.

I lead them to the grain bin and open the door, shoveling out scoops of grain onto the frozen ground. They argue over whose pile is whose, nipping a bit and moving from spot to spot like a living carrousel. I talk to the them, “whoah boys, easy” and walk away from the herd with an extra scoop for the new bay, his head bobbing and snorting behind me.

In a month or so the ground will thaw and the fur on the back of these animals will let loose and shake off, revealing the slick and silky coat of chestnut, white, deep brown, gold and black underneath. We will brush them off, untangle their manes, check their feet and climb on their backs and those four legs will carry us over the hills and down in the draws and to the fields where we will watch for elk or deer or stray cattle as the sun sinks below the horizon.

I move my hand across the bay’s back, clearing away the snowflakes that have settled in his long hair and I rest my cheek there, breathing in the scent of hay and dust and warmer days.

He’s settled into chewing now, his head low and hovering above the pile of grain I placed before him. He’s calm and steady so I can linger there for a moment and wonder if he tastes summer in the grain the same way I smell it in his skin.

My farewell to winter is long, lingering and ceremonious.

But it has begun. At last, it has begun.

To sing about it.

Well, I made it back to the ranch and have found myself a moment to kick my feet up in the chair and warm up near the stream of sunshine pouring through the windows of our house on this beautiful almost-March morning.

Last week was a doozy that started with a flight out of Boomtown to Vegas to help my momma pick out some pretty things for her store. I had a couple mini-heatattacks during the two days filled with nothing but shopping, but I came out O.K. despite my run-in with these beauties…

and an entire Vegas-Sized convention center filled with nothing but shoes.

I could have spent the week there trying on all of the Luccheses and Ariat and Corrals and working out a second mortgage to afford a few pairs, but I needed some money to get back to North Dakota for the concerts I had scheduled across the state.

Now let me tell you, there are few things that give me more joy than music and beautiful boots, so I was off to a great start as I stepped off that plane from Vegas. The cold air bit at my exposed fingers as I ran to my car, praying that it would start so I could get home in time to load up my guitar and head out the door again.

Because I booked February up pretty tight, playing music almost every weekend and trying to keep up with work and dinner in between. When I do this to myself a few little bobbles are inevitable–like locking my momma’s keys in her car and losing my debit card–but I have become pretty good at brushing them off and finding quick solutions (like calling Pops or Husband to rescue me), because I am a woman of very many mistakes.

But now that the whirlwind has settled for a bit and the pug has moved from the top of my unpacked suitcase…

to the couch beside me, I don’t know exactly where to start except to ask you this: Have you ever found yourself standing in a moment that has come together so sweetly, a moment so undeniably and perfectly comfortable, so surprisingly you, that you can do nothing but close your eyes and thank the stars above that you chose to step out that day instead of staying nestled under your covers safe and sound?

I hope you have.

I hope you’ve found yourself in one of those breaths where the things you’ve worked for have proven worth it.

I have been a singer my entire life. I’ve sat around campfires and on flatbed trailers in the middle of small town streets. I have climbed crow’s nests to belt the National Anthem out to bleachers and arenas full of cowboys and I have sat behind my guitar to serenade couples saying their vows and families saying goodbye. I have played to crowds from three and three hundred. I have played by heart and forgotten words. I’ve stomped my feet and swayed back and forth in smokey bars and competed with the latte machine in small coffeehouses. I sit alone in my bedroom on hot summer nights and cold, dark winter mornings and I sing.

I have never loved anything the way I love hearing the words I’ve strung together come out of my mouth and into the air, sometimes unexpectedly and sometimes just the way I meant.

And nothing has ever made me so nervous, so frustrated, so calm, so inspired and uninspired, so sleepless or relaxed, so conflicted or comfortable or scared or absolutely and utterly, undeniably happy.

That’s the thing about music, you just never know. And the choice to put it out there in the world makes it even more unpredictable, it leaves you wondering who is listening, who might understand, who might hate it, who might love it too and who might just want to sing along…

Last Thursday I loaded up  my guitar and headed to the big town to meet up with some musicians at the studio and practice for the CD release party I had scheduled at a theater the next evening. I brought along Pops and Adam and we were going to work out my tunes with a fiddle player, a steel guitar player and a drummer. I had never met the fiddle player or the drummer and the guitar player and I had been working out details over the phone and email for a few weeks. I didn’t know these men and I didn’t know what to expect, except that somehow we had one evening to get it together in time to play for the few ears I hoped were making plans to attend the next night.

In these unpredictable moments I wonder why I didn’t just pick a career that might have me home eating hot dish on a Thursday night.

But my worry melted away faster than it had creeped in on me as these men trickled into the studio, making small talk while unloading their instruments and arranging themselves in a circle.

The drummer counted off the beat to the first song, the bass line fell in easy as the fiddle sweetly moved in with the line of the steel, leading me in to the words of the first verse of a song these men had clearly listened to closely.

My songs were songs they knew.

And I knew then that it didn’t matter if the only people who walked through the doors of that theater the next night were the members of this little band we threw together, although I felt it would be a shame if there weren’t more ears there to listen to the sweet sounds of that fiddle.

Because just as these men took the task seriously it was clear we all shared a little something in common. It was clear that they weren’t sitting behind those instruments after a long day of work on a Thursday night with a woman they had never met because she was going to pay them good money to be there.

No.

They knew better. They know the business.

They were there with me because they love to play. And man, are they talented.

Man, was I lucky.

Man, did we have fun.

And man, did that theater fill up the next night.

I mean, to the brim! People were coming in from all walks of life to have a drink and listen to what we had up our sleeves. There were farmers and bankers and mothers and aspiring drummers, my best friends, people who knew my parents, people who were related to us, to our neighbors, to our neighbor’s neighbors.There were classmates and old roommates and my best friends’ mothers. There were people who I’ve never met, young girls with their own copy of the album who wanted to be singers some day, other musicians, dads dancing with their daughters and people who wanted to talk about the pug.

There’s always people who want to talk about the pug.

I was overwhelmed with gratitude that this group of people decided to spend their Friday night with me and the talented men playing their hearts out in the spaces that needed them in the songs.

There was so much joy in that room and on that stage, and because it is North Dakota, there were so many connections, so many stories that we could all relate to–the red dirt roads, the smell of clover on a hot summer morning, the warm glow of the yard light next to the barn and the unwavering respect for the place that grew us up and sent us out into the world as we looked back over our shoulders for the right time to return.

Music has given me so many gifts. It has taught me to stand up straight, to be honest, to work a little harder, to stay calm, to reach out, to be brave and, most importantly, to listen.

And I could have listened to the beat of that drum, the lonesome sound of that steel guitar, the steady thump of that bass, the sound of my father’s voice and that fiddle backing me long into the night and on until the sun came up. But I didn’t want to let those people sitting patiently in their seats, along the steps on the floor or standing along the back of the room by the door out into the night without knowing them and why they came.

I wanted to shake every one of their hands and give them hugs and thank them for coming. I wanted to invite them over for coffee this spring and to sit on my deck and drink margaritas this summer.

I wanted to tell them all how much it meant to me that they came.

And I wanted to hear their voices.

So I sang Red River Valley and they sang along and I will never forget the sound of our voices together in the middle of the prairie on a chilly winter night.

And the next night I sang those songs again, standing next to Pops and another talented guitar player as the wind whipped through the narrow streets of downtown Fargo and the crowd swayed and tapped their toes.

There are so many things in this life that I love: pretty boots and pretty horses, my family, crocuses on the hilltop in the spring and the way the sun rises and shines through the windows of a house my husband is building for us.

I know I would love these things even if I never sang another song about it, but to be able to sing it out loud to ears that want to hear, not just the beautiful things, but the things that scare us and make us braver, hoping that maybe someone out there might not feel so alone, that’s my life’s sweetest gift.

Thank you for coming to hear me play. Thank you for playing along. Thank you for reading. Thank you for telling me your stories.

Thank you for listening.

www.jessieveedermusic.com 
www.facebook.com/jessieveedermusic

Click here to watch a short KX News segment on the concert in Mandan.

Farmers at the Super Bowl.

So you watched the Super Bowl. You saw the game, you saw Beyonce shake it, you saw the lights go out and, among the flashy messages, the advertisements for M&Ms and beer and phones and underwear and cologne, you saw this:

Another ad for another product, yes. But one that had a message attached to it that has sent my world into a humming since it aired.

Now it’s possible you missed it. It’s possible you didn’t hear it tucked in there among the baby Clydesdale and the elderly escaping the nursing home for a night at Taco Bell.  It didn’t make the top ten commercials and didn’t get nearly as much buzz in other parts of the country, but it sure is buzzing here.

I don’t usually comment on pop culture or what ‘s happening on T.V. or in sports here because I’ve made it my mission to talk about different things: the way the sun shines on the back of a horse, how the wind blows snow across the prairie and what it’s like to be a woman connected to a place, but as a girl who grew up feeding cattle alongside her father in the coldest winter nights, someone who watched him doctor horses, bring new-born and frozen calves into the basement of the house and nurse them back to life, as a former FFA president and the 4th generation on my family’s ranch, I have to talk about this.

I have to tell you why people like me have been so inclined to share this advertisement, to watch it over and over again, to shout its praises from the rooftops and, well, post it on every social media networking site they can link up to out here in the boonies.

Because finally, among the hype of sports, the glitzy glam of pop culture, the humor and the ruckus and the fight to be the winner, right there in the most prime real-estate of prime-time television someone out there felt it might be important enough to slow it down and tell our story.

Now, I wasn’t at every Super Bowl party in middle America during the 2.5 minutes Paul Harvey’s message was pumped into millions of homes across the country, but I was at one, and as soon as that familiar voice spoke the first word, the room fell silent.

We held our breath in that moment we were certain we were looking at an image from our backyards: a black baldie cow near a barbed wire fence in a barren, snow-covered prairie.

We were quiet because we saw our church standing tall and worn beside a country road,

we saw our grandfather with callused hands and a face wrinkled and weathered from the long days spent in the elements.

We shushed our voices and choked back a tear for the colt our father couldn’t save, laughed a little because we’ve ridden a horse using a head stall made out of hay wire and smiled at the memory of our father’s stopping the tractor to move a nest of newborn rabbits out of harm’s way.

We saw ourselves standing in those fields, our grandmother’s eyes under that hat, our mother holding our hand, our father holding on hope.

We saw our children in the steady cadence of comforting words and a familiar voice that we’ve heard coming through the static on our old tractor radio for years.

The rest of the story.

Our story.

Some days I feel like we’re moving further and further from our connection to the land and the understanding of the dirt from which that potato was plowed. Farmers, ranchers and agriculturalists are not known to stand at the pulpit and tell their stories to the masses. No. Many spend long days working alone in the combine, on the back of a horse checking cattle or working fencing pliers in the deep brush.We share our stories by living them alongside our elders, hoping to learn something, dreaming that one day we might be fortunate enough to try our hand at tending the land.

I know my grandfather’s story. I see the old equipment that couldn’t be repaired breaking the wind from the hilltops on this place. I find little pieces of wire, old engines, scraps of leather, worn coveralls and other little pieces of a life spent scraping and saving and getting by in the old out buildings, in the 100 year old barn, in the fences that need to be repaired. My father keeps the same collection, adding to it at will in case he might need to patch something up.

I know my father’ s story. I know that on Sunday mornings he will knock on the door of my house like he does every weekend for a cup of coffee and a chat between chores.  I know he will take off his boots, un-do his silk scarf and leave his wool cap on his head. I know he will keep his Carhart jacket on because he won’t stay long, just long enough to wonder out loud what might be wrong with the old tractor this time and discuss some plans about buying cattle, fixing the corrals in the spring and making things work better out here.

I know that tractor’s story. It’s been on this place for decades, bought used when my father left for college in the 70s. I know the only thing wrong with that tractor is that you can’t stop time, and we could not afford to buy a new one.

Each day my father has been the caretaker of the family’s ranch it has been an adventure to get that tractor up and running.

Every day it has been worth it.

Somewhere along the line a company like Dodge took notice of the kinds of people buying those trucks they were selling, not for the paint job or the heated seat, but for the horsepower and the muscle that it takes to haul a trailer full of bulls to the sale barn, a couple of priceless horses and a teenage daughter to her first high school rodeo, or through a snowy trail as your grandfather scoops grain for the cattle in the winter.

Somewhere in their marketing plan Dodge thought it  might be a good idea to mention those farmers and ranchers out there throwing bales and feeding the country, because quite frankly, they have helped keep them in business.

So they declared it the “Year of the Farmer” and are working their marketing plan so that spreading the word means supporting the FFA.

That moment a company like Dodge took to tell our story while they had the world’s attention gave us–the farmers, the ranchers, the corn growers, bottle feeders, chicken-coop cleaners, post-hole-diggers, pig-sloppers, 5 a.m. cow milkers, –a little reminder that ours might not be a glamorous story, but it is one worth living.


Click here to watch an interview with the Montana ranchers featured in the commercial.

Winter crazy.


I know I’ve been talking about the weather a lot lately, trudging through the snow, climbing to the top of it, bundling up and taking it on by looking for the beauty in 30 below.

Well, we’re at the end of January now so I would like to take this opportunity, in the midst of another dangerous wind-chill advisory, to say ‘good riddance’ to the hardest and most brutal month of the year up here in the great white north.

Yup, that’s a little negative sign right there next to the 20. This is before the windchill. But hey, the sun is shining so what the hell, let’s just call it a beautiful day.

I think we made it through just fine admiring the sundogs,

and the fluffy puppy,

eating egg rolls, throwing sledding parties

and climbing the frosted badlands.

But I feel now it’s time to confess the fact that all of those things did their best to distract me from going crazy in this cooped up state, but they did not succeed entirely.

No.

I am afraid I might have hung on to a bit of that inevitable winter insanity.

But please, don’t judge me. Let me remind you that I’m still a woman living in an unfinished house, sharing my winter space with a good number of power tools and using a shop vac to complete the majority of my cleaning. And in a situation like this, unexpected additions to the decor and atmosphere pop up unexpectedly.

I mean, you try staying sane when you can be jolted from your sleep at any given moment by the excruciating and terrifying gun-shot like sound of the air-compressor shaking the house as it recharges in the loft.

You try remembering to unplug that thing when the only time it makes itself apparent is at 2 am! The dogs wake up and start a barking frenzy right before one of them pukes on the floor. The cats in the basement cling to the ceiling and you shake your husband, telling him that this time, you’re sure it’s a robber.

Or an alien.

You try keeping your cool as your knight in shining armor rolls over and falls back to sleep.

I mean, I always swear I”ll unplug that thing first thing in the morning. But in the morning all I can think of is coffee, and so the cycle continues as I make my way from the coffee pot my favorite chair, but not before I trip over that stack of cedar my husband decided to place in my path, sending me flailing forward as my coffee splays across the floor and I invent thirty-seven new curse words.

And those words are in addition to the ones I invented yesterday when I tripped over that same stack of wood three times.

I’m serious. It blends in. I get comfortable in my environment and I don ‘t find it necessary to look down.  It’s a defect that I blame for the multiple times I’ve stepped the wrong way off of our front step and into the pit that will become our garage in the spring.

These types of outcomes are precisely the reason I’ve  never been a furniture rearranging kind of person. Because I strongly believe that if you put something in its place, it should stay there.

Forever.

My life, limbs and coffee, depend on it.

coffee

Anyway, I am blaming those miseries on my husband. But I will tell you, I’ve created plenty of my own this winter, starting with allowing our one and only barn cat to take up residence in our basement. I mean, it’s so damn cold out there and now that we’re not in the barnyard I felt she needed to be close by, you know, to take the pressure off of the dogs to keep wild cat occupied while keeping her diet in check by batting her away with a vengeance if she dares get too close to the food.

I’ve been questioning this arrangement, but it seems it’s too late. Last weekend I attempted to put that barn cat outside to enjoy the 40 degree day and before I even opened the door she managed to claw her way out of my grip and up to my shoulder before flinging her body off the top of my head and running for cover.

And so I’ve been warned. There’s no way in hell that cat is every leaving my basement–rain, snow, forty below or 80 above.

Shit.

Allowing another animal into this house is not the weirdest mistake I’ve made this winter. No. A few days ago in my attempt to reach Husband I dialed the wrong number and asked a complete stranger if he planned to come home tonight. The man on the other end of the line sounded a lot like my husband, and, well, I didn’t appreciate his tone.

Turns out he didn’t appreciate mine either.

And then there was that time my car was making weird noises as I drove through the neighboring town, forcing me to pull over in the parking lot of Runnings where it became evident that when I put the thing in park it was going to ignore me and just kept rolling…and when I put it in reverse it sounded like it was going to blow up.

So I sat there with my foot on the brake for a half an hour while I waited for a tow truck to bring me to the mechanic and for Pops to come and save me and take me grocery shopping before bringing me 60 miles back home. I waited, car-less through the holiday season, only to get a call informing me they couldn’t find anything wrong with the vehicle, except, well, you know the thirty-seven rock chips in the windshield.

Yup, that really happened. It was an annoying Christmas miracle and I have spent every day since driving that car just waiting for it to blow up or something.

Oh, I know we all have little mishaps and results of poor judgement in our lives, I just think the annoyance is multiplied out here by the fact that we’re also cooped up and freezing. So I guess I decided to share them so we could laugh about while we dream about summer.

But I’ll I make sure to roll my eyes first.

And sometimes I might hollar “Really?! Really!” so don’t be alarmed.

Happy last day of January. I hope you made it through with your sanity.

If you need me, I’ll be looking for mine…

Goodbye Summer