Sunday Column: Living with the wild things

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace, Love and Sunday Pancakes,

Jessie

How spring is springing. Contest Alert!

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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

Unlike the snow itself.

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

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

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

en.wikipedia.org

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

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

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

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

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

And then I screamed: Waaaahhhhhh!!!!!

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

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

I want to see them.

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

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

Here’s how it works.

Visit Meanwhile’s Facebook Page www.facebook.com/veederranch and share your Spring 2013 photo on my wall. (you may also shoot me an email at jessieveeder@gmail.com)
Tell me where you live and how your spring is shaping up and Husband and I will take a look and pick a winner.

I will share all of your spring photos on Monday’s blog and our favorite submission will win a copy of my CD, “Nothing’s Forever” and a matted print of my favorite spring photo.

Let the games begin!

Peace, love and lilacs already!

Jessie

Sunday Column: What quiet means.

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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

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

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

Looking for some quiet.

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

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

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

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

Close up!

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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

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

And they will love me for it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spring Resolutions.

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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

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

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

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

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

This year, I’m still snow bank hopping.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

splash the brown world with color like a wildflower,

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

An Easter snowsuit.

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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…

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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.

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.

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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.

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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.

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.

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…

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.

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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.

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.