I took a moment on a regular weekday morning, a morning when much of the state was preparing for one of our first winter storms of the season, to find some magic in the winter.
I knew just where to go to find it. A place that was set aside just for us when we need magic moments like these.
The Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
It’s right in my backyard really. I’ve shown you before. It’s just down the road from the office that was waiting for me to take phone calls, finish some reports, and stay caught up. But it was snowing ever so lightly, frost was hugging the branches of the trees and the wind was calm enough to for me to hear something calling me out to explore, to look, to listen.
I needed to see what it looked like out there in its winter outfit.
I needed to listen for silence because in the absolute quite, everything inside of me quiets too.
I needed quiet.
I needed quiet enough to remember that I was in there all along. I needed quiet to tell me I was in there with all of that noise and static and voices drowning out the sound of those young deer on the trail ahead of me, cutting a path with their hooves, leaping over fallen branches and stopping to check out that creature behind them in a puffy coat and mittens. They don’t miss a thing and if I hadn’t stepped off of the road and up that hill, if I wouldn’t have stepped softly, slowly, I certainly would have missed them.
I don’t know what it is about being alone in nature. I write about it often. I dream about places not yet discovered, about trails that have been untouched by human feet. I don’t know anything except for it heals me in some way. I know that being alone under the branches of the oaks or the arms of the big cedars awakens something in me and reminds me that not only am I alive, but completely insignificant in the grand scheme of it all.
Insignificant.
But that word doesn’t scare me. It thrills me. It thrills me to know that one charge of the mighty bison, one stomp of his hoof, could send me reeling.
It excites me to know my limits out there and to know to keep to them. To know the dangers of a mis-step could send me into a catastrophic fall.
To know the river flows fast under the ice and I have no matches for a fire and no intention of staying out past my allotted time.
To know that once we belonged here, but not anymore.
Because somewhere along the line we have separated from nature, from the quiet spaces on an earth that was laid out for us. We covered ourselves from the stars to survive, laid floor on the dirt and found new ways of making things that were good and true and simple damn complicated.
We’ve built fences and staked claim to things like rocks and mountains and grass. We have named it all. Dissected it. Studied why anything would turn out the way it has.
We’ve learned how it all could benefit us. How it could help us cure diseases, build more skyscrapers, heat our homes and reach us closer to the satellite we have placed among the stars in a sky we have yet to conquer.
So I go to the park, I take the back roads, I follow the trails on the ranch that holds my family’s name to be reminded of this:
I know not a fraction of what the acorn knows. I will never tame the wind nor will I ever touch all that the breeze has touched. I will never listen close enough to hear what the coyotes hear. I will never be as brave and howl my life into the night.
I count the striations of the exposed earth on a landscape that was formed by tons and tons of moving glacial ice and I know I will never have a story that grand. I will never be as interesting or romantic as those buttes.
I catch a hawk circling above the tree tops and am reminded I will never soar. I will never see our world the way she sees it.
And I won’t possess the strength of the bison, the authority of the season, the power of the sun and the clouds. I will never stand as tall, or know the patience of the old birch trees. And I will never own the delicate strength of the wildflower.
No, I come to the park as a spectator. I come to the park as a girl. A girl who has hands that need gloves made of leather and boots made with fur. I girl with thoughts and ideas and dreams about how to capture this place, how to share it by telling the story of the bison, singing the music of the hawk, and whispering just as softly as the doe caught on my trail.
But they are stories I am not worthy to tell.
So I stay quiet and listen.
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…
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 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.
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?
A glorious weekend settled in here at the ranch, confirming my theory that everything’s better with frosting. So it was my delight to wake up and find that on Saturday morning everything was frosted.
Finally.
This is my favorite winter weather phenomenon, but with the unseasonably warm temperatures we’ve been enjoying I haven’t seen much of it lately. So on Saturday I couldn’t wait to get out in it. I was like a kid on Christmas, hurrying up with my chores, eating my breakfast fast, chugging down my coffee and changing out of my stretchy pants as soon as I jumped out of bed…all very unlikely activities for a lazy Saturday woman like me.
But I couldn’t help it, I went to bed in a land of gold and brown and woke up to a winter wonderland outside my window.
So I had to get out there and become that kid in the beanie with the ball on the top that you see in those classic winter paintings in museums. I felt like that kid. I looked like that kid.
I was that kid.
So I had to get a little closer, to touch it, notice its sparkle, to exist in it…
kick it off of the grass, let it fall on my head, get down close,
brush it off of the horses’ backs, see it on the cat’s whiskers,
the dogs’ noses.
Oh, it’s amazing what a little coating of white can do to a landscape. It turns an ordinary scene into a winter fairytale. It puts a little magic in the old red barn,
softening its rusty nails
and stray wires.
The old boards and windows welcome those out in this fog to peek in and explore…
come in and stay warm.
And the landscape turns mysterious as I climb to the top of the nearest hill to catch a glimpse of our new world, only to be welcomed with a limited view.
A view that turns me curious and sends me over the next hill and then the next to see what might be there…as if overnight, given the dark and the fog, the rocks took their chance to move and switch places,
the trees held hands and grew taller,
the dry brown flowers bloomed,
and the wire fences repaired themselves.
I couldn’t help it, I kept walking, because anything is possible in this kind of quiet, in this kind of weather. It’s a new season! And it could last for weeks, for days, or only a few hours. So I couldn’t wait. I needed to see what the bittersweet looked like coated in white…
And if the bull berries looked just as delicious…
And as I walked along the pink road that gently rolled into the low hanging cloud I was living under I held my breath and disappeared into the quiet calm.
With frost hanging on my eyelashes, coating the hair that had escaped from my wool cap, I let out a sigh and wished, just for a moment, that the sun would wait…
Because there was so much more to see over that hill, so much quiet to take in, so many ordinary things wearing new clothes and looking fabulous…and I wanted to stay out there and forever live in that painting.
A painting that with the warmth of the sun,
was sure to sparkle and shine, a contrast of vibrant blue and white and beautiful…
only to melt away,
leaving us waiting for winter’s the next inspiration…
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.
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.
If you live up here where January can be a real bitch sometimes, you’ve probably noticed weirdly familiar things happening to you and the bodies of those around you.
I say weirdly familiar because it’s been awhile, but you are suddenly very aware that you’ve felt like this before, sometime, in a frozen land far, far away…
Like the sensation of your nostrils freezing together when you step outside to start your car and take your first breath …and then that other sensation of…what is it? Oh yeah, fuming rage. Fuming rage that sends steam boiling out of your ears and thaws out your icy nostrils when you discover that your car won’t start.
And when you stomp back into warm house, visible steam escapes out the open door as you rubbing your hands together while blowing your breath into them to help get the blood flowing again. And as you holler to your husband the news about the damn piece of crap car and you could use his help here, he informs you that Cliff the weatherman just reported that it is 14 degrees below zero out there.
You scoff at the thought. And as you start to spew the following phrases like, “So what?!” That’s not that cold.” “My car has started in those types of temperatures before.” “The world is out to get me this morning.” and “Now would be a good time for a tropical vacation,” your sweet dear, husband, whom you’ve cut off in mid-sentence declaring war on the shitty Mazda you’ve been meaning to trade-in for a year now through partially frozen lips and snot dripping down your now thawed out nose, he politely interrupts you to ask you to guess what Cliff says it feels like out there with wind chill.
“35 below zero,” he says as he fills his giant coffee mug, not waiting for your guess.
“Damn you windchill,” you reply as you strip off your coat and contemplate whether the world would come to an end if you spent the rest of the day living it from underneath the covers.
What -38 with windchill looks like.
Are you with me here North Dakotans and Minnesotans who are currently under the Red Flag warning of an, and I quote, “Extreme Cold Warning”?
Insert sound of teeth chattering....
Yeah, they’re not kidding either. Yesterday husband came home and informed me that as he was walking outside at work the bottoms of his boots literally froze.
Yup. Like crackle, snap, pop went the soles of his supposed to be extreme temperature gear.
Wow.
I don’t know about you, but all I can say is, we knew this was coming didn’t we? I mean, if we thought we were going to get through one full month of January without a couple days of “freeze your toes, nose, nipples, and ass off” cold, then we were all living in a fantasy world now weren’t we? A fantasy world where North Dakota in the winter could possibly be warmer than some parts of Texas in the same season.
It’s possible friends, but not for long.
So here we are, freezing our toes, nose, nipples and asses off. And for those of you who have ventured out from under the covers in the last few days to get to work, bring the kids to school, pick up milk, grab some soup, or fill up gas, to you I say, you’re looking sexy in your furry hat, wool scarf pulled up over your nose, leather mittens, giant boots, and your hoodie under your fleece jacket, under your down coat that hits just below the knees. Really, that’s a ravishing look on you.
I'm too sexy for these goggles, too sexy for these goggles...
For those of you who are sipping Mai Tais down in a place that has a palm tree or two, or sand, or cactuses or temperatures above forty degrees, I would like say two things:
1. I must have missed your call/text/email/written note inviting me to your house for the month of January because I haven’t yet received a call/text/email/written note inviting me to your house for the month of January. Which seems strange, because I am almost certain you said you were going to send it.
and
2. Forget it, I am sure you sent it. I mean, we’re best friends right? Get out the beach towels and the Speedos then because once I get my car started I’m on my way!
Until then me and the other durable and somewhat weather resistant northerners will be performing the following rituals to get us through this cold snap. Rituals like:
Ok, this one might only apply to me...
So I’ll be seeing ya down south!
If I had to estimate the miles I have trudged around the hills of this ranch since moving back a year and a half ago I will go out on a limb and shout out loud with my hands in the air (because I talk with my hands) “Hundreds!”
I know this is probably not accurate. I know it’s likely exaggerated a bit, but it sounds good. It sounds like a number I am content with considering that whenever I have a moment to spare to clear my head, find my breath, get my blood pumping or look for inspiration, I find myself bundling up, grabbing my camera and climbing to the top of the nearest butte, crouching down in the creek beds, or trudging in the fields above our house searching for the horses.
It’s a ritual that can’t be beat. One that never fails to put me right with the world actually.
Have you ever finished a giant meal full of more carbohydrates than a woman should consume in a week while watching the latest episode of “The Biggest Loser?”
No?
Me neither.
But if I were to engage in such unhealthy behavior that left me with a feeling that resembles a mix of “no self-control” and a very present tinge of “self loathing”, a walk in those hills with the wind blowing through my hair and flushing my cheeks would clean the ick right out of me. Not to mention put a very necessary dent in the calories consumed and a much-needed burn in my calf muscles.
And all of the huffing and puffing in the prairie wind also happens to be a nice quick fix for writer’s block as well as those unavoidable gloomy moods where you are certain the universe planted that slipper in the middle of the floor just to trip you.
The universe or your husband.
And if I were ever to have a fight with said husband over said slipper that starts with a joke only one of us thinks is funny and ends with none of us laughing, I am comforted knowing that the cure lies in the entryway where at least one-pair of boots is waiting for me to save them from the depressing depths of the closet and get them out into a world full of dirt and sunshine and cool breezes and snow and maybe an adventure…
And you know who else is waiting out there for me to overdose on carbs, get stuck on the last line of a new song, pick a fight with the hubby, or, you know, avoid the laundry?
Yup, you guessed it.
My P.ICs, my M.V.Ps…
My D.O.G.s
Yup. They never miss a chance to escort me on old cow trails, rocky hilltops and slushy creek beds. Because they too think slushy creek beds are the best. And it doesn’t much matter if they are a few miles over the hill visiting their girlfriends at mom and pop’s, or rolling in poop below the barn, or catching a really good nap in a sunny spot by the garage, as soon as they hear the door knob turn they are at the door wagging their butts at the idea that we are going somewhere.
In rain, or snow, or, well, you know, a blinding blizzard, my loyal companions are ready for me to go anywhere…at anytime.
Oh, to have that much trust mixed in with an even greater amount of passion for things like sniffing and running and munching on dead things. What a life!
And I love it. I do. They are my constant, fluffy, four-legged, slobbery, poop sniffing, leg lifting, floppy eared, droopy faced, smooshy faced, out-of-place companions.
But let us take a moment to note that nowhere in my description of my furry friends is there an adjective that is synonymous with the following terms: regal, photogenic, award-winning, gorgeous, nobel, handsome, agile, graceful, rustic, poetic, inspiring or the quality some living things posses that make those witnessing them actually slow the object’s motion down in their imaginations in order to fully absorb the grandeur of their presence…you know, like when the hot chick enters the library and lets her hair down in your favorite tween movie.
No, my pups have never been anyone’s love interest, nor will they be appearing in any major motion pictures anytime soon.
Unless there is a sequel to “Homeward Bound.” If they make that I’ll be putting together some audition tapes of my cats following the dogs following the horses following the cows in the home pasture.
Now that’s a sight for the big screen.
A comical sight, but this is my life.
And a comedy is the only category these hounds fit into really. Which, in turn, makes it challenging to really focus on the contemplative, inspiring, whimsical, natural, meditative, stunning and magical photographs I am shooting to capture on these jaunts out on the countryside when Tweedle Dee and his BFF Tweedle Dumb are high tailing it for the nearest stock dam…
Or, you know, doing things like this…
Needless to say I spend a majority of my time on these walks shouting at the dogs to get the hell out of the frame and a few extra editing moments at the computer weeding out the unwanted dog tail, snout, foot and always present butt that might have snuck its way into one of my beloved sunset/landscape/horse/babbling creek/rainbow/wildflower photos.
Case in point:
Without dogs:
With dogs:
Without dog:
With dog:
Without dog:
With dog:
Without dog:
With dog:
Without dog:
With dog:
Somehow a photograph of a North Dakota sunset says something a bit different with a profile of a flat nosed pug and a droopy faced lab silhouetted in the forefront.
But what, exactly, does it say?
“Home, home on the range, where the deer, the mis-guided pug with an identity crises and a prematurely aging labrador play …”
And as much as I’ve tried to make the lab look nobel and stoic sitting strong against the backdrop of the rolling prairie, the orders aren’t rushing in for a 20X30 framed and matted photograph of a 105 pound chocolate hunting dog with drool flinging off of his droopy lips due to the relentless wind of the day…no matter how big his heart…
For some reason nobody is in desperate need of that work of art to hang over their fireplaces to complete the warm and sexy look of their home.
It’s the same reason that this shot here:
is just a bit more appealing than, say, this shot:
No, we’re just not ready to appreciate and celebrate the spirit that these types of life-loving creatures can bring to a beautiful landscape.
Take a look at this shot for instance. Here we have a handsome group of long horn steers, a symbol of the rugged west, a story waiting to be told of cowboys and wide open range and a lifestyle that is adventurous and brave.
Now throw a pug in the mix and, well, that beautiful poem is instantly replaced with that childhood song “one of these things is not like the other/one of these things just doesn’t belong…”
Now that’s what I call contemplative.
Ah, yes. There are a hundred pictures like this. Hundreds of photos of the hundreds of miles these to yahoos have spent running the trails in front of me, sniffing in the brush, licking my face when I lean in close to the ground to get a close shot of a flower, or coming to my rescue when I lay down in the grass to look up.
And I am aware that when I crop out the wandering tail, the meandering paw and the occasional out of control floppy ear, this landscape looks the way it was meant…authentic, natural and pure…
But sometimes I like to keep in a squishy nose or a blur in the grass to remind me that , well, sometimes when you’re looking for inspiration, relaxation, and escape from the stresses of the world, the best medicine is to remember your sense of humor…
And that life is nothing without good company. And I would walk a million miles in those hills with these two clowns.
Forever…
and ever…
Amen.
Amen.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 