I will leave the light on…

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

To come down from the buttes after staying out a little too far past sundown only to see the lights of the barnyard illuminating the grass and the kitchen of the house glowing warmly through the windows, waiting for my return…

it means more to me than I can describe here.

I imagine the same sight greeting my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and my father. I imagine them feeling the same deep breath, the same overwhelming calm as they drove in from the fields, rode up to unsaddle a horse or strip off the layers from a hunt in the hills in the still of a late summer or autumn evening.

I imagine the smell of baked bread reaching them from the open windows or the smoke from a grilled steak waiting for them to sit down around the table, the door swinging open and the warmth of this old house whispering “this is home this is home this is home this is home…”

No matter how far you find yourself.

No matter the distance between you and these buttes.

No matter the time that has passed, the mistakes that you’ve made, the words you can’t take back, the pain you might hold onto, the life you might have found down the road or the love you might have lost here…

No matter.

Don’t worry.

This is home…

And I will leave the light on.

And then we sang Red River Valley…

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Sometimes in the middle of a life in the middle of America, you are handed a couple of days, or moments, where you are graciously reminded of what is so good and wholesome about a community that exists on the end of a two lane highway with no stoplight, no Walmart, no mall and no place else you’d rather be on a Friday afternoon.

And so I had a weekend filled with small town, mid-west, rural, main street, wholesomeness that began with the execution of an event I helped to plan on Main Street Watford City, ND–my hometown’s Best of the West Ribfest–where I manned the entertainment stage while community members milled around the vendor booths, ate lunch on picnic tables outside Main Street stores, breathed in the scents of barbecues warming and turning their rib suppers and enjoyed games, music and other entertainment on the big stage…

entertainment that included watching me attempt to help call bingo by turning on the bingo blower machine thingy and launching the numbered balls all over the damn street.

Lord, I just wasn’t meant for some things.

Anyway, husband, along with seventeen other businesses, vendors and crazy grillers, participated in the rib cooking contest. And at 5:30, after the judging was done, Bingo was mercifully over, my big sister’s dancers showed us their Michael Jackson Thriller moves, the kids were all settled in for the rest of the evening on those crazy, sweaty, inflatable jumper things, and Lonesome Willy and I sang for our supper, it was time to eat already.

I had a great view from the stage and watched as people emerged from their businesses, ready for the weekend, and began filling the street, up and down, waiting for the smokey, spicy, barbecue tastes of the grilled ribs. The street flooded with neighbors, tourists, new comers, children and pets.

And from my post it became apparent that this was the most people I’ve ever seen on Main Street Watford City at one time. I was proud of our town as I rested my blistered feet that were shoved in my fancy boots for the day and listened to some of the best local musicians around pick a banjo, a dobro, an acoustic guitar, and sing songs about their North Dakota home.

And the music filled the street, the ribs sold out, I announced the world’s longest chicken dance, signed an autograph for a couple of confused guys who thought I was a famous D.J. and then wondered who the hell’s name was on the back of their shirt as they walked away, the big band showed up, the full moon rose, I found myself a beer and watched my community laugh, relax, dance, shake hands, meet one another and enjoy themselves in the middle of the street, in the middle of America, in the middle of an oil boom, in the middle of a season that passes all too quickly around here.

It was necessary. It was appreciated. It was hometown as hometown needs to be…

I loaded up in husband’s pickup and he drove me home, pulled off my red boots, poked at my blisters and then I got up to do it all over again the next day. Because as wholesome as Friday night was, I got another dose as I put on a dress and headed back to town to sing at a wedding at our hometown church and then pointed my car north to meet the guys out at a farmstead near Hazen, ND.

Because we were scheduled to play a community barn dance and, so, when you’re at a barn dance you need the proper footwear. I did a quick outfit change, squeezed on my fancy boots again and followed the highway out of oil country, down a gravel road and into a perfectly mowed, perfectly beautiful, perfectly placed farmyard on the edge of Lake Sakakawea.

And in the middle of the yard stood a white and green barn that reached up the prairie sky and was spilling out people and children laughing and chatting and singing in cowboy hats and boots. The smell of burgers on the grill greeted me as lugged my guitar towards the band milling around outside, waiting for 8:00 to get behind their guitars, behind their microphones and behind their music.

We climbed the steps to the hay loft where the festivities took place and instantly I was transported to another place, another time, where the world still had barn dances, where the table cloths were still checkered red and white, where people danced the two step and sang along with old time country music, where they still wore cowboy boots.

I was on a movie set, you know, like the one where Sandra Bullock wears a beat up hat and jeans and takes photos and drives around a classic old pickup. The one where the small town band sounds straight out of Nashville. The one where she falls in love at the end after Harry Connick Jr. swings her around the wood floor of the barn as the lead singer taps his foot to Peaceful Easy Feeling and the crowd sings along.

Seriously.

But I wasn’t Sandra Bullock. Sandra Bullock was that beautiful blond in the black hat dancing with her boyfriend. No, I was the band.

And the guys playing next to me, some of the best musicians around, picked all the right songs and played all the right beats. Their grins spread wide as the family crowd requested songs the guys knew and then danced and cheered when they played them. The lead part drifted out through the hay loft window behind me and on over the prairie and to the lake as I sang harmony to my dad’s chorus and then a song I wrote and then Red River Valley and oh my, there they were, singing along.

So we all sang together. That family, that community. We sang Red River Valley and then Home on the Range and stomped our feet and clapped our hands as our voices joined together…

“May the circle, be unbroken, by and by Lord by and by…there’s a better home awaiting in the sky Lord in the sky…”

We sang it again…

and again…

and so did they, the crowd, our hosts for the evening. They sang with us too as they bounced their sleepy children, swung around their grandma, slapped their cousin and uncles on the shoulders, and just genuinely enjoyed themselves.

Genuinely.

I headed home into the dark sky, the guys with the band trailer pushing through the early hours of the morning in front of me, with a renewed hope that the world maybe hasn’t changed much.

That maybe in the hustle and bustle of progress, politics, and technology even the fancy cell phones that can tell you what road your on when you’re on it still can’t tell you where you really might be headed…

to a place where people still wear cowboy boots, where time has been preserved in the wood floors of a nearly hundred year old barn, where the only agenda is to laugh and dance with one another for goodness sake…

where the music really matters and so do the friendships.

A place on the end of a paved street with no stoplight, a place on the edge of a wheat field under the moon under the roof of a green and white barn that the GPS would never find…

but that we should never forget still exists…

The top of our world…

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

See those buttes, way off in the distance in this photo? Yes. You see them? Good.

I love those buttes. They are like the backdrop to this little painting we live in here at the Veeder Ranch. They are always there in the distance, reminding us of our neighbors to the north, reminding us that we are pretty small here on this landscape, you know, in the scheme of things, and staining as a fixture of the beauty that surrounds us.

The Blue Buttes. That’s what we call them around here. Why? Well, because they look blue don’t they? Yes? Bluish, purplish…

There they are again...way out there...

Every time I look at them I am reminded of a story that my pops told me about a drawing he colored of a cowboy on a mountain during a project at school. He used his crayons to make the man’s hat brown, his shirt yellow, the sky blue and the mountain he was riding along purple.

When the teacher asked “Why did you paint the mountain purple? Mountains aren’t purple!” young pops said he felt embarrassed and confused. Because the only encounter he had up to that point with anything resembling a mountain was the Blue Buttes that waved to him from about seven miles north. And they sure looked purple to him.

Oh, my heart.

Anyway, on Tuesday I found myself up close and personal with those buttes that have been such a far away mirage on this place. A new friend who moved to the area with her husband and settled into a little farmstead a few miles north asked me to come spend the day with her poking around the countryside, taking photos and climbing the area’s famous Table Butte.

Of course I was on board and for many reasons. Number one is that I had a chance to spend some time with a woman who I hadn’t quite had enough time to really get to know in person, but who already understood that I was the type of person who would be enthusiastic about this kind of activity. She didn’t ask me to go shopping or to help her bake a pie. No. She met me a few times and understood that hiking might just be my thing.

And it was her’s too.

This had potential to be a great friendship.

Number two was that I have grown up here, traveling to the small town of Keene for youth group activities and meeting up with friends on the other side of the buttes, but never have I had the chance to stand on top of one of them to catch a glimpse of my world from way above and all directions. I was grateful for the opportunity.

So I headed up the gravel road in the morning armed with my camera, sunglasses, hiking shoes and water and began poking my way to her house, kicking up dust and admiring how the day was shaping up. The sky was blue, the clouds were fluffy and the breeze was just right. I followed my new friend’s directions and pulled off the main gravel road and down into a coulee to find her standing in the door of her quaint, renovated farmhouse and her border collie-blue heeler mix running up to greet me.

And I’ll tell you, it was all over from there. See, this woman from eastern Montana, who married one of my High School Rodeo buddies and found herself out here making her home at the bottom of the Blue Buttes, couldn’t have been more connected to the land or more appreciative of it if she had sprung from the soil herself. While we loaded up the dog and our bodies into her husband’s old pickup she drove me down the gravel road toward our hiking destination and talked about the history of the area as she understood it. Because she’s enamored with the stories and finds the old houses, barns and shacks that still remain as ghosts off a different time among the rolling pastures and fields of the countryside so intriguing, so mysterious. And while she spoke about what family owns what acreage and told me stories about who homesteaded in the little wooden house with the green trim and who taught at the old sandstone school, I was struck by the fact that just as much as my new friend was at ease in her new surroundings, she was equally, if not more, astounded by it.

And so we drove a few more miles, chatting about growing up, our husbands and the people we knew in common, a tail of dust floating behind us, until we reached our destination.

Table Butte. A well known sacred spot for the Native Americans of the area and a landmark, a striking feature, a special place for any rancher, farmer, teenager or passerby who has stood in its presence, no matter the heritage. As we approached I understood why. See as you head north, away from the badlands, the countryside evens out a bit, the fields get larger and more fertile, the oak coulees less thick, the clay soil dissipates. While you drive further from home you feel like the wheels under you are literall stretching the earth…

And you think the landscape might all just even out eventually, until you find yourself approaching two massive looming towers of rock and dirt and grass that seem to have sprung up from the depths of the earth in an explosion of rocks and vegetation. And although from the back of your mind you extract some knowledge about glaciers and weather that could scientifically explain the formation, what you really want to put in its place is the story from the perspective of the Native Americans who climb to the top on their vision quests.

We parked the pickup under the cliffs of jagged rocks, unloaded the dog, and made our way through a herd of red cows and on up to the top.

The climb was steep and as stories and childhood memories and marriage and family flowed from our hearts and memories and out our mouths, we had to stop halfway up to take a break, because it turns out spilling your guts and climbing up the face of a massive cliff at the same time requires a good amount of oxygen to the lungs.

And then we were at the top and words stopped in our throats for a few moments as we took it in.

From the cusp of the giant cliff you could see for miles in all directions. We could take in our entire rural community in one sweep. To the north the big lake laid like a dark blue slate.

To the south, the coulees of my home and neighboring pastures.

To the east, miles of grass, oil wells, a ribbon of highway and wheat.

And to the west Chimney Butte stood in our view, the other side of the story, another magnificent formation.

We milled around up there, kneeling down to pay tribute to a memorial that was placed at the top of our world in honor of two members of my new friend’s family, we watched her dog get as close as she possibly could to the edge of each rock while I had mini-heart attacks and my new friend called her pet back.

We knelt down and snapped photos of the wildflowers growing out of the rocks. We laughed and shared funny stories. We sympathized with one another as we told tough ones about the hard stuff.

We got to know one another up there as the sun moved from the east to the west and the wind tangled our hair and we had scanned just about every inch of the landscape with our eyes and our lenses.

And then we headed back down when we were ready…

back into the seats of the brown pickup, and back along the winding road, stopping at my new friend’s favorite places: that old house with the green trim,

the Sandstone School my grandmother attended…

By the time we pulled back into her yard I noticed the sun was planted pretty close to the horizon. I tried to guess the time as we chatted about her horses and her husband pulled into the drive…home from work already?

I said hello, told one more story and loaded into my pickup to head home. I took a look at the clock for the first time that day.

8 pm.

It was already 8 pm! Ten hours I was out there among the grass and wind and sun and in the company of a new friend. A new friend that I felt had known me for years.

What the heck!? I had so much fun I forgot about lunch! That never happens.

I meandered home, snapping a photo or two of the wheat fields on my way,

and gave husband a few words about the day before stripping off my clothes and crumbling into bed, my spirits lifted, my body tired, my heart a little lighter from a day on top of the purple colored buttes.

So yes, when I went out the next evening and looked toward the buttes, I thought of their purple color, of course, and the story of my pops as a young, net yet worldly boy. But I also thought of the day I spent with my friend…

The friend I got to know on the top of our world…

Bravo to the magic hour…

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It’s been pretty scorching hot around the ranch these days, and I’ll tell you it’s not because of the sexy outfits I’ve been wearing to stay cool.

No, that’s not it at all. It’s just typical late July/early August for you. But you have to appreciate a place on the map where in the matter of six months you can experience a 130 degree weather shift.

March

July

Seriously.

I will be remembering this past weekend of 90+ temperatures when I am in my seven layers topped off with a hooded down parka that reaches my ankles.

Oh yes, I will remember.

But this morning as the thermometer stretches toward 80 degrees and it is only 8 am, I am remembering 30 below…and thinking no matter what, I like summer better. Hands down.

Because after a long, hot day where we’ve watched the sun emerge from the horizon and make its merry little way across the sky, beating down on our lawns and flower beds, sweating up our skin as we stand there, coaxing the flies to buzz around our ears and the corn in the east to stretch its arms a little higher, we sigh and sip our iced tea knowing that in a few hours we may be awarded a sweet reprieve. A breath. A sigh. A little cool-off before we hastily throw some burgers on the grill at dark and crawl under the sheets.

I call it the magic hour.

Others call it evening. Sunset. Dusk. Twilight. It’s that fleeting time where the sun moves slowly toward the west side of the world, promising soon to sink below the horizon, but not before it casts long shadows, turns the hilltops to gold, calls out the dragonflies, kisses the coulees with cool air, and fills our nostrils with the scents of crisp clover, wildflowers and grasses.

It’s the perfect time to grab your horse and head for the hills. Because if it was a windy day, the witching hour calms the breeze. If it was a hot and muggy day you might find yourself some cloud cover at the cusp of an oncoming thunder storm. If it was a sunny, 80+ day and you are out during the perfect time, you will literally feel the temperature dropping around you and your skin cool down as you ride or walk in and out of the draws and up the hill to catch the sunset.

We wait for it here, the magical hour, as we wipe our brow, salty and glistening from a day of work or play. But it’s all about timing, and we have turned it into a science.

See, if you jump the gun too early in the day, you will be saddling your horse in the intense sun of the late afternoon. The flies will still be nasty, you will be sweating profusely, your horse will be stomping at the pests and heat and you might get a little cranky riding toward that sunset waiting for the orange ball in the sky to move along already.

If you head out to the barnyard too late you will be rushing things trying to race the dark. And by the time you get on and move out you will have missed the the moments where the sun highlights the black backs of the cows on the side hill, the air shifts and cools your skin, the sun changes from yellow to pink and the deer might be moving and emerging from the thick trees. And your ride will be cut short, because once that sun touches the last hill your eye can see, it gets dark fast.

So you can see why it’s a craft can’t you? You can see why we watch the sky, take notice of our skin and the shadows and when the sun is in the just the right spot, more west than middle, more down than up, more moderate than hot, we pull on our longer sleeves, head to the tack room to grab a bucket of grain and saddle up.

We climb on and head out along the edges of the oak groves and stay in their shadows while the sun moves a little closer to the edge of our world.

And when we’re cooled down we climb up to the nearest hill to see if we can catch a deer as it moves out of the trees to graze among the clover, to watch the dragonflies dart and dive, to catch the moment when the landscape turns from a painting with all the right highlights to a mysterious shadow with a strip of orange hovering above it.

And before that sun greets the other side of the world completely, we turn and head back home, cooled off, satisfied, decompressed, a little tired, a little hungry, a little more alive…

Because it turns out there are others who are waiting in the shadows for the cool down, for the sun drop, for the magic hour…

for the dragon flies…

And we don’t want to miss their show…

Bravo summer.

Bravo sky.

Bravo my crazy cats.

Bravo, bravo, bravo magnificent world.

On bulls and husbands

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

See that foot up there? Yeah, it’s resting on the recliner right now, exactly where it and it’s friend, Lefty, are not supposed to be.

Where are they supposed to be? On the floor while I sweep something, put something in the laundry or rinse a dish or two in the sink.

Better yet, they should be in my grubby shoes while I push a mower outside, unpack the camper from our weekend in Yellowstone, or move a few more worthless items out of the garage.

I know, I know, that damn garage.

But it’s been a busy week at the ranch.

Well, more technically it’s been a busy week in town as the human inhabitants of the Veeder Ranch were pulled in a hundred different directions by their day jobs that include planning big events, helping establish new businesses, serving on committees, sitting in on important meetings, maintaining oil wells, delivering drinks, selling shoes, snuggling a baby and singing for their supper.

But there is no rest for the weary around here. Yes, we have jobs in town, but we have cattle out here too. And when your day job is heated and buzzing and full on busy, you can bet your fancy khakis the cows are getting out.

It’s all about timing.

So pops and I took the morning to saddle up and take off after a bull who was out visiting the sexy neighbor cows in the adjacent pasture. I will admit I took my time opening my eyelids and rolling my weary body out of the cocoon of my room, because although I love a good morning ride on the top of a horse, I was realistic about what was waiting for me outside my cozy doors.

It was what kept me lingering with slurpy sips on my morning coffee and taking the long way to the barn to stop and pull up unruly burdock and kick a couple cow turds…

because we were chasing a bull today.

Ah, man...

A single bull who made new girlfriends and settled into the clover in a new pasture.

A bull with attitude.

Because there’s no bull without attitude.

Isn’t that on a bumper sticker or something?

Anyway, I’ve been here before, behind a bull who has decided that the grass is greener and the ladies friendlier on the other side of the fence…so he hops right on over with no intentions of coming home.

Now, I brought my little camera along knowing full well there would be very little chance to whip it out, so the documentation of the bull we found standing a few yards away from the gate who spotted our smiling faces and immediately turned to run off with his women in the opposite direction, is a little patchy.

Forgive me, but when you’re heading up a steep, muddy, slippery hill at full speed to turn the cows who have no intention of turning it’s hard to take a good photo. Things get a little blurry.

But as I was taking direction from pops and recalling all the lessons I learned in similar situations like this growing up (i.e.: how to move a bull with a few cows in order to get him to cooperate, how not to push him too hard, how not to get him running, how to stay the hell out of the way, how to let the cow horse under you do what she does best and how not to lose the shirt tied around your waist while running at full speed after cows it turns out you didn’t really need to be running after in the first place) I got to thinking that the techniques used to move bulls are similar to the techniques I have been using on the man I call husband for years.

Yeah, I'm talking 'bout you...

Let me try to explain here.

See, husband and I have an ongoing struggle in our household when it comes to getting big tasks accomplished. The damn garage is a perfect example. We will agree that the garage needs to be cleaned out and torn down. Great. But from there it gets hairy. Because as soon as that statement passes my lips, I am out there waist deep in junk throwing it all over my back and out the door willy nilly like some cartoon character with no plan about where to go from there.

Husband resists this technique with his heart and soul. Because he likes to think it out, see the outcome seventy-five different ways, make a full fledged plan to get it started and then stand back and think some more before he proceeds, weeks later, to open the garage doors, pick up each item and turn it over in his hands a few times before deciding to toss it.

The same goes with closet organization, dishes, laundry folding, construction projects, yard work and any kind of purchase.

This behavior, however, is null and void when it comes to bringing home a new dog, as you have probably already figured out by the existence of the pug.

Ok. Mooooving right along.

I have known this man for a solid thirteen years and in those solid thirteen years this quality of contemplation when it comes to a task, big or small, has never wavered.

Oh, I have fought it, yes I have. Just like I have fought a bull who prefers to run the opposite way, take after your horse at full speed or stay in the brush, thank you very much. The outcome of the choice to argue, with bull or husband, is never good. In fact it usually results in a further run in the opposite direction, a sarcastic swipe at my ways of jumping the gun and at least double the time in the brush or the easy chair.

But after some time spent battling with man and beast I am finally beginning to see the light…and damn if that light hasn’t revealed that some of the rules are the same.

So wives I offer you these tips from a woman who has attempted to nudge the most unruly of the male species in the house and in the pasture only to come out on the other end with a bull through the gate and a husband filling garbage bags in the garage.

Grab your pencils and let’s get started with today’s lesson:

On bulls and husbands

The first tip is the most important….

1) If it’s your idea, find a way to make it his. If a bull is dead set on heading south and you want him to go west, let him go south. There’s no use in fighting it, eventually all those gates lead to the place you need to go.

2) Ask once. Ask nicely. Wait patiently. What kind male soul, man or beast, wouldn’t respond positively to that?

If this isn't a face filled with love and appreciation, show me a face that is...

Which leads me to…

3) Unless you want to be disappointed, at home or in the pasture, forget about deadlines.

Which will help you when dealing with the next tip…

4) Once he’s on it, let him do it his way, even if your way is easier/shorter/faster/smarter. In the pasture, as soon as the bull is heading in the right direction, your best bet is to stay back a bit, watch his head for any signs of straying, and let him go. He might weave a little, go up some nasty rocks or gnarly trees, but as long as he’s getting there, leave him be. Same goes with your man ladies.

But better than standing back is this…

5) Find some company that is moving in the right direction. To get a bull to move he needs his lady friends along for the walk. Same goes in the household. You want him to do something, help him for crying out loud! That, or just start the task yourself. I mean the best way I can get husband to fix that gutter is to pull out our giant ladder in an attempt to do it myself…

So there you have it, five simple rules that I have found to work to my benefit about 80% of the time. What about the other 20% you ask? Well ladies, that’s why we have rule number six…

6) When all else fails, let him stay in the brush…eventually he will get thirsty and come out.

Implement these this weekend and let me know your results…

Oh, and try not to lose your shirt while you work, because then all bets are off.

Happy Friday!

Winner, winner chicken….uh, never mind….

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Ok party people, weekend’s over. Back to work.

That’s the bad news.

The good news?

We have a winner!

And the other good news is that thanks to my lovely, compassionate and brave friends who decided to reveal their own garage, quonset, farmyard and basement rubble woes as part of Friday’sHot Hot Redneck Mess prize alert post not only have I discovered that I am not alone in the complete disaster that I have lurking outside my window, I got a few giggles, snorts and solid advice in the process.

And because each hoarding, junk/treasure collecting, farmyard cleanup, old school papers, naked husband painting in the garage, used toilet story is unique and different just like you, I decided the fair way to select the winner of the challenge was to put the names in my dirty Carhart cap and leave the winner up to chance and those Junk Gods I’ve been praying to.

And it looks like the Junk Gods have a favorite because they chose Holly. Sweet Holly who volunteered to come out to the ranch and hold my hand as I gently, boss, I mean, urge husband to give up the three wheeler, dirt bike, jet ski, pail full of nuts and bolts, washing machine, five of the six coolers, ball of twine, his old batman pajamas from the third grade etc, etc, etc…

Holly I know we are not close neighbors so we might have to postpone that trip, but I am going to tweak your next piece of advice a bit and talk to husband about paying me $25 per hour for my time on this project.

Then I’m going to close my eyes and wait for him to pick me up and drop me in the water tank.

Big Brown Dog, I fear you’ll have company soon…

Congratulations Holly, you have your choice of the following three matted 8X10 metallic prints to hang on your wall as a reminder that outside of the Veeder Ranch garage, North Dakota has some beautiful sights. Let me know if you’d like me to include a couple pairs of ice skates, a broken ladder or a rabbit cage at jessieveeder@gmail.com.

Wild Prairie Rose

North Dakota Badlands

Grass and Moon

Ok, now for more of the bad news.

I didn’t actually touch the damn garage this weekend.

Guilty of avoidance...

Don’t judge me, I had a higher calling.

We went camping instead.

We had to, I mean as much as I wanted to spend the entire 90 degree weekend hauling microwaves and washing machines and lawn ornaments out of the garage and to the garbage pit, sweat dripping down my back and pooling into a nice little puddle at the top of my butt crack, it was our annual Christmas in July with husband’s family, and well, I had no choice.

I had to go. I couldn’t let the in-laws down.

I mean, this little girl was waiting for me and what type of iron hearted woman would I be if I rejected this face?

And who would want to miss these moments of heart melting sweetness?

Besides, they were counting on me to soak in the lake, make a mass batch of margaritas, take a boat ride, try my balance on a massive floating log and, due to a miscalculated body launch, accidentally show the entire crew of in-laws my snow white butt cheeks, tube with my little niece, eat hot dogs, and hang out with the chickens…

Wait?

what?

Yup. The chickens went camping.

And I think that my in-laws and I might be the only people in the world who can utter that phrase with complete truth and honesty.

What? You act like you've never seen a chicken on a beach before...

Now, I am not sure where to go from here except to promise you I’ll get to the garage project this evening…

right after I write up my contract, locate my water wings, deliver papers to husband, and pull my ass out of the water tank…

And, you know, right after I finish the laundry.

Happy Monday lovelies!!!

Rules of fencing the Veeder Ranch

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

There are jobs at the ranch that are truly enjoyable at times. Riding to gather cattle can be one of those jobs… if all goes well and the bull is in a good mood.

Unfortunately, the need for that task often signals the need to grab the tools and the bug spray to tackle the one job on the ranch that is often procrastinated and proves not quite as relaxing and soul-resurrecting as riding a good horse across a field full of fat and happy cattle.

It’s called fencing, and it’s not the kind that involves a skinny sword, a white jump suite and netted, alien headgear. It does, however, involve wood ticks, nasty brush, a kazillion horse flies, barbed wire, pliers and a lot of bending over.

And if that doesn’t sound pleasing enough, ranchers get a little extra comfort when they pull on their flannel jammies at night knowing that they are never at a loss of work as long as they have barbed wire fences.

Because as long as they have fences, the fences will need to be fixed.

Some of my earliest memories as a ranch kid are of hopping in the pickup on a hot August day with my pops or my gramma and grampa to go check fences. I had a good gramma and grampa who understood how to make a tediously long, hot day more pleasing to a kid by ensuring that candy and cookies fell magically out of the passenger seat visor when I flipped it down.

Happened every time.

I remember my short legs stuffed in holy jeans leaning against the stick shift of the old blue truck as my pops drove slowly down the fence line, stopping every few moments to get out, grab a staple, piece of wire or new fence post and make a repair. I remember dozing off in the hot sunshine or getting out to pick wildflowers. I remember sweating and swatting the flies and buzzing bugs that lived and multiplied in the snarly, thorny, swampy brush patches where the fence was always down.

I remember eating a warm ham sandwich in a shady spot and drinking equally warm water out of my pops’ water cooler.

I remember the poke of the barbs as I helped hold a string of wire, the holes in my jeans I would get as I attempted to cross the mended fence, the hum of the Patty Loveless or Clint Black song coming through the dial am radio of the old work pickup.

I remember the quiet, with only the cows mooing from the right side of the fence when the pickup was turned off during a long repair. And I remember getting stuck when that pickup wouldn’t quite make it through a draw–particularly the time I took a new puppy along only to have her puke all over my lap as pops pushed and spun and rocked his way out of the hole he dug himself in.

But mostly I remember being hot.

It seemed like that was a requirement when it came to every fencing job: Make sure the temperature promised to hit well above 80 degrees, wait for mid-day and then put on your jeans, boots and long sleeved shirt and take on the job.

And so there I found myself, having flashbacks of those memories this past weekend as I hopped on the back of the 4-wheeler to help tackle a fence line by the fields with husband. I have never gone on a fencing job with anyone other than my pops, but I don’t know why I expected the rules of fencing to change with any other man or at any other age.

No sir, no ma’am, the only thing that changed since I was a seven-year-old fuzzhead was our means of transportation. And as we zoomed that 4-wheeler up the path to the fields in the blaring, scorching mid-day July sun, the horseflies took a split second or less to remember that my skin tasted delicious and just like that we began checking off tasks and situations on the list titled:

“Rules of Fencing at the Veeder Ranch.”

They are as follows, in no particular order:

1) Well, we’ve been over the first one, but let’s just be clear. Choose to take your manual labor trip in the heat of the day. It is not a smart or comfortable option, but apparently the only option available to procrastinators who like to have a little coffee, a little bacon and a few eggs…and then another helping while they catch the end of CBS Sunday Morning.

2) Make sure to spray on a nice mist of Deep Woods OFF to ward off the hawk sized bugs…and then forget to load it up in the bucket with the rest of the supplies as you head miles into the wilderness. I mean, why on earth would we need a second dousing of the stuff in the middle of a raptor infested coulee? Besides, with more bug spray we wouldn’t be able to really test how much buzzing and biting a human furnace/sauna can can endure.

3) If you think you may need five to seven steel fence posts to get the job done be sure to only locate one to take along. I mean, a man needs a challenge and figuring out how to re-stretch a half-mile of wire using a rusty plier, reused fencing staples from when barbed wire was first invented, a pocket knife and one measly fence post is the type of feat only a real Renaissance/McGuiver type specimen can handle…and we’re those type of men out here…even if you are a woman…

Which brings me to the staples…

4) Forget them in the shop.

5) But for the love of Martha, don’t forget the pug. I mean running for three to four miles at top speed behind the 4-wheeler to a location void of water and adequate shade or breeze is the perfect death defying act for an insane lap dog. Go ahead, just try to leave him behind, but don’t be alarmed when he pops up over the hill, tongue dragging on the ground, snorting for air and making a beeline to the tiny bit of shade the mid-day sun provides off of your small ATV.

And while you’re at it…

6) Forget to bring your good leather gloves. Instead, pull on the pair with a small, undetectable hole where your right pointer finger is innocently located and make sure that opening in the protective fabric is just the right size for a thorn to poke through and draw blood. Because the number seven rule of fencing just happens to be…

7) Bleed. Because you’re not fencing until you’re good and itchy, poked, stabbed, bruised and bleeding.

8 ) So make sure to bring company. Because if a man cusses in the pasture and there’s no one there to hear it, is he really even angry?

And if you’re cussing anyway, you might as well..

9) Sweat. Sweat like hell. Sweat all that bug spray off. Sweat out all that water that you forgot to pack. Sweat so you must roll up your sleeves just enough to expose your tender flesh to the thorns and thistle you must reach into to yank up trampled fence…

10) and then bleed again, cuss again, sweat a little more, turn around to find that your companion has disappeared over the hill to pick wildflowers, decide that only a really svelte and athletic cow could maneuver through your fence repairs, head home for lunch with every intention of returning after the meal only to actually revisit the site the next morning to find those extra plump, extra lazy cows are in the field again.

Ahhh,fencing..

Yup.

Meanwhile, the cows are getting out…

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Some summer weekends are spent in the car rushing to get to the next destination, some summer weekends are spent cleaning out garages full to the brim with stuff gathered over years and years of saving, some summer weekends are spent on the water, some are spent in tents, some are spent washing windows and scrubbing floors, some are spent at weddings, some are spent singing for your supper, some are spent in bed sick with the flu…

Ahhh, summer, short-lived and spectacular around here, jammed packed with all of the above. Oh, if only I could read a book while relaxing on a blanket in the sun while tearing down the old garage while enjoying a cocktail while fixing the corrals while riding two horses at once while kayaking a crystal clear river while training for that marathon I swear I’ll run someday…

…if only…ah well…frolic, frolic, bask, swim, sing, work a little, climb, drive, camp, summer fun things and….

meanwhile, back at the ranch…

the cows are getting out.

Oh, there’s nothing like ranch living to bring you back down to earth. It’s a gift really, to slow us down and remind us why the hell we’re living here in the first place…and for the love of Martha there is work to do, so pay attention.

And this weekend husband and I had the ranch to ourselves while momma and pops enjoyed a much-needed extended holiday. That’s the nice thing about living as a two family unit on the ranch, there is generally someone to stick around to cover your ass. And mom and pops have been covering ours for a good portion of the summer and to be honest, I have been itching to cover theirs…

wait, that didn’t come out right…

Anyway, what I mean is I have been anxious to just stay home for a weekend and tinker around the barnyard, mow the lawn, work on tearing down that damn garage and watch the grass grow to unprecedented heights. Really, I’ve never seen it like this before. So on Saturday after we spent a good few hours sorting out old tires, a boat, a jeep, seventeen dressers, thirty-seven old grills and a microwave that may or may not have been my pops’ wedding gift to my momma, I threw my sweaty arms up in the air and declared it was time to go check on the cows.

Because there was a new mare in the barnyard I was anxious to ride, cool coulees calling my name, and hours of quiet time under the big setting sun…just what a girl with a scary old garage needed to decompress.

So we pulled on our boots, grabbed some bug spray and our horses and took off at a nice, leisurely pace to check the place.

I just have to take a moment here, before we get to those cows, to explain that even though I grew up here, even though I grew up here with this boy who became this man who rides this pretty bay horse, even though I walked these hills all my life and can hold this guy’s hand anytime I wanna, I still can’t believe I exist out here with him.

And on a night like Saturday night when the grass was tickling the bottoms of my boots, the tiger lilies were stretching out their petals and the new mare was stealing little nibbles of the clover anytime the softy on her back would let her, I was just blissed out to the max.

To the max.

So much so that I think I got off that mare approximately 15 times to measure the grass, to snap a photo, to pick a flower, to just mosey and stick my nose in sprouting things…

Poor, poor, patient husband…

So when we reached the gate to exit the fields and heard some conspicuous mooing coming from the next tree row, I was not disappointed that the cows were out.

Because it meant that we got to move them, my hubby and me.

And as the air was getting cooler and the sun was casting long shadows and kissing the tops of green hills, I tested out the mare’s trot while I headed west and husband headed east, loping that bay horse out across a sea of clover.

I got to use my cow-moving lingo (Example with left arm slapping my leg: “Move on mommas…yip yip…come on babies..hya, hya…get along girls…” ) as the mare and I pushed the reluctant cattle through the tree rows and the lush grasses they had stumbled upon and weren’t so eager to leave behind.

I got to weave that mare back and forth along the back of the line, gathering and pushing nice and easy toward the gate, just like my pops taught me a long time ago.

And as I watched husband bring in a few scragglers from over the hill I realized something: It was just he and I out here doing this. Pops was a couple hundred miles away instead of in his usual spot next to us, giving us the plan of action, giving us advice and telling us where we needed to be. Pops was a couple hundred miles away trusting that we could keep it together and we were out here alone with these cattle in the wrong spot, just husband and I fixing a little mishap, taking care of things together.

I am sure we had done something like this before, the two of us. But at the moment we got those cattle in the right direction, moved them on up over the hill, made plans to fix up that fence and decided things had gone pretty smoothly it was the first time I truly believed that perhaps, the two of us, as a team, were capable of handling this ranch business ourselves after all.

Because I would be lying if I said I don’t have my doubts sometimes as I climb into bed next to his body and we listen to the crickets chirping outside our windows, the frogs singing their night songs. I would be lying if I didn’t wonder if it would be easier to buy a house in a suburb with a well manicured lawn, a nice clean garage, close to the grocery stores, conveniences and supportive friends down the block.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes the weight of it all, the thought of being out here without my father riding next to us, a little voice in our heads, our lifeline for the hard decisions, push down on me hard some days. Days when a horse and I have some major disagreements, days when I fall through the barn floor, days when the cows don’t gather but head for the brush in all different directions…

Those days pops is there to laugh and say there is always tomorrow.

But on Saturday we were given the best gift of summer. A gift of companionship, good horses, a beautiful night and the opportunity to show one another what we are made of.

And we might not have it together tomorrow, but on nights when the ceiling of this little house pushes on my confidence and makes me feel lonesome and crazy, I will close my eyes and think of Saturday…

and breathe a sigh of relief knowing that with all of the opportunity, all of the traveling and vacations and lake days and parties and music and summer adventures I was given these past few months, it was that day on the back of the new paint mare who couldn’t take a step without taking a bite of clover, next to the man I married, riding home with the setting sun on our backs, it was that day my smile was the biggest and I felt the most like me…

It was Saturday and there was nowhere else I would rather be…

Sweetclover in my skin

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I wish I could bottle this up and send it to you.

I wish I could pick the right words to describe the sweet, fresh scent that fills the air tonight and gives me comfort when I breathe it deep in my lungs while standing still or moving across the landscape, stepping high, eyes on the horizon. Or maybe my hands are on the wheel and the windows are open in the car as I reach out my arm. Or I may be laying down, ready to drift to sleep while the breeze kisses my skin laying silent in the night air.

I imagine everyone has something like this that hits their nostrils and brings them back to a time in childhood when they felt so deeply loved, so overwhelmingly safe, so much themselves, so free. Maybe it’s your grandmother’s warm cookies from the oven. Maybe it’s the smell of a diesel tractor plugging across a field. Maybe it’s your parent’s home or your fur on the back of your old cat or the salty air blowing across the ocean and onto vast beaches.

For me it is sweetclover.

It’s not something that graces us with its presence every year, but when the ground is saturated enough and the sun is warm it seems to pop up overnight like an old friend knocking on your door unannounced–and you just happen to have the coffee on and bread warming in the oven.

And so I think I have sweetclover in my skin. My first best memories are laying among it, rolling down the highest hill on the ranch as the sun found its way to the horizon and my cousins, tan and sweaty, hair wild, would fling their bodies after me. We would find ourselves at the bottom in a pile of laughter and yellow petals would float and move around us and then stick to our damp skin.

For us the clover was a blanket, a canopy of childhood, a comfort. It was our bouquet when we performed wedding ceremonies on the pink road wearing our grandmother’s old dresses, an ingredient in our mud pies and stews, our crown when we felt like playing kings and queens of the buttes, feed for our horses, our lawn, a place to hide from the seeker, to rest after a race, to fall without fear of skinned knees, a promise of summer.

A wave of color to welcome us home together.

And so it has appeared again, just like it did last July, only bigger, more bountiful, taller–up to my armpits even the sweetclover grew! It’s there all season, the seeds tucked neatly under the dirt, and still I am surprised when I open the windows of the pickup after a late night drive and the fragrance of the lush yellow plant finds its way to me.

The night is dark but I know it’s there…

And I am taken back…

I am seven years old again and my grandmother has our bunk beds made up in the basement and my cousins will be coming down the pink road soon. And when they get here we will climb Pots and Pans and we will put on a wedding and look for new kittens in the barn. We will play “The Wizard of Oz” and I will be the Tin Man. We’ll catch frogs in the creek and take a ride on the old sorrel. We will play tag on the hay bales in front of the barn.

We will hide from each other in the clover that scratches and brushes against our bare legs.

Oh, I wish I could bottle it up for the cold winter days that showed no sign of release.

I wish I could build my house out of it, weave it inside my walls, plant it in my floor and lay down in it at night.

I wish I could wrap my family–my father and mother, my sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles, my grandmother and grandfather and all of the souls who have touched and breathed and lived where the clover grows–I wish I could wrap them in its soft petals and sweet stems and watch as they remember now.