The list

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Christmas is right around the corner. Like, right there. I can see its sparkly ribbons and the ball on its Santa hat from here and I am finding myself a little anxious about the whole thing. I’m saying things like, I’m not ready! I have to bake something! I have to wrap the presents and find a Christmas tree and put up lights! It has to snoooowwwww! It hasn’t even really snowed yet!!!

I’ve been so wrapped up in other things this December, like planning the arrival and set-up of our new house, that Christmas and I haven’t been able to spend time together.

So this week I have “Christmas” on my agenda. I’m not going to lie, I don’t like having to pencil it in. I much prefer when the season infiltrates into my life naturally. I like when the ground has just the right amount of sparkly snow and husband and I are able to go out and cut the tree together. I like when I have a weekend to put up the lights and replace my usual brown candles and wooden frames with red and green decorations and boughs of cedar.

I love it when the house smells like cedar. It’s one of my favorite things about Christmas at the ranch.

Last night when husband and I got in late from dinner at my big sister’s new house I walked through our entryway full of tools and living room piled to the ceiling with unwrapped presents and realized that, with Christmas just a few days away and husband working so hard on the new house, it isn’t likely we will have a tree this year. And it’s the last Christmas we’ll spend in this little house.

It made me a little sad as I crawled into bed, thinking about our first Christmas spent as a married couple in this house. I pulled the covers up and closed my eyes to remember the first tree we cut together from the place. Our first tree as husband and wife….

We’d been married about four months and there was snow on the ground. We headed out the door in early December to drive the trail to the east pasture, the pasture on the edge of the badlands that grows the most Christmas type trees on the place, our new puppy riding in the back of the pickup. We bumped and bounced along the rough and frozen path until we got to the top of the hill looking over one of our favorite spots. Deciding he had pushed his luck and the limits of his 4-wheel drive, we got out of the pickup to scope out the hills on foot, our little brown lab trailing in our footprints behind us.

It is one of my favorite memories, watching my new husband dressed in his wool cap and neckerchief, jeans and big boots, milling over the size and proportion of a cedar tree that we had spotted on the top of a hill together. I remember it being just before dark as the sun made its way down over the buttes as our new puppy and I watched eagerly as husband carefully sawed off the top of our chosen tree and drug it up the hill to the pickup.

We followed in his snowy footprints and walked together talking and laughing at how our puppy was jumping through the drifts, watching our breath puff in and out with our words. We reached our pickup as the sun was setting, loaded our puppy and the tree in the back and I plopped my snow-suited body down next to husband in the cab. He started the engine, put the vehicle in reverse, stepped on the gas and, well…we didn’t move..

Husband put in drive, stepped on the gas…and…ummm…we were not going that way either.

Reverse.

Drive.

Reverse.

Drive.

Stuck.

Husband got the shovel and I stepped out and sunk knee deep into the snow bank we decided to park in. I trudged around to the back of the pickup to check on the puppy who, in all of that back and forth, had lost his cookies all over in the box of the pickup…and if memory serves me right, it seemed he had indulged in a lot of cookies.

So there we were, my new husband and I, out on the prairie in the middle of winter at sunset, a good five hilly miles away from our little house with a Christmas tree and a sick puppy in the back of the pickup…two supplies we found are pretty worthless in times like these.

But you know, I don’t remember feeling panicked or frustrated or upset in any way. I do remember being grossed out by the dog puke, but not enough to not laugh about it. I knew somewhere in that youthful and hopeful heart of mine that I married a man who was perfectly capable of getting us out of a jam like this and on down through the hills to help me drag that tree into the house and make it a Christmas to remember.

So I got behind the wheel as husband shoveled and instructed me on the technique of successfully rocking a pickup out of a snowbank that had us high-centered. He shoveled the snow, wet and sticky from the warmth of the now disappearing sun and I leaned my head out the window to hear his instructions to drive forward, then backward, then forward again.

And then, as the stars started showing their shiny faces one by one over the snowy hills, husband scootched me out of the driver’s seat to get behind the wheel, I grabbed the puppy and with one mighty rev my man drove us and our giant Christmas tree out of the snow bank and to the front door of our home in the barnyard.

I remember us laughing the entire way home with relief, thanking those stars above that we weren’t walking.

Thankful that we were there together in our own adventure…

Thankful for a Christmas together.

I fell asleep last night with this memory floating in the air above my bed, playing itself out for me. I woke up this morning while my husband of nearly five Christmases still lay sleeping beside me.

I wrapped my arms around him and lay there in that memory for another moment. And in the quiet of the farmhouse, in the still of the early morning before the sun appeared, I listened to my husband breathe.

I listened to him breathe, kissed his shoulder and rolled out of bed to find the list of things I have to do to prepare for Christmas this weekend.

And at the top, in front of wrapping presents, making fudge, cleaning the house, and writing cards I wrote in big, bold letters…

“Find a Christmas Tree with Husband.”

It came in with the night….

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

Go find your mittens
so your fingers don’t freeze
slip on your big boots
pull your socks to your knees

Dig out your best scarf
wrap it round yourself tight
the snow has arrived here

it came in with the night.

I’ll put the roast in the oven
and heat the milk on the stove
they’ll be right here waiting
when you come in from the cold

Knocking ice from the branches
and stringing Christmas tree lights
yes the snow has arrived dear

it came in with the night.

So squeeze on your knit cap
over wild wooly hair
watch your breath float and drift
in the crisp morning air

Break the ice for the cattle
put the saddles away
yes the snow has arrived here…

and I think it might stay.

Waiting for the cold…

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It’s late October and our windows have been closed for weeks, sealing our houses up against the chill that this month lays upon the nights. And we button up in the morning as we step out to start our cars, or saddle a horse, or feed the livestock or take a jog while the streets are quiet. We rub our hands together and notice our breath pushing out our bodies and floating in the atmosphere, hanging our words up there to linger for a bit. “Huh, look at that,” we say. “Haven’t seen my breath for months.”

Our words forget that they can be seen now. Our skin forgets, somehow, what this chill feels like. It forgets it bites a bit. It forgets the way the cold comes in, rustling the near-bare branches, dancing with the dried up grasses and the remnants of the wildflowers left behind brave and brittle…just as we have been left here season after season.

Yes it’s late October and we are reminded by the flush in our cheeks and the boots on our feet, prepared for the moment the sky could fall. Any moment . Our senses know it, we were animals once. The ones who move along ridge lines and on horses’ backs, behind the path of a deer, they remember. They remember that animal’s still there.

So we put on our wooly coats like the horses do and crunch through blankets of leaves on the ground, stripping off layers as the sun rises to give us one more day of warmth. Oh, we know it’s a gift. If only it could stay until late November. But we take it. We do.

We roll up our shirt sleeves and bring the cattle home. We stroll our babies dressed in fleece on sidewalks along paved streets. We sit a little longer on the front porch. We think of making apple cider, some biscuits, maybe a pie for dessert.

We eat soup and hang on, like the last of the yellowing oak leaves, to a hope that the snow will stay up in the air.

We hang on to the colors that don’t dare leave us, the colors that stick out on the landscape and promise a reprieve from the brown…

from the inevitable white that is to come.

We hang on and take trails still made of dirt, breathe in the damp air and find a quiet spot to watch the birds get ready for it too, wondering where they go in times like these…

…wondering if they’d take us too.

Wondering if they are ready.

Missing them already.

Yes, it’s late October and just like us the sun is slower to rise and faster to set, the dog takes pause before he walks out the door,

the horses nibble on hay, the cows stay close to the barn, the birds move in bunches and call to one another “come on, come here, stick close together, we have places to go” as they fly over a landscape that is rough like our skin,

and an earth that has given in to rest and is waiting, like us, for the cold.

It’s all about autumn…

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Fall is one of those fleeting seasons around here. The kind that doesn’t get much attention because everyone is busy digging out their wool caps and puffy coats in preparation for what’s to come. But boy, this fall, this season, has been truly spectacular so far around here this year. Just like the rest of the seasons, it has not disappointed.

So on this Wednesday as I prepare for one of my good friend’s visit to the ranch, I would like to take a moment out of my frantic cleaning, organizing and thoughts about baking something to pay this season a bit of the attention it deserves….

Because who knows, we could find ourselves in a snow globe scenario in the morning.

Here we go: On behalf of northern people everywhere, the ones who get out and take walks, stroll their babies through the parks, rake up piles of leaves and let their kids and wives and dogs jump in them while they laugh and stretch out the kinks in their backs before joining them. From the people who carve pumpkins and press pretty oak leaves between the pages of their books, the ones who enjoy a hot cup of homemade soup and light jackets and cardigans, the ones who paint eloquently, photograph with great care and detail, the ones who look, who really see…on behalf of people like these we would like to present this award of appreciation to the season of autumn.

I hope you display this giant, ten foot trophy proudly on the shelf on your wall–the shelf where you hang photos of your changing leaves, vibrant sunsets, rolling clouds and golden hues.

I hope you invite summer over for a cup of cider to brag a little. She’ll have time to stay for a bit now that she’s on vacation. And winter, I imagine he will want to see this too, as the only award he’s ever won was from snowboarders and skiers thanking him for staying so long.

That winter really likes to chat doesn’t he?

And spring. Let him know that he’s next in line. Maybe the two of you could talk to wind and ask him to tone it down a bit, he’s always trying to ruin a perfectly pleasant season change.

But for now autumn, this is all about you.

You and your understated beauty, your crunching leaves and well worn paths. You and your picturesque views from the hilltops, pleasant temperatures and crisp air.

Thanks for quieting down so I could hear the acorns literally plunking to the ground in the coulees behind my house. Thanks for dropping those acorns,

even if you did drop one on my head.

I forgive you, because you and I are on the same page about the whole “the world needs more oak trees” thing.

Thanks for putting a sparkle in the stock dam,

a shimmer in the chilly creeks,

a glow on the tips of the trees.

Thanks for reminding me what red looks like…

and orange…

and yellow

…and gold…

Because of this and how hard you have worked to paint a picture outside my window each morning and put me to sleep at night with your cool breezes, I will forgive you your cockleburs, the hornet that stung the favorite part of my hand, and the excessive and obnoxious amount of grasshoppers. They are only out there because you have given them longer life with your warmth and sunshine.

Thanks for that. Thanks for letting us sit outside and read a book, do a project, or just poke around. Thanks for sticking around long enough for me to take your picture. Because I’m sure your friends will want some for their walls.

You rock autumn.

Now go call your momma, she’ll be so proud of you.

Quick, change your season!

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

So I hope yer termaters were covered last night, because there was a frost.

whimper, whimper…sigh…sniff.

Yup.

There was a frost. I saw it with my own eyes when I woke up, rubbed out the crusties and scrounged around for the dog food only to collapse in a heap when I noticed that the water in the dog dish had a little crust of ice on the top.

Sob.

How do I get the defrost button to work on, you know, the earth?

Anyway, I suppose it is about that time. It seems like it went too fast didn’t it? I mean, I hear Texas is still feeling 100 degree weather. It’s weird how quickly the season’s change around here. Just last Saturday I had on my swimming suit and was splashing in the big lake.

Just last week I was using my little window air conditioner while husband and I screamed casual conversation over its rumble! Just last month I was cussing the rain and the cows who ruined my lawn. And just like that, the lawn really doesn’t matter much anymore.

Oh, but it’s not so bad really, when considering last year at this time we had SNOW!

Oh, North Dakota and your weather games. No matter how many tricks you play we always wonder where the hell we put our sweaters.

Anyway, I’m not complaining. (Does it sound like I’m complaining?) Fall is a sweet time of year, even though it’s a bit short. Fall means hunting and camouflage beer, colors changing in the trees, cute sweaters, pumpkins, being able to ride horse and jog in the middle of the day…you know, if I were the type of woman to exercise on purpose.

But I am going to miss summer, just like I do every year. I am going to miss my summer skin that makes me look more human and less pasty white alien. I am going to miss my cutoff jeans and bare feet, my horse’s slick coat, husband’s t-shirt sleeves that hug his arms perfectly, vodka tonics, and wildflower hunting, brats on the grill for supper once a week, not having to plan my outfit around a jacket and sunshine that lasts past 10 pm.

However, the snow will be a good disguise for my destroyed yard, it will also send these mosquitos into hibernation as well as the necessity to shave my legs every other day.

Yeah. I guess a part of me, perhaps a large part of me, is looking forward to snuggling down in my sweaters and traipsing around in my boots. That will be good.

As for the pug? Well, I think he’s kinda pissed about the whole colder weather thing…

Anyway, I can almost taste the soups that will be boiling in cowboy’s kitchen. Oh how I’ve missed you dumplings. Maybe this winter I will find myself a free weekend to enjoy a blizzard under the blankets while I watch a good girly movie. The happy hot summer sunshine doesn’t allow for such excuses.

A blizzard? Well, that’s a perfect reason to do nothing but eat Red Vines and cry at Sandra Bullock movies.

But it seems like just yesterday I was hunting out crocuses and now I have a few tubs of chokecherry juice waiting for my domestic side to come and make it into something delicious. Wasn’t I just sleeping on top of the covers with the fan blowing on me and the windows open? Didn’t I just document the first buds of spring only to wake up to find the leaves kinda droopy?

Man time flies when you’re trying to find a way to stop it. It changes right before our eyes every day out here. We know it’s bound to happen, yet it seems we never expect it. It seems the seasons, with the exception of the North Dakota winters, leave us all too quickly. So I’d like to do something fun here. As you have probably noticed, I have been keeping up with a photo a day for about a year now. And the point of that endeavor was to help me open my eyes to something beautiful, something interesting, every day. But you will notice when you visit the Daily Photo page and scroll through the pictures that it also does something more. It documents the subtle changes around here, not only in weather and season, but in the animals, the vegetation, the mood and feelings of each day. It’s amazing how that in one spot there is so much to see, so much to document, so many different perspectives constantly shifting and moving with the spin of the earth, the rise and set of the sun, the changes of the moon. So I invite you to take a moment to visit the Daily Photos page for a quick recap of the past year in photos.

Because we can’t stop time, we can’t change the weather or make our favorite season stay, but we can keep our eyes and hearts open to the beauty, subtle strength and mystery nature displays every day of the year.

In the horses:

In the pastures:

In the vegetation:

And even in the pug:

Wasn’t that fun? Now pull on your sweaters and hunker down for fall weather North Dakotans. It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Now where’d I put my earmuffs?

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!

Please get here soon…

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Crawl in slow
the warmth
the sun

ice to slush
water to dust

my skepticism into trust

that you are on your way
and somewhere under white
and gray
flowers hold on tight
and wait to bloom

please get here soon

The thaw-out ritual

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It was great day to be alive at the ranch. The sun was shining on the buttes, melting away the snow and revealing the ground, the sweet, muddy, brown ground that is certain to burst with green in the coming months.

Nobody could wait. Not the birds…

not the deer…

not the antelope…

not the snarky coyote…

not the pets…

(Don't worry, I've moved the bird feeder...)

not the people…

Not the pops.

Enough with the cold already.

This is spring fever. And the person who suffers from it more than anything else in the world, man or beast, is my pops.

As soon as the sun hits that ice and snow, warming it up enough to see some water run, to see some ground exposed, he’s out of the house like a caged bird who hasn’t been released since his capture. He doesn’t know what to do with himself he’s so giddy. He gets that list in his head going…all the things that need to be fixed, all the fences to check, all the animals to scope out, all the tinkering to do. He gets that list going and milling around right and good and then lets it all fly out his ears as he climbs to the top of the nearest hill and plops himself down in the warmest, driest spot he can find and just lets the sun shine down on him.

That’s his thaw-out ritual. I have witnessed it year after year, spring after spring. And I have adopted it.

Because it’s a good idea.

Ok, so here’s the other thing about my pops. When it thaws, he forgets.

He forgets that one warm day does not the summer make. He forgets that the 6 feet of snow in the coulees does not melt in a mere two hours of warm sunshine. He forgets that the frolicking about will remain challenging in the slush and slop and ice…at least for a good month or so.

He frolics anyway, despite the cost and the muddy, wet clothes that result. And last week I was reminded of this as I pulled into the yard on the first sunny, blue sky, warm melty day we’ve had in months. There he stood, my pops, in his cap and overalls and muck boots, hammering on the tractor, shuffling around the shop. I parked my car in the driveway and quickly changed into my ranch clothes and walked out to see what he was up to.

Pops emerged from the dark of the garage, hand shielding his eyes from the sunshine.

“Hey. Whatcha doing?”

“Oh, had to get out here. It’s such a nice day. Isn’t it gorgeous. Feels like 60 degrees…water’s really running. Got that part I needed for the tractor, but it looks like I need another one…won’t get that fixed today. Oh well…want to come with me to check the horses?”

“Sure. We walkin?”

“No, we’ll take the 4-wheeler.”

“Really? You think it will make it?”

“Oh, I think I can maneuver it around the hills…we can make it…it’s a beautiful day. Beautiful. We’ll bring them some grain. Hop on.”

Here is where I will explain that I have been known to do exactly what my father says, without question, since the beginning of time. Obedience. I had it. And even though I have a few vague memories of the pops’ great ideas turning into arms and leg flailing, bone crushing, all out wrecks complete with run-away horses, polyester shirts welded to arms, a barbed wire fence to the forehead and one finger smashed by a 2,000 pound bull in the past, it turns out those fuzzy recollections have no power over my two relentless qualities: obedience and loyalty.

I hopped on.

And wondered how this was going to go, remembering my recent trip to the horses in my snowshoes where I sunk into 10 foot drifts and drug my ass home with blood gushing out my nose from the cold and trauma of the exertion. Now I realize the temperature was unbearably cold then and the snow was fluffier and much easier to fall through, but it hadn’t melted that much had it?

Ah, it didn’t matter anyway because Pops was determined. He was not worried. He took his 4-wheeler and me and my doubts along the gravely mucky road and then turned, nice and easy off the path and up the melty drift that has been growing and growing all winter long at the entrance of the farmstead.

I closed my eyes tight, waiting to feel the pull of gravity that was sure to send us plummeting through the 12 feet of snow and rocks and slushy water toward the earth that I was sure still existed under all of that stuff.

Then I opened them, because that didn’t happen. Nope. Not at all. With pops at the helm whistling a familiar tune, we put-putted our way right on over the drift like we made this daring trip every day and headed for dry ground. We continued this way, dodging the white patches of snow, taking the long way around hills and trees to keep the machine on snow-free ground.

The warm air whipped through the hairs that had escaped from my beanie. My pale cheeks soaked up the sunshine. My lungs shouted “woo hoo” as they remembered what fresh air above 35 degrees felt like.

I released my white knuckled death grip as we approached the gate to the horse pasture.

Ah it was springtime and the living was easy and as pops got off his machine to get the gate I thought of all of things I was going to do under this big sky with its ball of warm heat shining down on me….

plant a garden…lounge with a vodka tonic…clean up all of the things that have magically appeared as the snow disappeared (who put that kayak there?)…wear shorts…avoid washing my windows…

Pops hopped back on and as we continued on our little journey…

…where were we? Oh, yes……avoid the laundry…run through the sprinker…wash the dogs (I think I can smell them from here)…fill up the kiddie pool and attach it to my slip ‘n slide…speaking of slip ‘n slide, remember to NOT fling my body down a clay butte, no matter how much the mud beckons…grill…drink margaritas….find my floaties and head to the lake…eat pineapple..

“Jessie….

Jess..

Jessica!!!”

“Wha…what?”

“You need to get off.”

“Wha…why?”

“We’re stuck.”

And just like that, the green and blue landscape that existed in my head was replaced by reality’s sharp kick in the pants.

A good mile from the house and good half mile to our destination there we sat in the great white north with a 600 pound 4-wheeler buried to its gullets in the heavy, wet, limitless, not so spring-like snow.

Without a shovel.

Now here is where I tell you that I wasn’t surprised despite my momentary, it’s-spring-time-things-are-going-good, distraction. See, this isn’t the first time pops has had this thing stuck. Like really stuck.

See, growing up we didn’t own a 4-wheeler. We had horses. Those were our 4-wheelers. At least that’s what I was told.

But pops splurged in the last few years when his kids (who maybe would have liked a 4-wheeler a little too much) left home.

Ah, sweet freedom.

Freedom to splurge on the only convenience the man has ever had on the place. Really. So you can’t blame him for testing its limits by taking the beast where no machine was meant to go: t0 the tops of buttes, over giant boulders, through fences, up trees and across muddy, ravenous, woody crick beds.

I know ’cause I have had to pull, cut, dig and help lift him out.

But this particular day, as I squinted my eyes against the sunshine reflecting off of the glaring white snow that was holding promise of disappearing, I looked at pops and laughed. And he shrugged. We kicked the tires. We pushed a little. We dug a little. We commented about the shovel.

And then we grabbed the bucket of grain and abandoned our ride to continue the task at hand.