Tag Archives: photography

What Rain Looks Like

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I had plans for another hot day at the ranch, but woke up to a nice, refreshing surprise this morning–the sound and smell of rain outside my open windows. The wind wasn’t blowing, the tree branches weren’t moving, there was no lightning–just calm, steady, trickling, warm rain. This means so much to the landscape this late in the season. I am not sure what the farmers have to say about it, but the moisture will help it stay green out here just a little longer and I’m ok with that. So I took a walk to capture what rain looks like on a North Dakota summer morning. Everything seemed to sparkle and open up wide to thank the sky. Even my lawn ornament looked refreshed.

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Now I’m off to pick up my nieces. We were going to hit the pool, but I think we will play cowboy all weekend instead (which is much more fun).

Wind

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The wind is howling at the ranch today and I wanted to capture it. I wanted to record its sound and tell you how it woke me this morning. Help you hear it. But the wind wears an invisible suit and, it turns out, doesn’t really like his picture taken (no matter how I tried).  But despite the suit, you can definitely  tell when he’s in the area ruffling fur, pulling the petals off flowers, teasing the grass and pushing the clouds along. So I settled for photos of the evidence and called him out in a poem.

Hope  you are holding onto your hats today, because nature’s a flirt isn’t it?

Wind

frantic
moving
breathing

air

just air

whipping through my clothing
desperately reaching for skin
pleading
grabbing at my insides
through my ears

a whisper

then a silence

then a howl

sporadic
you make up your mind
to take the glory from the sun

we curse you
as you spill our drinks
turn pages of our open books
rock boats
ruin a warm day

we pull hats down
squint eyes
clench our jaws

as grass clings to roots
branches beg for mercy
and birds become puppets bouncing on strings

I fling open the windows
daring you to come in
to comb through my hair
twist up the rugs

and unsettle the dust


I know what home is.

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There is something about the month of July that has always felt so much like home to me. It’s like it marches in with all of its blue sky and green grass and bugs and scents of clover and cow poop and touches me on the shoulder to wake me up to every glorious lake day, evening ride, campfire and hot, mid day hike I’ve ever had in every July of my life. This particular month so far has, to my surprise, has been all of those things and it is only half over.

I saw this summer at the ranch drifting lazily by as I contemplated what I am doing here. I saw myself sleeping in a little, cleaning up and making home cooked meals for the husband (ha, well, I have been known to be delusional). I have done this a little, but I have also done things a bit more exhilarating really…like answering my phone and saying yes –yes to every family member and friend that has been within arms reach for years, but whom I just couldn’t quite get to because of deadlines, work, or a commitment I didn’t want to commit to. And I have found that when used properly, “yes” can be the best word. Ever.

And so I have been out of commission in my own life for about 10 days, because I have willingly, and with gusto and open arms, planted myself in my best people’s lives across this great state. And all this being away from home, camped out in my grandparent’s lake cabin, in a hotel, on a couch in my cousin’s basement, in my sister’s bed in her apartment,  and in a tent at the edge of Lake Sakakawea, got me thinking a bit about how we define the word.

Home.

It’s intriguing to me particularly because we, my husband and I, have spent the last few years trying to find it. We have expended quite an amount of energy lugging our things around from apartment, to apartment, to apartment until we finally lost our minds enough to purchase a house of our own. And then we promptly extinguished all of our life savings deconstructing this new place so that it would indeed feel like ours, smell like ours, look like ours…be ours.

And for two years, I never felt so displaced. In all of the chaos and construction and saw dust and paint, I never unpacked a photo of us. I placed my things in the closets to get them out of the way and then never could really find anything again. I moved in and out of the project, from work to work to bed and back again, only a shell of a person really, in the shell of a house that someday, we hoped, would become our perfect home.

The funny thing is, all of the cussing, planning, crying, and hitting my fingers countless times with a hammer didn’t open our eyes of a perfect bricks and mortar home that was coming to life in front of us, but revealed a vision of a future that wasn’t contained in this house in this town, but a life that was waiting for us 60 miles north.

And as soon as we declared this project no longer our future, I became me again and I guess, started spreading myself around to whoever has missed me. And as it turns out, there have been plenty of people who wanted to catch up. So I put them all on my calendar.

I drove east to Minnesota to spend 4th of July with my grandparents on my mother’s side of the family, getting to know new babies and babies that have turned into teenagers over night. I put my feet in the lake where I spent summers of my youth, then let it close in over my head, just like when I was twelve. I swam. I ate watermelon. I toasted s’mores. I water-skied for crying out loud!

I hugged my grandparents and cooked french toast for thirty of my favorite people in a kitchen where we have all gathered to re-cap weddings, to announce pregnancies, to proudly tell a story of a renowned kindergarden performance or a winning goal. And we filled that home, that entire lake, with laughter of people who have known us all along and love us anyway.

And it felt pretty good, so I stayed away a bit longer.

I headed back west a bit to Fargo to spend some time with my cousins (the former members of the Kitten Kaboodle club and the ones who are responsible for my non-belief in the Easter Bunny). I marveled at a now grown woman, who once taught me the rodeo queen wave and lent me her sparkly cowboy shirts for talent shows, as she moved about her house, feeding her toddler cheerios and clapping her hands and rolling her head back as her princess four year old performed karate moves on her doll. I listened as that woman’s brother, and my forever best friend, spoke of his PhD program at the University of Miami, and felt so damn proud, followed by a pang of jealousy for his great tan and the laid back attitude he has accumulated along the way. I watched my youngest cousin use a pizza box to sled down the stairs just because we dared him to. I slapped the bass like a champ playing “Rock Star” on Play Station, I drank just a little too much, and talked just a little too loud and was just a little obnoxious. Just like old times

And my stomach hurt from the laughter, so I stayed away a bit longer.

Because my little sister needed me. She needed me, of all things, to hold her hand as she got a tattoo to commemorate her service trip to Guatemala. She needed me to make sure it looked just right, to calm her nerves, to tell her that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, you should do what you want. And I watched as she braved the needle like a champ and cried a little when her alligator tears fell at the end of the session, because even though the pain was self inflicted, it really sucks to see your little sister cry. I got to know her new boyfriend. I gave him shit. I commented on her less than clean apartment and ate at the restaurant where she worked and tipped her big.  I slept next to her in her bed. Just like old times.

My heart filled up.

And then my best of friends, these three beautiful, successful and wonderfully quirky women,  called and said they wanted a vacation out west. So I drove back to the ranch to meet them there to try to give them their dream weekend. It was 100 degrees, but like a fresh breeze their car pulled into my driveway and love spilled out as they opened the doors with their arms spread wide, ready to embrace us, ready to embrace the evening. We grilled steaks and cut up veggies for a salad, we sat out on the lawn, we saddled up and took a ride over the hills. We built a campfire. We drank some beer. We went to the lake and felt the wind whip by as my husband drove the boat like a bullet across the big water. We listened to my dad sing. We all made our beds in this tiny house, snuggled in tight between these walls that embraced us like their friendly hugs embraced me, under this roof, under the big, starry sky.

And I felt damn loved.

But now that the quiet has settled in again, I caught myself thinking: “Now back to normal. Back to the real world”

What is that all about? What is normal? What is the real world? Wasn’t I just in it?

Never during those days of being away did I feel like I missed home. Never did I miss my bed or my couch or my shower or my desk. I missed my husband,  I missed the space, the horses,  I missed my dogs…

So here is what I think. And I don’t think I’m wrong.

Home isn’t carpeting and wall paper and a really great kitchen. Home is those living, breathing things surrounding you, talking to you, touching you and reminding you of things you forgot about yourself.  Home is who loves you and listens and offers advice on cooking and great wine.

Home is a long, hot summer, jumping in the lake, cheering your sister on as she works to get up on water skis. It’s taking your cousins to a movie and then driving home in the pouring Minnesota rain. It is pitching a tent with your best friends and then realizing you forgot the stakes. It is saying thank you when they cook you a really great hot dog and figure out how to make stakes out of sticks, and that works even better anyway. It is sitting next to your aunt as she holds her new grandchild and watching your grandparents beam with love as the next wave of company pulls in the yard. It is cringing with worry as your brother in law attempts to blow up the lake with $300 worth of fireworks. And it’s the whooping and screaming when he pulls the display off beautifully (and safely). It is singing around the campfire, catching tiny perch out of a pontoon full of family, posing for photos and taking turns at bat during a game of softball on the lawn.

It’s July and September and December and all of the months spent living.

I know this now.

I know what home is.

Small spaces

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It’s quite clear that I am enamored with all of this space around me–all of the grass and the sky and the pink road that stretches on for miles onto the horizon. I stand outside and feel like I could simply blow away with the leaves in this vast landscape, no more significant than a field mouse really.

But I am a completely different size in this house. In fact, I am actually quite significant, and so is my shoe population, unfortunately for my husband’s side of the closet. Just to give you a bit of a visual of what we are dealing with here, when you knock on the door, you can see directly into the bedroom (and if you take five steps, you will be inside of it). Closing the bedroom doors would be an option, except that they have windows–beautiful, but not so practical when you’re in the process of changing your shorts and the neighbor pops in for a chat. And if my husband and I were standing side by side in the living room and tried to perform the chicken dance the way it was meant, our elbows would be scraping the sides of the room, which rules out any kind of gymnastics performances. I haven’t nearly successfully completed the move of all our earthly possessions from our three bedroom, three bathroom home to our new humble abode and we have already nearly covered every moveable inch with stuff. And when you throw two people, and two dogs (one of them the size of a small teenage boy) into the mix, there is not much floor space to skip around in. And I do like to dance and sometimes kick a leg up while doing the dishes,  so that throws a bit of a kink in my style.

But I am not complaining. In fact I like living in smaller spaces, because, when it comes down to it it means less surface area to have to worry about dusting and scrubbing and vacuuming, and I’m really all for that. Anyway, I am sure, unless  you were born into the Hilton family or are waiting to be crowned the next king or queen of a country,  most of us have had the experience, or will have the gift of living in close quarters with someone we promised to have and hold no matter how many times we step on each others’ toes while brushing our teeth. In fact, I think it should be a requirement that all couples who are contemplating a life long commitment, live together in a one bedroom, one bathroom, one closet home. Because nothing spells love and commitment quite like holding your pee while your dearly beloved finishes his morning grooming ritual.

No, there is no hiding anything here really. Last night, we sat down in the living room for a lovely dinner of burned grilled chicken legs (I cooked), my husband sprawled out in his recliner, me and my plate dangerously close to his reclined stocking feet,  and I couldn’t get past the fact that my instant rice tasted a bit like a foot that had been crammed into a pair of work boots all day in 90 degree weather. Ugh, I think I can still smell it.

Although there is no hiding from the unfortunate stenches, there is also no hiding from each other. You wake up in the morning and as you move about the house, reaching for the coffee, your hand gently brushes his. You get ready for the day and you lean across his body for your comb and laugh as you watch him crane and distort his nose and mouth while he works to shave his face. He stands in the kitchen, cutting up onions for his famous and favorite soup and the smell of bay leaves and butter wrap around you and you can’t help but get up to do the same to him. The walls move in on you and you  move closer to one another. You are no longer swallowed up in the space between the multiple rooms you once used to get away from one another in an argument, but forced to look in the eye the emotions that have been provoked. The whispers in the dark sweep over you and the laughter rattles the foundation. There is no need to shout.

But when I am stubbing my toe on the coffee table for the thirteenth time that day or tripping over the damn dog in the middle of the floor, I can not believe this is where my five cousins, two sisters, two aunts, two uncles and my parents spent holiday weekends, cooking, eating, sleeping and, let’s be honest here, putting on interpretations of the “Wizard of Oz.” It seemed so much bigger when I was growing up. Interesting, considering that it was full of so much more than bodies, but of laughter and love and conversations, the smell of homemade bread, a house cat and a large Christmas Tree. Where did we all sleep? How did we manage to put on what I would consider successful and entertaining dance performances to Paula Abdul? How did we all fit around the kitchen table? And where did my grandmother keep all of her shoes for crying out loud?

I don’t know. I remember only faintly what it looked like in here, what photos she hung and where my grandfather’s easy chair sat. As I curse the closet space and shove my luggage under the bed of the very room my grandmother used to sleep in after a day of chores and raising three children, I wonder if she ever cursed the small stove or wished she had room for a bigger kitchen table. I imagine her life here, where her bed was placed and if the sun hit her face the same way it hits mine in the summer mornings and if she left the windows open at night like I do. I imagine her as a light hearted wife humming in the kitchen while plopping down pancakes for breakfast. Sometimes, when I’m outside,  I  swear I can hear her calling to the cattle or to her grandkids to come inside for supper. I compare her life to mine in this house, between these walls and how different this world must be from hers.

But seeing my tupperware shoved in the re-done cupboards, the laundry stacked up on the bed, the unopened cans waiting for me to rearrange the pantry and the work boots scattered in the entry way, I long to fill this house they way she filled it. I want people to sit close, eat my cooking and drink my bad coffee. I want our laughter and kitchen light to flood the farmyard late into the night and bounce off the buttes and make the landscape ring with life.

And some days, when I am scrubbing the floor or dusting the shelves, I feel like her. I feel her smile spread across my face, her kink in my back. And I wonder if this house held her the way it is holding me. I wonder if these walls closed in on them the way they have on us, urging us to break down, to touch, to hold on tight to each other.  I wonder if she stood in the kitchen making dinner for her husband and if he felt moved to come up behind her and gently kiss her cheek. I wonder if she danced in the living room. I wonder if she tripped over her coffee table and walked out into the landscape and opened her arms up wide and smiled as the big, blue sky swallowed her up.

Summer Walk

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What I see on my walks around this place. I have been trying to snap a photo of the yellow and blue birds outside my window, they are loving bathing in the puddles on the road after last night’s thunderstorm, but my old digital camera, limited photography and sneaking skills leave something to be desired. Enjoy this beautiful day!

Red road coming cutting through the ranch.

Summer Flies

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Clover blooming in the pasture outside my house.

It’s hot today at the Veeder Ranch. Not a smoldering heat, but the sun is beating on the scoria road outside my house and quite unexpectedly, the trees are standing relatively still due to the lack of push by the usually relentless wind. Which entices the flies to buzz  confidently at my front door and around our horses’ noses, sending them into a some sort of trance, bobbing their heads like a metronome in an attempt to keep the persistent insects away. They head for the hill tops to find a breeze.

The cows also have a ritual, which I’ve only noticed, but haven’t studied (as I don’t claim to be, at the present time, a cow expert. I am however, to my husband’s dismay, hoping to become a pig expert, but we won’t go there today). They gather together in a cluster, maybe near the corner of a pasture, or on a side hill, and at a sporadic pace, switch their wiry tails, slapping each other over backs, on faces, under bellies, forming a sort of jumbled up assembly of “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine.”  I imagine them saying to each other on these days,  after a long winter of trudging through the snow, “Really? We just can’t catch a break here can we?”.

These instinctual methods for dealing with the mites that come with the short North Dakota summer seem a bit more methodical than my form of extermination, which is cussing mostly, and a flyswatter made available on every table in the house. Oh, and Raid.

But the pastures are green. Like neon green. After a couple days of rains that poured down from the sky like God was

The paint catching a breeze on a hilltop.

throwing out his bathwater (and God, I imagine, has quite the large tub), the sunshine is working on drying the puddles and putting a nice crust on the gumbo buttes of the badlands and the ruts created in the gravel roads around here.

So I roll up my sleeves and my pants legs and, with my flyswatter in tow, I sprawl out on the porch. Because of course I love the warm sunshine. It is what I have been waiting for since it left us last September. I welcome it to come and brown my skin and entice the sweat-beads on my forehead and chest. I tilt my head upwards, squint my eyes and say “bring it on!” Because, in my sun-worshiping opinion, we don’t get enough of these kinds of days up here. And when we do, unfortunately for the office bound and car bound and truck bound and shovel bound North Dakota employees, they do usually land on a Monday or Wednesday, followed up with a nice rainy weekend, which doesn’t stop the hearty residents from loading up their fishing boats and digging out their Bermuda shorts anyway, because dammit, the summer is short.

Clay butte outside my window baking in the summer sun.

I found in my days touring the Great Plains as a musician that there are two things people want to talk about when you tell them you are from North Dakota (as if they didn’t already figure it out as soon as I open my mouth): your accent (say “You Know”) and the weather. And as soon as I got done explaining that yes, I know I have an accent, and that I blame it on my Lutheran Church Lady heritage, and yes, I know I say “Dakoota” funny, and haha, yes, I wish I talked more like you and said “ant” instead of “aunt” and “yes” instead of “yah,” the conversation always turns to weather.

“It’s cold up there isn’t it?”

“Yah, sure is”

“How cold does it get”

“Pretty cold. Sometimes like 30 below zero” *

“Holy Shit”

“Yah”

Yes, we talk about the weather. Ask us and we will proudly declare that it takes a certain type of person to live here.

Cows switching their tails near the water tanks.

That the winters keep the riff-raff out. That we hunker down and deal with it.

But we, from the humble stock we sprang, rarely talk about the summers here. Maybe because, in our minds, they are not so dramatic. They don’t incline us to use as many puns and metaphors and exaggerated stories about the neighbors nearly freezing to death in a blizzard or almost dying walking across campus at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (which is the coldest place on earth I am sure of it), or how the wind could blow the snow in a flurry one thousand miles an hour over roads coated with sheets of ice and North Dakota schools would not think of shutting down. No, North Dakota summers could not possibly be that dramatic.

But I think we are wrong here. The summers here are not to be skipped over on your way to explaining yourself out of why we endure the bitter cold. I believe there is something to be said, I mean, really be said, about the season that was sent here to save us.

Hondo cools off in the dam

Because graciously summer unfurls itself from its cocoon ever so slowly for us, year after year, revealing its colors in soft buds of green on the trees, allowing the sun to shine for just a few more minutes every day, enticing the crocuses to poke through the earth on the sides of hills. It gently whispers to us to open our windows, to let the winter air out of our houses, to let the dirt creep in on the bottom of our shoes, to water our lawns and watch the blades grow, to throw something on the grill. To warm up already!

It eases us into the new, refreshing sensation,  like a mother coaxing her child to get his feet wet in the pool, to come in a little further, until he finally, after giddy squeals and nervous shakes, dunks his head under the water.

And although most North Dakotans don’t truly believe it’s summer until it’s half-way over, until we have complained

Pearl the mule going in for a drink.

enough about the rain and the wind and the tornado warnings, it is days like today we jump right in. We say to each other as we walk down the street “What a beautiful day!” “It’s gorgeous out there.” “Finally! The sun!” And we plop down in our gardens, and jump into the chilly lakes, and take our sandwiches to the park, and tend to our flowers. Because days like these allow us to completely and utterly forget about the long, frigid January, the snow we shoveled through to get to our garages and the white out blizzard on the highway we were stuck in during Christmas. We finally get a chance to thaw out enough to suck on a popsicle from the Shwan’s man.

In fact, show us a photo of the previous winter and it would be unrecognizable on a day like today when the sky is so blue and the birds are chirping and the dogs are panting and our children are covered in sunscreen and sweat. Those snow drenched houses were another lifetime. Another world.

My summer fly.

Because it is hot today at the ranch and North Dakotans everywhere are turning on sprinklers, nursing their first sunburns, opening their windows and feeling at least a little grateful for the flies.

And that takes a special type of person.

*just a note for those of you looking to take a visit, and don’t know me personally–I do tend to exaggerate, especially when it comes to the weather. 30 below zero has probably never occurred here.  I am included in the dramatic bunch.

Happy first day of summer you crazies!