Winter Wonderland (Prize Alert!)

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I’m happy to report that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here, and it isn’t just the giant, ten foot tall, six foot wide Christmas tree standing in the middle of the construction zone that is my home!

Nope, it’s because it has been a frosty winter wonderland for the past few weeks, bringing with it some sparky trees and fluffy soft snow.

I just love the way our world looks coated in a little frosting.

It almost makes me forget about the sub-zero temperatures and icy roads it produces. I mean, those elements are quite forgivable when they create for you a postcard worthy world.

Today the sun is shining and the frost has melted off the trees, but I spent a few moments this week trudging through the snow to capture those magical moments when things are sparkly and fresh so I could share them with you.

Because I think this is the way Christmas is supposed to look.

Now all we need is a one horse open sleigh to put these lazy, fluffy and hay fed horses to work!

In the spirit of the season I’d like to invite you to share with me your favorite winter photo from wherever you are. Post to my Facebook page, Husband and I will chose our favorite and you will win a signed copy of my new album “Nothing’s Forever” and a matted photo of one of my favorite snowy scenes.

I’ll pick the winner on Sunday (because I love Sundays) so share away! I can’t wait to see your world!

Merry Almost Christmas!

I wish you were here with us to make snow angles and frost sugar cookies.

Love, peace and snowmen.

Jessie

So many gifts.

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Last Christmas Husband and I were planning the arrival of our new home. Husband worked during the coldest weeks of the year alongside his dad, Pops and our neighbor hammering nails with gloved hands, storing the air-compressor inside the heated truck so it wouldn’t freeze, climbing ladders and creating the walls to a foundation that our house was scheduled to sit on as soon as it arrived from Wisconsin.

I remember wondering what it would look like, having only seen what was to be our forever home in my head or on a blue print. I remember worrying that we wouldn’t meet our deadline, wondering how a house can possibly travel all of those miles and wind up in a place along a gravel road where a house has never been before and offering the guys a couple shots of Peppermint Schnapps as a celebration that the first step was done.

It was cold and frosty and the deadline was approaching with each passing moment, but right on schedule our house came rolling slowly down the freshly laid road and we could do nothing more but stand out of the way and watch as the crane lifted it and placed it on the concrete and wooden walls that were so carefully constructed during the depth of winter and into some long nights.

I will never forget what it felt like witnessing our home arrive out of thin air. Husband and I watched in silence with our hands in our pockets before admitting we were chilled to the bones and moving into the heated pickup where we did more of the silence thing, more of the watching. And although we knew when the roof was on and the men were gone there would be more work to be done, we were choked up at the sight of the start of it all.

That was one year ago. It was our sixth Christmas together as husband and wife and we were watching our dreams come true.

One year and I’ll have to say, nail by nail, scary ladder project by scary ladder project, and day by day it has been a test of our skills and our patience and a wonderful hand-made spectacle to watch it all slowly come together.

Two weeks ago they came to pour concrete in that basement.

Last week Husband built us some stairs.

This week we will put rock on our fireplace…

and last weekend we brought our Christmas tree home.

I have to tell you when we made plans for this house we thought out our specific needs. We wanted a lofted bedroom, an open floor plan, a giant mud room and a hardwood floor.

And we wanted to create a perfect space for a big and beautiful Christmas tree.

Oh, we still have so much to do, and realistically we should have been doing it. We should have been wiring that basement, putting doors on the closets or picking out carpet for our master bedroom. I should have been wiping saw dust off of things or washing our socks, but after our breakfast was cleaned up and all our coffee was gone on Saturday morning, my husband and I looked at each other, pulled on our Carharts and went out to find the tree we’ve had in mind since the beginning of it all.

I don’t know how to explain the magic I feel every winter I’m lucky enough to trudge behind that man in the snow on a hunt for our tree. It’s like the world goes calm and quiet, the wind stops blowing and my toes and fingers warm up.

It’s my favorite moment of the season, finding myself alone out here on the snowy acres my family has kept for almost a hundred years alongside a man I have known since we were children, searching for a little piece of our world we can bring inside and give a new life.

I remember every Christmas tree we’ve had together. I remember the first year’s drive out into the east pasture with a pickup and a small puppy. I remember how my new husband drug it up the hill with a rope. I remember the sun going down and the tires spinning as we backed up off the hill and got stuck.

I remember the puppy puke and the laughter and thinking about the long, dark walk home.

I remember getting unstuck and falling in love again as we pulled that oversized tree through the door of our tiny house and found a spot for it. I remember how it smelled.

Fast forward to the second Christmas spent tucked between mountains in eastern Montana, so far away from the familiar but together in a small apartment on the edge of town. There was no extra money that year and no Christmas tree, just a pretty centerpiece sitting on our table as a reminder of the season before we packed up and headed toward home for the holiday.

The third tree was purchased in the dark in a parking lot in a town a little closer to home and brought back to a house we were tearing apart and putting back together, the first house we purchased together. The tree had long pine needles and it didn’t smell like cedar or anything really. There was a fight about candy canes and tinsel and I cried while I put up the lights. I was unhappy, I think…or lonesome or out of place and something about that tree reminded me. There was no tree in that house the next year and after that I vowed I would never cry over Christmas again.

And I never did. We pointed our car north toward the ranch and moved back into that little house where we brought our first cedar tree in from the cold and promised one another that each Christmas we would do the same, no matter what.

We put lights on one more cedar in that little house while we planned for our future. We bundled up against the elements and fulfilled our promise to one another, speaking quietly into the hills that hold us all so close together.

I want to stand on top of those hills and scream that I take none of this for granted.

I want to open my arms and praise this life and the family who helped build it.

I want to say it out loud as if saying it will protect me from all there is that could lift this feeling of peace from my heart and set it adrift.

But for today, for this Christmas season, I will hold that feeling close. I will sit beneathe the cedar tree standing ten feet tall under the roof of our new forever home, its branches heavy with bulbs and lights and Christmas spirit, and I will breathe in its scent be grateful for today, for this life while I’m here.

Because we are not promised anything on this earth but a chance.

And I have been given so many gifts.

How seasons change.

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

We’re right in the middle of a season change, and while it’s technically not winter yet, it kind of feels like it out there. I spend so much of my time documenting my world, watching the leaves fall from the trees and bend under the weight of ice and snow only to come out of hibernation a few months later in all of their green glory.

In North Dakota the four seasons cannot be mistaken. They don’t blend in to one another, they have their own distinct looks, smell and feel, changing everything under the skyT.

And because I am out there in it all year round, taking photographs so as not to miss a thing, today I’d like to share with you how drastically a spinning earth can change our world in this northern state.

Outside my door…

On the branches…

In the grass…

And the thorns…

In the sky…

Outside the barn…

And me.

Happy almost winter everyone. And don’t worry, spring always keeps her promise.

The day the water came to us.

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

This was our world last weekend as Pops, Little Sister and I rode through our fields and pastures. It was a beautiful nearly 60 degree day, the sun was shining and the scent of damp leaves filled the air as they crunched under the hooves of our horses. On days like these I convince myself the sky will stay blue forever.

But this morning I woke to a chill in the air that left frost on our windshields and a dusting of snow on the ground. The sky is gray and soon our world will turn white.

And I’m reminded how fast some things change.

I mean, wasn’t it just yesterday that Little Man was working on growing hair?

Now look at the guy. He’s growing up, honing his farming skills, learning to drive, and really getting the hang of that hair-growing thing.

Little Man turned 2 last weekend. His two-years-of-life celebration was another reminder that time changes things–just as it grows tomatoes it grows little boys…and sometimes I can’t tell which ripens faster.

But this week I was also reminded that not all change comes quickly. Some milestones are their own kind of miraculous.

See, on Wednesday this ranch was officially hooked into a rural water system that provides safe and clean drinking water to residents living along gravel roads miles away from the nearest city sidewalk. It’s a monumental event for those of us who depend on wells and springs to supply our family and farms with water for laundry, livestock, noodle cooking and baby feeding.

Out here among the gumbo hills that freeze solid in the winter and often dry up with the heat in the summer, the availability of a reliable water source has determined the fate of many farms and ranches, being the one non-negotiable variable when it came to the location of the house, the barn and the livestock pens.

When we determined the site for the new house last winter we were aware that we had the option of purchasing rural water, an option available to us that was not available to my parents or those who made their homes out here first. We made in a deposit and waited patiently as the system was put into place, a project that started with a vision and has taken over three years to come to fruition. For the three months that we’ve been living in this new home Husband has filled a giant tank in the back of his pickup with water from town, hauled it 40 miles down bumpy highways and gravel roads and hooked it up to this house so that we can take a shower, clean our dishes and fill the dog dish.

Without the rural water option, we could not have built our house here under my favorite hill tucked back in the oak trees–the same spot where the little ranch house was located when my father was a young boy. He and my aunt remember the day the family decided to move their home over the hill, back to the original Veeder homestead where a spring watered the livestock. The decision was a result of a losing battle with a well that continued to sand in. Both my aunt and Pops have mentioned how disappointed they were to abandon their little oak grove to the treeless farmyard just over the hill, so much so that the 7 or 8 year-old Pops took to the hills with a bucket and a shovel and proceeded to transplant a series of native trees from the coulees to his new yard in an attempt to recreate his preferred surroundings.

Some of those transplanted trees still remain in that barnyard, the spindly but proud result of a little boy hauling water in buckets from the spring to encourage them to grow tall in the hard gumbo soil, to provide him shade and leaves to rake.

“A yard should have trees,” Pops declares whenever the moment is right, an opinion that determined the fate of my own childhood growing up in a house tucked alongside a creek-bed that winds through a thick mass of trees.

As a child I would take off my shoes, tie the laces together and swing them over my shoulder so I could walk in the water, following the creek as it bent and bubbled in the most secret places on the ranch. It was never a question to me what was here first–the water or the trees. I knew that if I were an oak I would take root next to the water.

I suppose trees aren’t that much different from people in that respect, only I don’t imagine trees have much to do with the politics involved in such a precious natural resource. They take what they need to grow and leave the rest in the ground for the next living thing that comes in for a drink.

Humans make it complicated. And the road to come up with a way to pipe and manage this fresh, clean and paid-for water that is now flowing out of the faucets and into the kitchen sinks and bathtubs of my neighbors miles away has not been without its politics, fights and complications.

But this morning I woke up to fill our coffeepot, just like I had done the morning before, and the morning before. But it meant something different today as I lifted the glass pitcher up to the window. Husband shuffled in behind me and we stood there for a moment, taking in the monumental fact that this water that will brew our coffee traveled for miles in a pipe from the big lake where we swim and fish, has been purified and pressurized and cleaned up nice and fresh to ensure our white clothes stay white and our ice-cubes crystal clear, this water in our coffeepot is ours. Reliably, clearly and without much worry.

When we lived in the old house last winter there were times when we came home, turned on the faucet and had no results. This would send Husband pulling on his snow boots, wool cap, gloves and coveralls to investigate the situation. It might have been wiring, or a bad pump, a short or something I never really understood, but either way, it was our responsibility to figure it out.

Our quality of life out here in the middle of rural America depended on it.

Today we don’t have to worry about such things.

Today if we wake to find we don’t have water, we can make a phone call and someone on the other end can help us find an answer.

Today I can’t help but think of my grandparents who built a house in their favorite spot, our spot, only to have to literally pick it up and move it to the water.

Today I think of the homesteaders out here on the prairie in the heat of summer or the cold of winter worrying about water. Worrying if there would be enough. Finding solutions to get it to their homes and livestock. Making tough decisions based on the source.

On Saturday my parents will get their rural water. My mom will no longer have to take her white clothes to town to be washed, a chore she’s been performing for years to avoid rust streaks on light clothing from the discolored water that comes from her spring. My Pops will no longer experience the worry of sleepless nights when the faucet is dry and he doesn’t know why.

The day the water comes my parents will celebrate a monumental occasion, a long-awaited change, that, for as long as we are living, will not be taken for granted.

Delusions.

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I’ve been meaning to tell you some things about the pug. You’re all so supportive of him, the dog who, despite his sins and misadventures, still somehow finds a way to sleep on the couch.

Anyway, I figured you might be wondering how he’s been adjusting to this new life in his new home over the hill.

I’ll tell you, at times, it hasn’t been pretty…

And sometimes, his ear does this.

I’m guessing it’s probably due to the wind whipping through his fur as his short, stubby legs take his barrel shaped body across the pasture to try his luck at hunting down this guy:

Nope, not much has changed. Despite the new four walls the pudgy canine is still shitting on floors, hitchhiking to the nearest oil sites to see what’s cooking, working on taming the new feline in his life and exercising his delusions of grandeur.

And every year those delusions get, well, grander.

Don’t tell him he’s not a horse. He won’t believe you.

He will also not accept that he is not a cat.

Or a 110 pound cow dog.

Which is working out really well, now that Husband is on board with the idea that this dog could actually become something… well…helpful.

And so Husband has decided to work on it, you know, making the pug the best cow dog on our place. Which I realize doesn’t say much for the other dogs at the Veeder Ranch, but based on what we have to choose from, I’ll tell you, it could be true.

But it’s definitely weird.

Because the pug’s newly-honed talent has allowed for a fat little pug-shaped space in the corner of my husband’s heart.

A bond 4 years in the making…

Now I wasn’t aware this new role and relationship was occurring until I witnessed the pug stare down a small herd of cattle that had found their way to our front yard, pleasantly munching on what was left of the green grass poking out from under the fallen oak leaves and acorns.

Anticipating that damn dog’s next move, I hollered his name.
I hollered “no.”
I hollered “get back here!”

The pug turned his good eye toward me in confusion while Husband came up behind me, scolding me for yelling at the pooch.

What?

He then proceeded to inform me that lately he had been working with the pug on the whole cow-chasing thing, because, well he seemed he was brave enough, and when told to “sick ’em” the lab just runs for the first big stick.

So it’s either Husband or the pug who is destined to perform the task of getting those cows out of the yard.

And it seems the pair have found their common ground.

Delusion.

The difference between us.

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I convinced Husband to accompany me on a ride after work on Tuesday. The weatherman warned me it might be one of the last nice autumn days for a while and I felt the need to take advantage of it.

Plus, I dreamed the night before that I was riding a fast horse like the wind through the tall grasses in endless pastures and I suddenly felt the urge to make that dream come true.

An evening ride wasn’t a hard thing to convince my dearly beloved to participate in. Especially if it meant he could pretend he was looking for cows and actually getting work done. So off we went, the two of us, seeking the only kind of marriage therapy that works for us–a little ride together through our world.

The breeze and the light were perfect and my horse was just the right amount of lazy.

Suddenly I felt a wave of creativity as the sun crept down toward the edge of the earth.

So I asked Husband if he would be opposed to a little “sunset photo shoot” along the horizon, you know, because he has always made such a nice silhouette.

As usual, he humored me and I quickly planned out a method of capturing the romantic vision I had of my husband riding his bay horse at full speed across the landscape.

I got off my horse and crouched down among the grass as my husband followed my directions to “run your horse back and forth in front of me for a while until I say stop.”

So he did.

Thrilled with the results of that handsome man and his handsome horse romantically frozen in a moment of speed and power inside of my camera, I hollered at him “Go faster!”

So he went faster, back and forth, working on his horse, going nowhere in particular, just back and forth across the sky.

But from behind my camera they could be going anywhere, that man and that horse.

I felt like an artist with the power to freeze time, the gift of my camera allowing me to catch that horse’s mane as it reached toward the sky and his feet as they gathered beneath him.

“Go faster!” I hollered from my spot behind the camera.

So Husband made that horse go faster.

Watching them move across that landscape was beautiful and romantic and rugged and western and kind of like a John Wayne movie scene…all of the things Husband can be to me sometimes.

“Stop. Come back. Come here!” I yelled, suddenly struck with another idea.

The idea that if my husband could be all those things as a silhouette, I wanted a shot at what I could be as a dark, mysterious woman on a horse against the backdrop of a setting sun.

Husband stopped his horse in front of me and I handed him my camera.

“Can you take some pictures of me now?” I asked as I climbed up on my horse who was lazily munching on the tall yellow grass. “I’m going to go really fast. See if you can get my hair blowing in the wind as I ride off into the sunset.”

Husband took my camera and snapped away as I worked to channel the dream from the night before, the one where I leaned into the neck of my horse and kicked him gently as his hooves moved faster and faster across the landscape, gaining speed, pushing forward, becoming one fast blur as our hair whipped together in the wind.

Only, it seemed my horse didn’t have the same dream.

Nope.

His dream involved less running through endless pastures and more grazing through them.

And about half-way through our second pass across the photo shoot area, Husband yelled “Faster!” and the horse between my legs, the one I envisioned behaving like Black Beauty as I channeled my inner rodeo queen, began to behave more like the mule in that John Wayne movie with the nun.

And in one swift jump and kick, that horse demonstrated the major, glaring difference between me and my dearly beloved:

Silhouette or not, you are who you are.

And I am not a sexy silhouette.

Why I’m shopping for khakis and a house in the suburbs…

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Last night I went on a ride with Pops to gather the cows. We were in a hurry because every day it gets darker a little earlier. It was 6:30. It gets dark at 7:30…or something like that.

But that’s not the point.

The point is, I have never been able to keep up with Pops on a horse, and I’m afraid no matter how much help I think I am, I’m quite certain he would be better off without me.

I mean, I could be riding a race horse. You know, one of those fast buggers that wins the races race horses win. It could have countless trophies, made jockeys famous and fans from around the world could be chanting his name. And that horse would take one look at me and decide that running isn’t his thing today.

And neither is trotting for that matter.

Nope.

Not until we’re pointing toward the barn anyway.

Or cutting a path through the thick trees. Yeah, in the trees he’d find his pace.

But Pops. Pops could ride a horse that was half-way to the light at the end of the tunnel and that horse would turn right around to give him his last breath.

So this is what I deal with when we’re in a hurry–kicking and pushing and working to find a pace on a lazy horse to keep up with Pops as he heads toward the trees, providing me with directions that I cannot hear because he is facing the hills and I am three horse lengths behind him.

I yell “What?”

And he says something about following a cow through the trail in the trees.

So I do.

Only there isn’t a trail.

So me and my suddenly-lightening-fast horse make one through the brush so thick that I lose sight of the cow I’m supposed to be following (and all forms of life and light for that matter).

I hear Pops hollering from what seems like twenty miles away and wonder how he got that far in what I’m certain has only been thirty seconds (I’m not sure though because I lose all sense of time as soon as I get into the trees, you know, because I’m focusing on trying to not die a horrible, mangled death now that my horse has found his first wind…)

“Jessss!!!” Pops’ voice echoes through the trees. “Wheeereee youuuuu attt?”

“Uhhhh…” I spit the leaves from my mouth. “Just, uh, cutting a trail here…”

…and bringing with me some souvenirs from the experience–sticks in my shirt, leaves down my pants, acorns in my pockets and twigs jammed nicely in the puffs of my ponytail as I emerge on the other side of the brush alone and searching for any sign of the cow I was supposed to keep an eye on.

Ah, nevermind, looks like Pops has her through the gate.

Shit.

I kick my horse to catch up while I work on ridding myself of the vegetation I acquired on my “Blair Witch” journey through the coulee.

I catch up just in time to follow him to the top of a hill, down through another coulee, along the road and into the barnyard where we load up the horses and I wait to make sure Pops’ tractor starts so he can get home and get a bale of hay.

It does not start.

(Good thing I have patience, you know?)

So I drive him and the horses home.

Slowly.

Because I have precious cargo.

And because apparently I like to torture this man who is trying to beat the sun.

And the other man in my life who was still at work when I got in from “helping” and decided to make him a casserole, only to be asked, three bites into his meal, what I put in this thing.

To which I replied “cheese, noodles, hamburger…the regular…why?”

He gets up from his chair while pulling something from his mouth, looks and me and says:

“Because I just bit into a stick.”

Shit.

If you need me I’ll be shopping for khakis and a house in the suburbs.

A wild cat.

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So, I’ll just cut to the chase here.

We got a kitten.

Well, husband got a kitten.

Yeah, I know. I thought he lost his damn mind too when he presented me with the idea last week. I asked him how many figures I was holding up, what day it was and if John Wayne was still alive.

But if I thought he had suffered a severe head injury then, I picked up the phone to dial 911 when he told me he was going to town that evening to pick her up.

“Oh, and by the way, my dear, sweet, understanding, animal loving wife. This is no no ordinary cat,” Husband nonchalantly declared as he reached in the fridge for a beer.

Surprise! But not really. If I thought for a second that the man I married, the man who hunts deer with a Robin Hood bow,

deconstructs houses only to build them up again, makes knives out of antlers and steel files, mixes his own dough for the noodles in his noodle soup and, and catches fish with his bare hands

was about to bring home a straight-up calico or one of those felines that looks like he’s wearing a tuxedo, I might as well forget Christmas.

Not a chance. My mountain man cowboy of a husband was set on a cat with wild blood. And he was bringing her here. To our new house, the one with new carpet and hardwood floors.

And he was serious.

As he explained the animal to me…half bob cat, half mountain lion, half leopard, half liger…wait…

Image from ligers.org. Yeah, there’s a ligers.org. Napoleon Dynamite anyone? Anyone?

I flashed to visions of a wild cat the size of the 105 pound lab dangling from my recently purchased curtains, making a snack out of the insides of my leather couch, swinging from the fancy chandelier and licking her lips as while sneaking up on the pug…

I was not sold.

But it was happening.

See, that’s the thing about this relationship I’m in. There are times we talk things over, like what we should have for supper or what color to paint the walls, and then there are times we make decisions for ourselves.

The pug was one of my rogue decisions, and, well, look how that turned out…

So what could I say about a cat who, according to my recently insane husband, is sure to be the best mouser in the county?

A cat who I learned after I snapped out of my furniture nightmare, happens to be part bangle and part Pixie Bob?

I don’t know.

And I don’t know what that means really, except that here she is, all 12 oz of her.

In my new house.

With her giant ears, weird back legs and missing tail.

Here she is with her soft spotty belly, her wild, curious eyes, and unhealthy interest in the pug’s curly tail.

Here she is attacking my shoelaces with a passion I’ve never seen in something so small, spinning out as she takes the corner in the kitchen at fifty-miles-per hour and following husband around like he’s her mother.

Here she is before she took a flying leap toward my face.

And here she is snuggled down in the blankets after she, indeed, used her razor sharp claws to climb my leather couch.

I am apprehensive, but then, I’ve never had a cat figure out the litter box situation so quickly.

I’m not sold, but I like the way she sits on my shoulder as I work.

It will take some time, but look at how cute she is laying in that sunbeam.

I’m not sure, but…wait… how the hell?

…I think I might have accidentally locked her in the pantry…

Ahhh, shit.

We have a cat.

About Today

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I have so many things to tell you about the weekend, about the long ride I took with my two favorite people,

about the leaves changing…

and the radio show we performed on on Saturday.

I want to show you this picture because it’s so damn cute…

and let you that we have tomatoes coming out of our ears in case you need any.

I want to tell you about our new kitten and why my fear that my husband likely lost his mind is equal to the fear I have for my furniture.

And I want to show you my new favorite photo.

I woke up this morning with every intention show you all these things by performing my Monday ritual of coffee and words. But as I stretched my limbs, turned on the coffee pot and let the dogs out the door I got distracted by the way the frozen air leftover from the evening made the stock dam steam as the sun worked on warming the morning.

I stood at the big windows and watched it roll off the top of the water and suddenly I was very aware of the seconds passing. It seemed the season was changing right in front of my eyes and I wanted to be wide awake.

I didn’t feel like Monday morning or the sleep lines that hadn’t yet had a chance to work their way off my face. I didn’t feel like the daunting deadlines of the week or the kitchen that needed a good cleaning. I didn’t even feel like coffee.

I felt like I needed to be on the other side of those windows.

So before Husband could finish buttoning his work shirt, I pulled on my boots, tucking my bulky sweatpants inside the tops as I reached for a second sweatshirt from the laundry pile. I didn’t want to waste time on things like proper clothing. I had to capture this quiet moment that I was certain to be short-lived.

Because I know that once it hits the horizon, the sun rises fast…and it never stops moving.

It’s always on time.

I know that raindrops dry up.

I know that when the leaves start to change, winter isn’t far away…

And if I would have slept a few minutes longer I would have missed the pair of ducks cutting their way through the mist.

I know I don’t want to miss these moments.

Or these moments.

Or these.

And I know there are so many things to say…

about today.

Weird.

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Life out here is beautiful.

Life out here is peaceful and dirty and busy and windy and full of long “to-do” lists staring us in the face.

And life out here can be weird.

My first example: Last Sunday night when we arrived home from a trip to see Husband’s family, I was working on unloading the groceries and figuring out the jig-saw puzzle that has become my refrigerator while talking to a friend on the phone when my dearly beloved husband sauntered into the kitchen with a hammer in his hand and declared:

“There was a bat in the bedroom.” And then he nonchalantly walked over to the fridge to free up some space by grabbing a beer.

My mouth dropped and so did the package of celery that was working it’s way into a nook of drawer space as I screamed into the phone:

“HERE! In the NEW house! Why? How? Whyyyy?”

Husband cracked open his beer and walked over to the cupboard in the entryway to replace the hammer.

I stood there with my mouth open, looking up, over my shoulders, scanning the walls and then up at the ceiling again, scoping out any signs of additional intruders as he walked over to me, took a sip and said,

“Don’t worry. I got him with the hammer.”

What?

I have combined this little episode with the fact that I’ve had a golfball sized crack in the driver’s side of my windshield since the beginning of May and a companion chip that showed up around mid June. I’m worried that we might soon be getting a call to pose for the cover of the “Rednecks of America” magazine because I refuse to fix them. Because out here when you have a thirty mile drive to town behind gravel trucks and pickups that go too fast, I have convinced myself that installing a new windshield is like asking for another giant rock chip.

And so I will not take the risk. Instead, I’m somehow comforted knowing that I already have two giant rock chips and am okay with watching my world fly by this way. Because I know they’re there. Apparently I’m not comfortable with the invented and preconceived rock chip that is certain to appear once I spend money on my already ruined windshield.

That is ridiculous.

Which reminds me of another behavior that I cannot explain and certainly have no laid out plans to change. The dogs. When left to their own devices they continue to flee to the nearest drilling rig in search of leftover lunches, t-bone steaks, enchiladas and a rig hand willing to play fetch for hours and let them sleep in their camper. Each time we decide to trust the hooligans to be on their own unsupervised in the great outdoors we find ourselves scouring the countryside for the misguided pets only to find them miles away in doggy heaven.

And each time we go and look for them.

We can’t seem to take a hint. Feed them t-bones, let them sleep in our bed and keep them forever.

Dry dog food and a spot on the floor? When will we realize that ain’t cutting it?

And when will we get it together and build a damn fence already?

Which leads me to the weirdest thing of all. With all of the trouble we have keeping the dogs we have raised and fed for their entire canine lives at home, we have now discovered that a stray puppy is living in our grain bins and seeking refuge in the culvert underneath our road. We have tried and failed to capture the little guy, who is more like a wild coyote now than a dog, skeptical and resourceful, but a bit intrigued by the humans who poke their heads in on him to fill his food bowl. And now our dinner conversations have been centered around how that poor pup got their in the first place.

And how we might tame him.

That stray puppy is strange and intriguing and sad mixed in with a twinge of that feeling of childhood wonder and hope that we might save this thing…

Yes, out here, no matter how predictable we think our lives have become, whether or not we expect the daily visit from the cattle to graze and shit in the short grass outside our unfenced yard despite the fact that there are acres to shit upon, we seem to always be a little in awe…

About how the dogs always run away and how we never learn. By the sudden startle of a horse, a swarm of unwelcome wasps, and this pan that has been sitting on this hill for longer than I have been alive and I have no idea why.