Up here, I always feel the same.

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I was interviewed today on Trent Loos‘s radio program, “Loos Tales.” Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer with a passion for the rural lifestyle. “Loos Tales” is dedicated to exploring the interesting people and places of Rural America.
Listen to our discussion here:

http://www.ruralrouteradio.com/affiliates/thursruralroute.mp3

Now onward! I have to tell you how I feel about roundup season!

There are some tell-tale signs that fall is in the air. The evenings are getting cooler as the sun sets a bit more quickly and I am thinking about canning tomatoes so we can have a piece of summer all year round.

Yes, I’ll try my hand again at preserving our garden vegetables, but haven’t yet found a way to capture the smell of the season changing and the color of the green and gold leaves against an overcast morning sky. This season is so unpredictable, sneaking up on us slowly in the middle of a hot summer day and leaving with a strong gust of wind.

But this year it seems to be settling in despite the heat. The trees that were first to display their leaves this spring are the first to display their colors this September and I’m reminded of roundup season and spitting plums at my little sister on her pony, Jerry, as we rode to the reservation to gather cattle.

Fall roundup has always been one of my favorite events of the season. My memories find me as a young girl bundled up in my wool cap and my dad’s old leather chaps braving the cool morning and a long ride through coulees, up hills, along fence lines and under a sky that warmed the earth a little more with each passing hour.

I would strip off my cap first, and then went my gloves and coat, piled on a rock or next to a fence post for easy retrieval when the work was done.

But moving cattle, even then, never felt like work to me. Perhaps because I was never the one responsible for anything but following directions and watching the gate–it was a task that provided me with the perfect amount of adventure, freedom and accountability.

It was during that long wait from when the crew located all the cattle in the pasture, grouped them together and moved them toward my post that I would make up the best songs, sing the loudest and find ticks for slingshots or the perfect feather for my hat.

Turns out today, as an adult woman, my role when working cattle with Pops and Husband hasn’t changed much. I am the peripheral watcher, the girl who makes sure the cattle don’t turn back or find their way into the brush or through the wrong gate.

I am given direction and then left to my own devices while the guys head for the hills and I wait to see if I will have to battle a horse who is whinnying and prancing and wishing he could go with them.

Sometimes I get lucky and he just stands still.

Sometimes I wait for what seems like hours for any sign of life coming from the trees–the best time still to make up a few melodies in my head and collect photo opportunities.

Because sometimes, most of the time, it’s just nice.

Nice and easy like it was on Monday morning when Pops showed up with our horses already caught and saddled and asked us to help him move the cows home from the west pasture.

Who could refuse that kind of valet service? So we pulled on our boots and obliged, sitting on the backs of our horses walking slowly, swatting the sticky flies with their tails and anticipating that the calm and sunny morning was sure to turn into a hot afternoon.

I could walk these trails on the back of a horse forever and not get tired of them. Because each month the pastures change–a new fence wire breaks, the creek floods and flows and dries up, the ground erodes and the cows cut new trails, reminding me that the landscape is a moving, breathing creature.

And I am the most alive when I’m out here. I think the guys are too, making conversation about the cattle industry as they make plans for the day. I follow behind like I always have and look around to notice the way the light bounces off of cowboy hats and trees slowly turning golden.

I wait for instruction and find my direction while Husband cuts a path through the trees to search for hidden cows and Pops lopes up to the hilltop to scan the countryside.

I move a small herd toward the gate and wake a bull from the tall grass at the edge of the pasture.

Pops comes up off the hill to join me, the cattle he’s found moving briskly in front of him toward the rest of the herd. We meet up and discuss where Husband might be and turn around to find him waiting at the gate with the rest of the cattle.

And that’s how it went on Monday, the three of us pushing the cows along, Pops at the back of the herd counting, taking note of brands and numbers,

Husband on the hillside making sure they turn the right way,

and me watching the brush.

We pushed the cattle slowly with the sun warming our backs and sweat beading on our foreheads as morning turned to a sweltering afternoon.

We headed toward home and talked about lunch and the fencing that needed to get done that day.

And cattle prices.

And the deer population.

And a pony for Little Man.

And the weather and the changing leaves and all of the things that need discussing when you’re on the back of a horse, on the edge of a season, on a piece of earth that’s constantly changing…

even though, year after year, up here…

I always feel the same.

A house becomes a home…

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

This weekend the house that arrived at the ranch in the middle of the coldest part of the winter, the house we’ve put a few tears and sweat droplets into in order to move in earlier this month, came to life.

Sure, the trim wasn’t up and the outlets weren’t covered, the staircase isn’t complete, the basement is full of dirt and I can’t use my stove, but who needs a stove really?

Or a basement?

All we needed was for the much-needed rain to hold off for a few hours so we so we could enjoy our beautiful front yard and celebrate husband’s 30th birthday with friends and family.

I have to tell you I was a little uncertain about the capabilities of hosting 20+ family and friends in an unfinished house we had barely unpacked in the middle of a wild place. I had visions of small children falling down unfinished stairs, guests twisting ankles on one of the thousand dirt clumps that have yet to be leveled and rain that would force us all to cram inside the dirt filled basement. But when I asked Husband what he wanted to do for his big 3-0 he said with confidence that he wanted to have a party.

At our house.

So I took one look around to gauge, on a scale from 1-10, just how far off we were from looking like a page out of “Better Homes and Gardens,” determined that we were about a 0, took a deep breath and made a few lists.

One for groceries.

One for booze.

And one for Husband that looked something like this:

“Happy Birthday my sweet and lovely man. Can you please accomplish the following before Friday:”

-Make a fire pit in the front yard
-Put up the backsplash
-Prune back some wild and dangerous trees in the yard so we don’t ruin anyone’s good hair day
-Put up a railing to the front door so your grandmother doesn’t plummet off the edge and to the ground 15 feet below her
– And while you’re at it, make sure the lock is on the door to the basement, because, if you remember correctly, there are no stairs on the other side.
– Write down instructions on how to cook a 50 pound brisket
– Put the doors on the closets
-Help me figure out why the new fridge smells like fish
-Call Pops so he can help you put up the giant chandelier that has been sitting in the middle of our living room for three days
-Try not to die on that ladder, I want you around past 30…
-Oh, and tell me what you want for your birthday…

Then I wrote my own list. It looked like this:

-Clean as much as humanly possible in the time that you have between now and the arrival of guests
-Channel your inner Lutheran Church Lady and learn to make some Jello Salad already
-Make sure Husband and Pops don’t die putting up the chandelier
-Buy plenty of booze

I put boxes next to each item and prepared to check them off.

I was feeling pretty good about getting after it all on Monday. And then it came and went. The same way Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday flew by and pretty soon it was Friday and all I had was a long list with no check boxes, $300 worth of booze, one giant chandelier sitting in a box in my living room and 20 or so people thinking their might be some noodle salad and a cake the next day.

But Husband didn’t seem worried. He thought it could all get done in a few short hours. First item on his list for party day? Put up the giant chandelier.

Fifteen scenarios of how Husband could potentially die, three mini-heart-attacks, one broken bulb and four hours later, the damn chandelier was in place.

One more hour and up went the railing while my salads chilled in the fridge.

Another thirty minutes and my Little Sister arrived with cake ingredients, I mixed us a bloody mary and Pops grabbed the chain saw to take care of some wild tree branches while the first guests arrived.

Turns out we didn’t get to the backsplash or the doors. We winged the brisket and held our breath when we reached into the fridge.

And nobody opened the basement door to plummet to their death.

In fact, nobody even got so much as a scrape in the chaos and beauty and wild space that is our unfinished backyard. Our guests arrived with proper foot wear, bearing desserts and dips and gifts and then took a seat in the shade or stood around with a nice cold drink on the hot first day in September to celebrate a man who built this little unfinished dream.

And I was overwhelmed. Not with what there was to do, not with the menu or the heat, but with the sudden realization that this is our home.

Forever.

And these are our neighbors and our family. And their kids are marching toward the big hill to throw sticks in the dam. My nieces are making up names for their favorite spots and pulling at my hand to take them on an adventure hike.

My Pops and his band are singing around our campfire.

My friends’ laughter seems to be lighting up the moon and my husband is dancing with his mother.

In his yard outside a house he built on a place we fall in love with over and over again every day.

See, it had been years since we had played host to that many friends and neighbors. Living in tiny apartments, in houses in renovation and in the small ranch house for the last two years simply did not allow us the space or resources to embrace and welcome our neighborhood into our home all at once.

But on Saturday we celebrated a big birthday and a giant step in our lives as a couple who has made a commitment to a place, to a neighborhood and to ourselves to work and live and love in this spot, and to keep our doors open to anyone who wants to walk through them, to sit down, have a cocktail or a cup of coffee and enjoy the view and the company.

Outside my kitchen window…

As I washed the dishes and prepared french toast in my kitchen on Sunday morning for the family and friends who spent the night, I smiled while I poured another cup of coffee and listened to the recap of the conversations from the night before.

They weren’t about the outlet covers, the dirt clumps in the yard or the giant chandelier.

They were about the people who came and ate and hugged and talked and laughed and sang and spilled. The stories were about the kids who climbed in the hills, rode our horses and wished my husband a Happy Birthday.

And I couldn’t help but think that our new house, unfinished as it is, has never felt so complete and it has never felt more like a home.

Happy Birthday Husband. Thanks for helping me make this dream come true.

Summer: A photo recap.

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

September is creeping in on us as summer draws to a close.

Summer.

It’s my favorite season, but this year it has definitely been a challenging one. So I’m sad to see it go. I haven’t enjoyed it the way I should have. I haven’t ridden enough horses, I haven’t taken enough walks. I haven’t basked long enough in the sun or written enough songs about the way the light floods through these windows in the morning.

So tonight I want to celebrate the moments of summer I was able to catch. We may not have had the chance to spend the time together, but the time she gave me was breathtaking and heartbreaking and awe-inspiring and peaceful and colorful and all the things summer is in my heart.

March 10. First ride of the new spring season.

March 21, my first crocus siting of the season…

April 17: My world starts to blossom

April 22: A spring joy ride…

with my favorite cowboy

April 25: Celebrating the green grass.

May 1: And the sky is a perfect blend of blue and white and fuzzy horse face.

: May 6: Paddlefishing season!

May 10: The wildflowers bloom.

May 14: And the ranch comes to life.

June 2: The river calls again and it’s my turn to catch something.

June 5: The babies arrive!

June 7: The rain soaked the leaves…

and the badlands…

and the horses…

and the pug.

: June 12: A country church along a back road…

June 17: And then there was the back road itself…

July 2: Summer settles in and we pick our favorite horses

July 7: We turn our faces up toward the hot sun.

: July 10: We welcome the friendly bugs and watch our garden grow

July 21: The hot sun sets on us.

July 21: Checking the cows.

August 7: We’re home!

August 16: Bullberries in the morning.

August 18: Husband got himself another big catch!

August 26: And then there’s the dogs again…

Ah, summer, if I could put you in a jar beside my bed you know I would.

Enjoy the dog days everyone!

If you need me, I’ll be out catching salamanders…

My weird and mysterious backyard…

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

When you live out here it is easy to see the big picture. All you have to do is climb to the nearest hilltop and take in the view.

From way up there you will see the Blue Buttes to the north, the creek bed lined with oak trees below, the rolling grasses and the stock dams under the big blue sky.

I like the view from up there, it puts me in perspective. It takes my breath away when I need something breathtaking and gives me a second wind when I am running low.

But for as much as we can all appreciate a great view from above it all, for me there has always been something magical about life on the ground level of the world.

I’ve written about it before, about taking a step off of the road to cut through the trees. I’ve written about looking down, about honing in on the soft petals of a flower or the way the dry grass glints in the sunlight.

All of those small things that live down there among the pebbles and budding seeds remind me that there is a world still unexplored and mysterious.

And kinda weird and disgusting.

I’ll tell you, out here, Husband and I are easily distracted by these sort of things. We spent this weekend cleaning up the construction debris that had accumulated in the yard of our new house. It wasn’t the most thrilling of tasks, throwing weathered pieces of broken siding, particle board and plastic warp into the back of the pickup only to unload it into the dump site and come back for another load, but Husband kept it interesting by hollaring at me to come and look at every creepy, crawly thing he found under the wood pile. He would take my guesses on what we would find as he flipped over big, heavy boards or moved sheeting.

I always guessed worms.

And hoped for something better.

It was like a treasure hunt, especially when we would discover a frog or a salamander.

Not so especially when we tallied up Husband’s spider count.

Husband hates spiders.

But the two of us share an affinity for reptiles and amphibians, both known to have kept lizards, snakes and frogs as pets in our lifetime. So when he yelled out “Jess! Found another salamander over here!” he wasn’t surprised that I was quick to throw down the current piece of junk I was hauling and drop to my knees to inspect the creature.

And then take some pictures.

I can’t imagine what Pops thought when he came into the yard to find me in the middle of our trash piling project pointing my camera into a dirt clump.

He did shake his head a little when I continued to interrupt our conversation with my obnoxious command at the pug to leave the salamanders alone.

My dad was so distracted by my break-up tactic that the man actually relocated the salamander to a safer spot to get me to shut up.

Pops is used to this sort of thing.

Anyway, this is the part where I ponder my fascination with the creatures that lurk and buzz and squirm below our feet. This is the part where I wonder why I’m so enamored with the tiny bodies and skeletal structure of the creatures who share my backyard.

But I don’t have much to say about it except that I know why I look down.

Because when I think all has been discovered, that there is no more adventure in the world, I just have to remind myself to look a little closer, to discover the barn spider and marvel at her web.

When I notice the perfect pattern on the salamander’s slimy back and the way the tiny frog blends in perfectly with the mud I am reminded that there’s always more ways to be in awe.

If I just remember to notice the small things.

Morning

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The morning is quickly becoming one of my favorite times of the day now that we’ve moved into the new place. I suspected this would be the case after we planned a house with big windows facing toward the hill where the sun makes her grand entrance each morning. I get out of bed, turn on the coffee pot and stand with my nose pressed to the sliding glass door and take a look at how the day might turn out.

It’s different every morning, sometimes a little dreary, sometimes crisp and calm, sometimes the sky spits out rain and sometimes the sun comes up with a promise of a beautiful day.

I’m blessed to be able to watch it from a few different angles behind my coffee cup. And I’m even more blessed to be able to pull on my jeans and shoes and step out in it if I so choose.

This morning I chose to pay it a visit. Lately I haven’t had time to be anything but be a spectator as the grass grew and dried up, the birds took their morning bath in the dam and the clouds rolled over this house. But I had a moment this morning where I felt there was nothing more important than to be a part of the world outside my window and beyond the road to town.

So I grabbed my camera, my coffee cup and the dogs and took a stroll toward the dam. The lab was thrilled at the chance for a quick dip in the water,

the pug kept busy chasing field mice through the tall grass…

and I worked hard to capture the way the light filtered through the thin skin of the bull berries…

the way it kissed the tips of the wildflowers at the end of their season…

how it made the tall grass glisten

and my world look fresh before the heat of the day.

I am in love with that brief moment where the sun makes my shadow long and tall when I stand with my back toward the light.

Because the wind will blow today. The dust from the trucks will fly.

It might even rain.

But I had my morning.

I will have my evening.

And I’m at peace knowing they will come around again and again outside my windows.

Not because the land is mine…

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

This morning a documentary film maker came to the ranch to visit with Pops and I about what makes our community special and to try to get to the root of why the people who chose to stay or come home to farms, ranches and small towns in Western North Dakota are so passionate about this lifestyle.

He asked us what it is about the landscape that inspires us.

He contemplated what it’s like to watch a community you know so well boom and bust and boom and bend and mold and grow in front of our eyes.

He wanted to know about our roots.

And in between the lighting checks, the questions about the economy, the oil boom and what it was like to be a child surrounded by all this wild space with an unspoken expectation to get gone someday, he wondered what it was that brought us back…

I have many answers to this question:

The promise of a sunrise over a landscape that grew me.

The need for the wind in my hair.

The hope that my children might be born to dig in this dirt and smell the first rain of the season.

The fact that I was planted here

That I belong nowhere else…

How do you say these things? How do you explain reasons to a stranger that you have not understood well enough to explain to yourself?

I thought about the question and kept quite as my father looked into the camera and told this story.

About his mother’s father.

His grandfather, Severin, tall and lean from the fjords of Norway.

A homesteader.

A farmer.

A husband and soft-spoken, good-natured, father of twelve who made a living with his family plowing fields and raising a few farm animals for milk and meat.

In those days when farmers like my great-grandfather were sectioning off land and turning up dirt in the more fertile landscape north of the Little Missouri River, there were major cattle operations still present that would use those acres to drive a herd of hundreds across country to the big operations in the badlands to the south.

And so the story goes, and it isn’t a long one, that Severin woke one morning to find his cattle missing. My father is quick to point out here that the quantity of cattle raised by Severin’s large family likely consisted of only five to seven milk cows—not a large herd worthy of the drama of a Western novel and apparently not significant enough for the cowboys to take notice or any action to sort them off from the herd.

But no matter the numbers, they were Severin’s cattle and he was determined to retrieve what had mistakenly and nonchalantly been taken from him.

So the tall and soft-spoken Norwegian homesteader from the clay-packed fields of western North Dakota (the man who rode his bicycle 93 miles over North Dakota prairie from the train station to his homestead) took off that day, with a big stick in his hand, to begin the 7-mile walk over rugged buttes, under the hot sun (or maybe the relentless wind, to this story there is no season) to find his cattle, to sort them off from the herd that tried to own them, to turn them around and bring them home.

7 miles.

To the land he laid claim to.

The home where his son raised his family.

Where his grandson has raised his.

Where his great-grandchildren are likely to return.

My father laughed as he completed painting an image of a man from another time.

A time when you gave everything inside of you not only to belong somewhere, but to survive there.

Severin’s blood pumped through the veins of my grandmother just as it moves with every heartbeat inside the body of the man who raised me.

Inside my body.

The one I can’t seem to move off of this place, not because the land is mine…

but because it is me.

Severin’s Family.
My grandmother is the young girl in the middle with the bow.

The prairie’s gift…

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The sunsets on this prairie are nothing short of a gift.

After a long day working under the hot summer sun, or inside the walls of buildings that make us feel small, we understand that if we look up towards the heavens to catch the sun sneaking away, we may be rewarded with a splash of spectacular color.

I’ve seen sunsets in other parts of the world–across the vast ocean, peeking over the mountaintops and at the edge of rolling corn fields, but there is something about the way the sun says goodbye along the outskirts of my own world, against the familiar buttes and grain bins and horses on the horizon that puts me at ease and thrills me at the same time.

I have theories about things like hail storms and tornadoes and blinding blizzards, that they’re a way of slowing us down, reminding us to surrender to an earth that spins no matter what our plans are for crops or hair-dos or making it our Christmas party on time.

The storms are unpredictable, but the sun is always there.

And it will always set and rise again.

And sometimes as we put the burgers on the grill, close the gates for the cattle or put the lawn mower in the shed we will find ourselves bathed in yellow, gold, purple, orange, pink and blue and hues we cannot find in our crayon box. We will look above the oak groves or down to the end of the pink road and we will find that sun playing and bouncing against the clouds that roll over the prairie and buttes that we know so well.

I tilt my head up and run to find the nearest hill so that I may watch how this landscape looks under the different shades of light.

Under these prairie sunsets I am a spectator on the familiar ground of home.

A tourist with my mouth agape in wonder.

And thankful for a world that’s round and a sky so vast and forgiving.

Irreplaceable Things…

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Sometimes in the middle of an ordinarily beautiful summer night, below a nearly full moon and among crickets singing their song into the darkness the world takes a moment to remind you that you are not in control.

We were reminded of this in the early morning hours of an ordinary Tuesday as we stood on the edge of the barnyard and watched our neighbors work to control the flames that were threatening to destroy a house that has been a fixture of memories on this landscape for well over 50 years.

As the smoke rolled from the walls and out the windows I kneeled among the things I was able to grab while we still had time–my guitar, my books of writing, my camera and photographs chronicling years of blessed living, pieces of me I could not bear to see dissolve in the heat of a disaster we were powerless to stop–and I knew this was that last night I would spend under that roof.

We weren’t ready to let go. We had plans for this house, plans that I have shared here to ensure many more years of popsicles on the front porch, canning wild berries in the tiny kitchen, waking to the sound of horses grazing in the pasture below us, windows open to the prairie breeze and watching the sunrise from the window above the kitchen sink.

But we’ve been reminded, once again, that nothing’s forever. That house where my father was raised, where my grandmother lived and died, where I put on Christmas performances with my cousins, fell in love, grew up and sighed a breath of relief when my new husband carried me over its threshold, held us close and reminded me that I can come home again.

That no matter how lost I might be, I can be found, out here among the wild grasses, red barn and sweet smell of horse hair.

And so I have been found. And thanks to the quick response of the rural volunteer fire department–our neighbors, local bankers, truck drivers, farmers and ranchers that transformed into heroes in the night–we did not have to watch that house burn to the ground. We were able to walk through its doors once again and bury our noses in the smoke-laced fabric of our world and make decisions on what to keep– our favorite sweater, our dining room table, a forgotten photograph–and most importantly, what to let go.

We are thankful for that.

And thankful for our community of friends and family who helped us sort through the rubble, made us dinner, poured us a strong drink, encouraged us to salvage the irreplaceable things (like the rocking horse that has been in our family for as long as that house has stood ) and told us everything was going to be alright…told us they’d be right over to help with paint the new house, put in the floors and get us ready to move in.

We are blessed. Unbelievably blessed.

So today I am thankful to kick through the rubble, to sort my clothes on the lawn, to make plans with my husband, take a trip to the lumberyard with my pops, curl up on my momma’s couch rest easy knowing that we can never lose everything.

Because we are worry and love, community and friends, sentiment and replaceable things.

We are us, we are exhausted and summer’s only so long.

We have a life to build out here.

We’re moving on.

I will leave the light on
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
August 17, 2011

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

it means more to me than I can describe here.

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

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

No matter how far you find yourself.

No matter the distance between you and these buttes.

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

No matter.

Don’t worry.

This is home…

And I will leave the light on.

Orange popsicles and the smell of the heat…

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

Close all the windows, lock the doors, keep your babies inside…or at least find a good sprinkler.

It’s gonna be a scorcher today.

Yup, it can do that here… 100 + degrees!

When the sun in shining so bright, turning that scoria road from mud to brick, it’s hard to believe that we have ever known what 30 below zero feels like. Funny how we so easily forget that just a few short months ago driving down the highway with our windows open had the potential to cause severe frost bite.

Oh, North Dakota provides us with so many worlds–one day a barren wasteland of frozen arctic tundra,

another a hot and humid rain forest complete with cattle swishing their tails at the flies and dogs digging holes under the shed to escape from the sky.

I have to tell you that every now and then while I’m milling around this old house, putting away the dishes, fixing my hair in the mirror or making the bed, a familiar scent fills my nostrils and I am transplanted briefly back to the time where I wore a denim fanny pack and ate orange popsicles on my grandmother’s front stoop.

It happens sometimes when I come up from the basement, that musty scent taking me back to cousin sleepovers and the pajamas our grandmother made for us.

When Wheel of Fortune is on the television and husband is frying something on the stove in the kitchen, I close my eyes, smell the grease, hear the crackle of the hot pan, listen to the applause of the game show and I am eight-years-old again and over for supper at grandma’s.

And when it gets hot like this, the windows open and the warm breeze bouncing in through the entryway, along the kitchen counters, twirling the living room curtains and escaping through the bedroom window I am the girl with the fluffy ponytail, jean-shorts and the idea to cool off.

My skin feels warm and sticky and I inhale that scent–a combination of dew and sweet clover with a hint of cow manure and horse hair.

There’s nowhere else on earth that smells this way. There is no place in the world where summer is so certain, true and familiar to me.

I get the urge to put on my swimming suit (the pink one with black polka dots) and drink from the hose and fill up the blue plastic pool my grandmother used to set alongside of the house. I want to put my feet in and gasp at the chill, hold my breath while I lower my body into the crisp, freezing water and lay down in it, letting the coolness take my breath away.