Sunday Column: A Very Ranchy Easter

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

And now for a recap of Easter/Edie’s Baptism weekend where everything went as planned, including the part where our deep freeze went out on Saturday night with a house full of company, forcing my husband, dad and father-in-law to unload a chest freezer full of hamburger, frozen pizzas and elk meat into every other available frozen space on the ranch at 11 pm…

Because it’s not a holiday around here until we experience a few mild crises.

Did I ever tell you about the time my mom lit a kitchen towel on fire while hosting my friends for a Junior prom supper?

No? Well, we’ll talk about that another time…

Coming Home: Easter weekend at the ranch a thing of beauty, in spite of the wrinkles
by Jessie Veeder
4-3-16
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

We had a beautiful Easter weekend at the ranch. The family on both sides gathered to celebrate baby Edie’s baptism. We all dressed in our Sunday best and even got out the door early enough to get the church pews of our choice.

And despite my worries, the baby’s chubby arms fit into her 100-year-old heirloom baptism gown and she only sorta cried in church, but only after the pastor tried to give her back to me, which really looked good in front of Jesus and the congregation. That’s why we rehearsed it.

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I’m feeling so good about it all I decided to leave out the part where I nearly divorced my husband in front of that same Jesus and congregation when, during the church welcome, the baby started squirming and he informed me that he remembered to pack the milk, but failed to pack the bottle.

Apparently I declared, “That bottle was going to get us through this!” loudly and angrily enough that my sister-in-law two pews behind us started to worry for our family status. But all I could think of at the time was the dress I flung on in my frenzied attempt to get out the door in time wasn’t made for a woman with my, er, baby-feeding lifestyle. Which meant, during communion, you could find me sitting on a folding chair in the bathroom with that dress hiked up to my neck feeding my squirmy baby, desperately trying not to soil or rip that heirloom gown. Because we still needed to get pictures.

Back at the ranch, we all gathered together, looking forward to cake and homemade kuchen, ham, beans and two types of cheesy potatoes. The weather was beautiful, we were going to dye eggs and snuggle the baby.

But first, the annual Easter egg hunt.

Crap. In my distracted attempt to make the house presentable by eradicating the dust bunnies and dead spring flies on the windowsills, I forgot about the Easter egg hunt.

Which means I didn’t notice that the Christmas tree was still sitting on the deck, one lonesome red bulb left dangling from a bottom branch. We went out to take a family photo and my husband, suddenly inspired to do some spring cleaning, removed it from the stand and flung it off the deck and onto the lawn where piles of horse poop and a fine assortment of sticks and bones that the dogs have been collecting all winter waited.

My yard, still a nice shade of early spring brown, looked like the before photo from one of those yard renovation shows on HGTV, only worse because I doubt anyone would dare send in a photo of a pink Easter egg hiding underneath an old deer leg the dogs drug up from the coulee.

And only in my world, on this ranch, would my brother-in-law/Easter Bunny find it hilarious to hide an egg in the middle of one of those piles of road apples.

And only in my family would the kids be completely unfazed by picking up their plastic, candy-filled egg from a pile of poop.

And only in my column will you read about so much poop.

Needless to say I was horrified, but no one was surprised. I might have forgotten to landscape for the big day (and by landscaping I mean throwing all those bones, sticks and shovels full of poop over the fence and into the trees where they belong), but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. In two hours, those dogs would have located their loot and brought it all home again.

There are just some things out here that aren’t worth trying to control.

Because in the mess there are moments. Moments after the perfect ham is carved, the cake cut, the dishes piled up and our bellies filled where the chaos sounds like laughter, feels like a baby strapped to the carrier on my chest and looks like fun and freedom and love attached to aunts and uncles, grammas and grampas on the end of kites running up the road trying to catch the wind.

And when you’re looking at something like that, the wrinkles, the forgotten things, the mud and the road apples just blend right in to create a beautiful weekend at the ranch.

Screen Shot 2016-04-04 at 9.40.53 PM Screen Shot 2016-04-04 at 9.41.04 PM Screen Shot 2016-04-04 at 9.42.01 PM *Some photos stolen from Little Sister’s camera 🙂

Sunday Column: The boy on the hill

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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Longtime blog readers might remember this story. I stumbled across it in the archives last week while I was revisiting some of my writing as I contemplate putting together a book.

Yes. A book. Because I’m not sleeping anyway, so I might as well start another project.

Anyway, in those archives there’s lots about the weather and family and what the landscape looks like as it goes on changing every day.

And then there are little snippets of conversations, glimpses into our lives, past and present. These are my favorites.

Sunday Column: Family lore lingers around Sunday dinner table
by Jessie Veeder
3-20-16
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

Most Sundays we get together with Mom and Dad for dinner. After a week of work and crazy schedules, one of us decides that someone should cook a decent meal, pour some wine and make us all sit down.

There’s something special about being in a room with people whom you know the best in the world and still being able to learn something about them. After talking about work and weather, usually we pick out the good memories to tell and retell.

Recently, Dad shared a story about his childhood that I’m sure I’ve heard dozens of times before. But it doesn’t matter.

I want to exist in this 10-minute vignette of my father that somehow sums up everything he became here on this landscape.

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I love the way he tells it, sitting at the end of the table, plate pushed forward, arms folded, coffee brewing for dessert. He looks to the ceiling as if he might catch a glimpse of that little boy, 4 years old with curly black hair riding bareback on a paint pony alongside his father. He throws his head back, squeezes his eyes shut and laughs.

It’s fall or summer, he can’t remember, but I imagine the leaves were just starting to turn as the pair trotted out of the barnyard, the little boy on his father’s trail moving east toward the reservation where the cattle graze in the summer.

He’s not sure why his father took him along for an almost 7-mile one-way cross-country trip. He thinks now that it might have been a little extreme, but ask him then and it was all he wanted to do. Leave him behind? He would have tried to follow.

The pastures out east, even today, are some of the most isolated and untouched places out here. The rolling buttes rise and fall for miles between fences into creek bottoms with black mud and cattails. The oak groves, bordered by thorny bull berry brush and thistle, begin to blend into one another and look the same.

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So there he was, a little boy clinging tight to that pony as it jumped over the creek and raced up side hills to keep up. And it was at the top of one of those rocky hills that he was told to stay and wait.

“Don’t move,” his father said as he made plans to check the tricky creek bottoms for cattle. “I’ll come back for you.”

So my father waited on his pony, wind flopping his hat and moving fluffy clouds over the buttes.

Dad searches for more recollection in his coffee cup and then rests his chin on his fist. He remembers he didn’t move, he just scanned the hills and squinted into the oak trees. And while he was peering into that horizon, holding the reins of his pony, someone did come over that hill. But it wasn’t his father. It was a girl with long black hair and legs dangling on each side of her bare-backed horse.

“Can you imagine what she thought?” my father chuckles at the memory of this girl, who he recalls was a teenager, but was probably only about 10 or 11 years old.

She asked him if he was OK and if he was lost. He told her that he wasn’t supposed to leave this spot. That his dad was coming back for him.

So she stayed with that little boy with curly hair on that hilltop, likely joining him in holding her breath and scanning the horizon for any sign of a cowboy hat.

He doesn’t remember how long she sat with him. When you’re 4 years old, 10 minutes can seem like hours.

But it doesn’t matter. She stayed until that little boy had an escort through the valleys and over the creeks, back west to the barnyard and to his mother waiting with canned meat, biscuits and a report of the day’s events.

So he told his mother his adventure, and for years to come this would be one of their family’s stories shared over and over again at Sunday meals, about a little boy who found a girlfriend out east on the hilltop.

And as my father protested, they would throw back their heads, close their eyes and laugh.

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A walk with a baby, ranch style.

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So we’re not really into sleeping at night these days, but the nice weather lately has gotten us really into walking, especially since Edie is big enough now to face out and see the world.

A world that looks like this.

Brown and muddy and full of puppy slobber.

And, it turns out, cactus. Of course cactus. Because here in Western North Dakota if it isn’t the cold it’s the mosquitos. And if it isn’t the snow it’s the damn cactus.

As I type this I have a few little wounds on my hands as a reminder. Because as peaceful and angelic as this little scene might look from the still capture of the camera, it turns out taking a walk across the pasture with three dogs, two puppies and a baby strapped to you looks a little like, well…

Finish eating lunch. Finish feeding the baby lunch. Look outside and notice the blue sky. Check the temperature gauge to make sure the blue sky isn’t deceiving. Decide that 50+ degrees calls for a walk. Decide to take a walk. Change the baby’s diaper and put on her leggings and socks under her footie onsie. Add a fleece jacket on top of that. And a hat. Tell her not to cry about the hat. Tell her this is going to be fun. Go find your hat. And sunglasses. And sweatshirt. Make sure your shoes are by the door. Detangle the baby carrier. Adjust the straps the way you’ve practiced and latch them together the wrong way first, of course, and then the right way. Cuss a little and wonder how you can make this so complicated. Go get the baby. Make sure the pacifier is clipped to her fleece. Put wiggly baby and dangly pacifier in carrier. Adjust those straps so you’re both nice and snug and cozy. Walk toward the door and realize you forgot to put your shoes on first. Say shit. Grunt and groan and remember what it was like being pregnant as you try to squeeze on your shoes without fully bending over or seeing what you’re doing. Sweat. Get shoes on finally. Kinda. Good enough.

Open door and go outside. Yell for the dogs who come barreling at your legs. Try not to step on the little ones who are rolling and frolicking around your sorta-half-tied shoes. Decide to take the trail to the east pasture. Maneuver your body and the baby strapped to it under the fence. Because around here you have to cross fences. Wonder if that’s in a baby book anywhere. “How to cross fences carrying a baby. Find the trail with the least cockleburs. Stop to remove cockleburs from your shoe laces. Try not to step on the pups as the gray one grabs the brown one’s tail.

Laugh. Try to take a picture. Fail at the picture. Wish you had your big camera. Or another set of arms.

Accidentally step in a mud puddle while laughing at the puppies. Notice Gus is out of site. Call for Gus. Notice the baby’s sleeping and the sun is in her eyes. Use one hand to hold her head and the other to shield her face.

Keep walking. Sweat. Sweat. Sweat.

Make it to the gate and decide to go off trail to stay out of the wind. Immediately regret it as you lead the puppies through a patch of cactus. Hear the gray one cry. Bend down. Grunt and attempt to fling the cactus from his wiggly paw with one hand while holding the sleeping baby’s head with the other.

Wonder if you strapped her in the baby carrier and sat with her in bed if she would sleep through the night.

Figure it would be likely, but also likely cause neck issues.

Cuss because now the cactus is stuck to your hand.

Grunt as you get back up. Keep walking. Pet momma dog. Find a trail. Avoid mud. Call for Gus because he’s chasing a rabbit in the trees.

Pet big brown dog. Notice little brown pup is limping. Say shit. Lean over to try to grab her wiggly leg with one hand while holding the sleeping baby’s head with the other. Get another cactus stuck to your hand.

Decide you’re glad your almost back to the house.

Step in horse poop. Go through the gate. Try to take the least muddy path. Get a lot of mud on your sorta tied shoes.

Pick up some more cockleburs and start planning the spring bur eradication process.

Sweat.

Make it to the driveway. Wonder if you can put the baby down and she’ll stay sleeping. Think it’s highly unlikely. Try to get in the garage without a puppy following you. Get one puppy out of the door as the other one runs in. Do that about three times and notice that momma dog got in the garage someone. Get her out.

Open the door to the house.

Go inside.

Sweat while you try to quietly maneuver the sleeping babe out of the carrier and into her swing without waking her up. Curse the sound of velcro and the burs still on the back of your pants.

Set the baby in the swing. Notice her eyes are still closed. Pat yourself on the back. Head to the bathroom because you had to pee that whole time.

Come back to the living room to find the baby smiling, eyes wide open just hanging in her swing.

Awake.

Because we don’t sleep much around here.

Tutus, cousins and pipe cleaner glasses…

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Remember my three blonde nieces?

Well, it turns out we’re pretty popular with them these days, you know because we managed to produce the girl cousin they hoped and shopped for.

And it turns out, that little girl cousin sorta looks like them, especially when you add the pink tutu and headband.

Anyway, they came for an impromptu visit last weekend and it was just as much the explosion of fun as they always bring, only we got to add an infant and a new puppy to the mix, so yeah, this is the place to be man…

The first thing on their agenda was picking out Edie’s outfit,

then on to pancakes,

then it was time to play with the puppy

and then, well, Edie needed to be dressed again, because the last outfit wasn’t pink or frilly enough apparently…

And then the highlight of my weekend, when The Middle Niece whipped up a pair of pipe cleaner glasses, you know, so Edie fits in with her semi-blind cousins.

Oh. My. Gawd. I can’t stop laughing.

Seriously. I think I peed a little (and not because I recently gave birth).

No, there’s no shortage of cute and chaos around these parts.

Having family around at the ranch with this new little human is a big blur of love and kisses and weekend afternoons spent cuddling and fussing over her. Add to that the a couple puppies and, well, this is life these days…

I still don’t know exactly how I’m going to handle a baby and a baby puppy, but we’re full-on bringing Dolly over to the house this weekend after I get back from a road trip with Mom, Little Sister and Edie to the big town. I’m starting to get back into playing some music now and will be on the North Dakota Today show on Friday morning, so at night I’ve been playing the guitar and practicing a bit while Edie kicks her legs and flings her arms and coos and works out some good gas bubbles for me.

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So while life is completely different it is also so much the same. Three months into parenthood and we’re not sure what we did before her, except it’s been established that road trips were a little easier.

Probably everything was easier, but who’s to say really when it doesn’t really matter.

If I know anything it’s that the best part of life happens in moments that look a lot like chaos.

And now, in case you didn’t laugh hard enough the first time…

Puppy Pile

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

This little fella went to his new home today.

He was so chill about it when I handed him over, like he knew it was all going to be alright.

Like, he knew he wouldn’t have to share his food bowl with his hooligan brothers and sisters anymore.

Out of the eleven pups, we’re down to seven left. Here’s a picture before they started going…notice Edie’s pup is the only one not sleeping.

I think she likes naps about as much as her little girl.

Or maybe we have a pattern of choosing the wild ones.

Either way, a pile of puppies is about as adorable as it gets.

I’ve been spending this week making arrangements to get these pups to their homes. They will be spread out a bit, some to neighbors and some across the state, but all have places at good homes.

And it sounds like most of them will have little kids to play with, which is important I think if you’re a puppy, to have someone who can match your energy level.

We need about twelve little boys to match Gus’s. So he should be happy when little Dolly is let loose to play. Hopefully the wear each other out.

Because it’s a rare occurrence to catch these squirmers sleeping, but I happened upon them after Husband paid them a good amount of attention, proving to me that they do indeed sit still.

I know I can’t keep them all, but I feel like a mom whose babies are going off to college, annoying them with photos and snuggles, telling them to be good and mind their manners.

Clearly it’s working.

I don’t know when we’ll have pups on this place again, but it sure has been fun. Mostly for me because I haven’t had to be the one to build the pen or scoop the poop, because, you know, I have the baby. But I think the boys have loved it too, just maybe not every smelly, squeaky second.

But probably most of the seconds, because, I mean, look at that face…nothing that smelly could come out of that could it?

Ah, I’m going to miss our puppy pile,

but we’ll be left with a couple cute ones to fill the void…and keep our hands full of babies at the ranch.

Next up, baby calves!

Sunday Column: What dreams really look like

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

We branded our new cattle this weekend with the family’s brand.

It was a momentous occasion for my husband and I, owning a portion of this small herd of bred cattle fulfilled a dream for us.

My instinct and general nature made me want to be in the middle of it all, but I have a baby to feed.

So we rolled up to the action, met up with gramma and took some notes.

I gotta keep track of these ladies. Need to know who’s who and what’s what.

And it was a great afternoon really. Watching the boys in the family work together, sitting and chatting in the pickup with my mom holding my baby.

Bossing my little sister around.

It was everything we dreamed it would be really.

Funny how some dreams look like mud and slush and smell like burnt hair and feel like achy muscles and long days and work and work and work…

Coming Home: The most fulfilling dreams require work and worry
by Jessie Veeder
2-7-16
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

Let’s talk about dreams. Not the kind you find yourself lost in while you sleep, but the kind that you aspire to achieve. The kind that may have ignited in you when you were just a kid watching the world play out before you and discovering that perhaps there was a place for you in it. A place where you might exceed expectations by developing an idea or exercising a talent or just putting yourself in the right place so that you might live a life completely true to yourself.

Some people’s dreams are big, the kind that involve fame or fortune, a corner office in a high rise, vacations on a yacht, houses scattered across the world.

Other dreams are personal and close to the chest, like becoming a mother or honing a talent so that you might be recognized as being the best someday — the best football player, the best photographer, the best-selling author.

I’d guess most of us have a mix of those lofty dreams and the ones that feel more attainable, so that if that football scholarship doesn’t come through, you have other things to live for.

I think that’s what separates us from the animals, the ability to be more than a living, breathing, eating, sleeping and reproducing human. The ability to maneuver our fate a bit.

When my husband was a kid, he used to dream about being a mountain man. He wanted to ride out into the woods somewhere and live off of the land, trapping and hunting and fishing and growing a long, impressive beard far away from civilization and anyone wielding a razor telling him what to do.

I imagine in another time, when mountain men were more of a thing, he would have made a good one, considering his appetite for wild game, his frugal instincts and his overall scrappiness.

I had similar aspirations, only mine looked a little more like a Disney movie, where I would train a wild wolf pup to be my companion and we would spend our days frolicking in waterfalls and making wreaths out of wildflowers.

Anyway, perhaps that’s why we worked out in the long run, my husband and I. If we can’t agree on paint colors or carpet swatches, at least we can agree that that paint color and carpet swatch should go in a house out on the ranch. And I’ve learned that sometimes, deciding where you want to be together is a good solid foundation for a marriage, literally and figuratively.

Because living out here, raising a family where I grew up, is one of those close-to-the-chest dreams.

Last weekend my husband pulled up to the barn with a trailer full of cattle, the start of our own little herd we’ve been dreaming about since we unloaded our hand-me-down furniture in this familiar place.

I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him walk through the small herd with my dad, counting and making plans for calving, corrals, fencing and water.

And it occurred to me then that a dream was coming true, in the shape of thousands of pounds of flesh and bone and a whole pile of work and commitment, sacrifice and responsibility that we both could not wait to tackle.

That’s the thing about dreams that they don’t tell you when they tell you that you can be anything. They don’t tell you that most dreams worth anything look more like work and worry and muscle put in than anything shiny that comes as a result.

And they don’t tell you that perhaps the work is the best part anyway.

That the part where you become something is much sweeter than the part where you get something.

I’m not sure if I’ve always known this. Maybe I have. But somewhere among the thankless task of new motherhood and the moment those cattle set hoof on our place, I was reminded that some dreams are less glamorous than they are fulfilling.

And maybe that’s the point of all that dreaming anyway.

It’s Friday. Here are some puppy pictures.

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It’s Friday. To get you through, here’s a shot of the puppies in their box five seconds before they all dispersed into a wiggly, frantic swarm of fluff anticipating their supper.

They’re getting so big, and there are so many of them that we moved them into the big barn last weekend, which meant we put them all in a box for their first little road trip.

A pile of puppies in a box is probably the most adorable thing in the world.

It’s a good thing these pups are at mom and dad’s or Edie and I wouldn’t get anything done all day except cuddling.

I mean, that’s sorta all I do at home these days anyway…

But ugh. The fluff.

In a few weeks all of these babies will go to their forever homes and Dolly and Pops’ pup will stay here with us.

The timing of having a newborn and a newborn puppy sounds just about right for keeping the crazy and chaos at the normal level around here. I’d hate to be bored you know.

Here’s the best and most recent photo (out of dozens) of the two of them. The level of wiggle and squeaks are uncountable. Maybe I should try video next time to get the full effect.

And the way these two girls are growing, you can bet the both of them are eating well.

No, the ranch isn’t as quiet as it has been in past winters. To add to the excitement and work load, last weekend Pops and Husband went to pick up a small herd of cattle to add to the place.

My husband and I have dreamed of owning our own cattle someday and last weekend that dream came true.

Funny how some dreams come on four legs, bearing promises of a whole lotta blood, sweat and tears.

These cows will have their babies in early spring when the weather is a bit warmer. Until then we’ll feed them up and watch them close and make plans for the next season, which will look like a whole lot of fence fixing and corral maneuvering and some good excuses to get on a horse and take a ride.

I can’t wait.

And to gear me up for the season change, it looks like this weekend the weather’s going to be nice and warm, a nice break in the winter to remind us that the cold isn’t forever.

Not that I’ve minded the weather so much this winter, you know, being my job title has been changed to Jessie Veeder, writer/singer/mother/rancher/professional snuggler…

and baby feeder and putter-to-sleeper….

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Happy weekend everyone. We only watch the Super Bowl for the snacks, but we hope your team wins!

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Puppy Boom

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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Well, it seems to be a baby boom at the Veeder Ranch, and I tell you, I can’t get enough.

On December 29th, just in time for the weather to get good and cold, dad’s dog Juno gave birth to a big ‘ol batch of puppies.

I got a text from dad early that morning telling me that there were “4 pups so far.” Later that morning, when mom stopped over to snuggle our baby, she said she thought there were five. But it was hard to tell, because she had them in the dog igloo and it was dark in there.

Five pups was my guess. That’s what I thought she would have and that was a nice manageable number.

I called my little sister to report the news and then headed over to mom and dad’s when Husband got home to take a look for myself.

We pulled into the yard just as Pops was pulling in from work and Juno ran up to welcome her favorite human, giving him the opportunity to shine a flashlight in the igloo to see what she made.

“They’re so loud in there,” he said.

And then he found out why.

“Holy Cow!” he hollered.

“What?!!” I asked nervously “What’s in there? Are they ok?”

“There’s a whole pile of them!”

And indeed there was….

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A little more than five I guess. I tried to get a good count on them while they were wiggling and squirming all over each other.

I thought I counted nine.

I was confident. But I counted again.

Yup. Nine.

Nine’s a lot. That’s a lot of pups there.

The mat they were laying on was a little damp. These pups were brand new, so I decided to get a couple towels to put underneath them and help absorb some of the moisture.

So we took the pups out one by one.

And we all counted out loud, Pops, Husband, my niece and I.

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9!!!”

“9,” I declared. “Perfect!”

“Oh, we’re not done yet,” said Pops.

“WHAT?!”

“10, 11!”

E.LE.VEN.

Eleven.

ELEVEN PUPPIES!

That’s a lot of pups.

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“Good idea we had here huh dad?” I said to him.

Because it was our idea, to breed our Gus with his Juno the best cow dog ever.

Because cute + cute = so damn cute…

But also, because they will be really good dogs.

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Baby Gus

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Baby Juno

After Pudge died this fall we thought we needed to get another young pup to start learning the ropes.

And we thought maybe someone in the neighborhood might be interested in a good cow pup too.

But eleven? ELEVEN?! What were we going to do with eleven puppies?

Well, first things first I had to pick one out for Edie.

The Litter

Which wasn’t an easy task, except I liked the brown border collie. She was the only one like that in the batch. And I haven’t seen many brown border collies in my life.

So she was my favorite.

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It seems like Edie liked her too..

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But this one is also my favorite because she’s so little and she has brown eyebrows that match her brown feet and I just can’t take that sweet face I want to smush her and put her in my pocket…

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And this one is my favorite too because of his speckled little feet and speckled nose and he seems like he’s going to be really smart and I just can’t take it I want to scoop him up and put him in my cereal bowl.

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And this one breaks my heart because, well look at him! Those ears! That look! He’s so beefy and rolly-polly. He’s also my favorite. I really like him. I like his white face. I can’t even take it, I want to wrap him up in a blanket and snuggle and watch re-runs of Seinfeld together. He seems like he’d like Seinfeld. He seems like he has a good sense of humor that way.

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And be still my heart. This one is my favorite. Look at her! Look at the brown on her. She looks like she’s going to be SO FLUFFY I COULD DIE!!!! Look at her feet, with the little speckles on her toes. And I just can’t take it I want to buy a pink purse and put her in there and walk around the mall with her peeking out, smiling while everyone declares “What an adorable pup!” and I would say “I know right?!”

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And this one is my favorite because of his brown legs and white face. He looks smart. And snuggly. And I just can’t take it I want to tuck him in bed and read him bedtime stories.

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And this one is Husband’s favorite, but I think he’s also my favorite because he looks like his dad Gus and Gus is my favorite. I like that he’s solely black and white and he has a cool big black spot on his side and he’s going to be beautiful. And I just can’t take it I want to teach him the best tricks and enter him in one of those frisbee catching contests that you see on TV. We would win, because, well, just look at him.

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And this one. This one’s my favorite because he’s going to be fluffy and I love him and I just can’t take it I want to comb his hair and put a bandana around his neck and name him Scout.

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And this one is my favorite because of his white legs and spotted nose and I just can’t take it I want him riding shotgun in the pickup with me anytime we go somewhere so he can stick his head out the window and really get his ears flapping.

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And we’ve established why this one is my favorite…But it looks like she’s going to have curly brown hair so I think we’ll be able to relate…

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And this one. Look at this guy! He’s going to be smart I can just tell. He’s got the look of a perfect ranch dog and he’s my favorite because he reminds me of the old dog we had growing up named P.V. and she was the best. I just can’t stand it I want to bring him inside and let him lay on the rug in front of the fireplace.

And this one is my favorite because he’s classic and he knows it. He looks like he could be in a movie where he herds up lost sheep that got out on the highway and headed to town so he grabbed his brother and saved the sheep and the day. And I just can’t stand it I want to give him an extra bowl of milk because he looks like he’s going to do such a good job someday.

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Oh Lord. It’s been hard on me. All this cuteness. It’s giving me cavities.

But it turns out it hasn’t been hard to find these babies homes. No. One little social media advertisement and they were homed in a matter of hours to some really wonderful families who will probably not put their puppy in a pink purse and cart it around the mall, but might let them ride shotgun in the pickup. Or sleep on the rug in front of the fireplace. Or, most importantly, give them a life where they can do what they were meant to do…chase cows and roll in poop and drag bones from gawd-knows-where all over the yard.

And be unconditionally loyal.

And fluffy.

So fluffy. Just like their mom.

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And so annoyingly smart, just their dad.

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Because that’s what’s running through their blood.

And I can’t take it.

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Now, does anyone have any name suggestions for our new little girl? I would ask Edie, but I don’t think she’s old enough to make these sort of decisions.

Ugh, life must being going good when too cute becomes a problem…

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This seems like a good time to share my music video “A Girl Needs a Dog” again, featuring baby Gus and the photos you all submitted of you loving on your favorite dog. Enjoy!

If you need me I’ll be snuggling something.

Peace, Love and Puppy Breath,

Jessie

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Outside. Inside.

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

January’s a good month to have an excuse to stay inside with a baby.

All the snuggling, singing and miles put on pacing and bouncing the burps out in front of the fireplace is as good of an activity as any when the thermometer registers well below zero.

And while I love it, I am also restless. Having spent every other winter of my life able to bundle up and hit the trail or the road on a whim sometimes sends me pressing my nose up against the window.

The light is already starting to linger longer, and this baby is already starting to hold her head up and make little noises, but I find myself daydreaming about smushing her leg rolls into a little swimming suit and hitting the beaches of the big lake this summer.

And that’s a rough daydream, because I already think she’s growing up too fast.

So in an attempt to beat cabin fever and to force myself to stay in the moment, last weekend Husband held down the fort and the pacifier and I made a plan to trek out and about around the barnyard, ignoring the fact that it was literally -20 with the windchill or something like that.

I would just stay in the low parts of the place, avoid the wind and try to squeeze my fat ass into my long underwear, under sweat pants, under snow pants I could barely button up.

I just needed to take a tally of all of the frost, put a flush in my cheeks and sweat a bit.

Because while I have a new role now as a mom, there are things I know about myself that help keep me balanced.

I need to go outside. It’s imperative for me to remain the best version of myself.

So I did.

And I froze my face off.

And came in after only about fifteen minutes.

Happy to know that all was as it should be in January.

Frosty and freezing…

Windy and white…

And pretty in a middle-of-winter sort of way.

And it felt good to be frozen, only to warm up…

with a warm fire and the best stuff waiting for me inside.

Sunday Column: What’s in a name

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Maternity 5 B&W

When I wrote this column a few weeks ago, we were still waiting on the arrival of our baby. We didn’t know if we would be naming a boy or a girl, what her eyes would look like, what color her hair would be, the length of her toes or the squish of her nose or anything about her little spirit.

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So it seemed to me like a daunting task to pick out a name for a human we hadn’t yet me, although we had a name for a boy and a name for a girl picked out for years. We were prepared.

But I wasn’t prepared for it to fit so well. As soon as they handed me my baby girl, fresh out of the womb and onto my chest, her eyes were wide and looking, her lungs filled with air for a good wail, her arms and cheeks and legs filled out and the first thing that came to my mind was that this girl is fierce.

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When I held her in my arms those first few moments of her life, when she latched on for her first feeding, bare skin to bare skin, we were both wide awake and learning and somehow the confidence this little being exuded, her complete understanding about how to be a baby, seeped into my skin too and gave me courage. She knew what to do.

I knew what to do.

We were going to be just fine.

And sure as the sun, she was an Edie.

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She was going to live up to her name: Edith Elizabeth, but we would call her Edie. Edie is what we called my grandmother, a woman this baby could look up to. Her name would be a story she would hear about a cowgirl and a teacher and a woman who laughed with her whole body.

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A caretaker and a lousy housekeeper who would rather go along on a roundup or a cattle feed or a fence fixing outing than stay inside the house, although I heard she always had the coffee on and a snack or supper on hand for anyone who stopped by.

Little Edie will carve out her own story, go on her own cattle drives, grow up to cook in her own kitchen and have her own adventures, but I am so happy to give her the gift of a name with a history of a great woman who lived a good life on this ranch.

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And may she do the same.

Edie B&W 2

Coming Home: Parents challenged to find a name that sticks

by Jessie Veeder
11-29-15
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

My grandmother’s name was Edith Evangaline Delores Linseth Veeder. My cousins and I used to sit in the back seat of her Oldsmobile while she drove us to town and sing her name out loud to the tune of “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,” amazed at how perfectly her names fit into the tune.

If she didn’t appreciate her gaggle of grandkids making sport of her name, loudly and on repeat for a half-hour as she tried to concentrate on the road, she didn’t let on. She just laughed and interrupted our jingle by telling us the story of how her sisters were each allowed to pick out a name for her when she was born.

Edith, Evangaline and Delores made the cut.

Naming kids in a family of twelve must have been a creative feat in its own right, so it made sense that her mother enlisted some help.

As my due date creeps up, the significance task of giving a child a name as an identity has been on the top of my mind.

And it’s not because my husband and I are wavering on selections or arguing over middle names. It’s quite the opposite. Since we’ve been trying to have a baby for so long, we’ve had names for our boy and girl picked out for years.

But the idea that a tiny, smushy, freshly made person will take his or her first breath and we’re charged with providing a forever name without knowing a thing about this kid, is a big commitment.

This coming from me, who tried to change my name to Stephanie when I was in kindergarten after a little boy named August raised his hand and asked to be called Gus.

His request gave me the impression that kindergarten is where we get to change our names. So I raised my hand and declared that everyone must now call me Stephanie.

My sweet teacher looked at me and calmly declared she thought Jessica was a nice name and I should keep it.

I was pretty disappointed. But little did I know that I wasn’t being so unique. About thirty percent of girls born in that time period were also named Stephanie. The other seventy percent were, in fact, also named Jessica.

The proof is found every time I sit in the waiting room at my doctor’s office. When the nurse comes out and calls for “Jessica” at least three of us, all in our late twenties or early thirties, stand up.The same scenario likely happens to the Stephanies of the world, but I bet that never happened to Edith Evangaline Delores Linseth Veeder.

Anyway, I found a middle ground when my family moved back to the ranch when I was in second grade and, struck with a sudden urge to shorten things up, I introduced myself to my new country school classmates as Jessie, and I’ve been Jessie every since.

When it comes to choosing nicknames, it seems my family has a long history of changing things up.

For instance, my dad, Gene, was named after his father, Eugene, who was called ‘Pete’ his entire life and Pete’s brother, Edgar, was known as ‘Lorraine’ until his dying day.

When I asked about this random re-naming process I was told it had to do with how the two real-life brothers, Eugene and Edgar, took after two fictitious brothers, Pete and Lorraine, in an old story somewhere. And so the boys were renamed.

Funny to think about the ways we fit our labels in the end. I was named after the woman in the movie “The Man from Snowy River” because my mom could see me arriving with a fiery spirit and dark, curly hair like the character. Turns out she sort of had a premonition about things.

I have my own premonitions about this baby, and after a strong and painful kick to the bladder that woke me up wailing last night, I feel like I need to start researching names of famous ninjas.

Because without seven kids already born and named before this child, it’s up to the two of us to provide this new human with a name worthy of singing…or, at the very least, a name that sticks.

Edie B&W

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

music, poetry, musings, photography and philosophy from a woman who found her way back home and wants you to come over for a hike and a cocktail.

Tag Archives: Ranch Life

Sunday Column: A Very Ranchy Easter

Sunday Column: The boy on the hill

A walk with a baby, ranch style.

Tutus, cousins and pipe cleaner glasses…

Puppy Pile

Sunday Column: What dreams really look like

It’s Friday. Here are some puppy pictures.

Puppy Boom

Outside. Inside.

Sunday Column: What’s in a name

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