Dear Brown Dog…

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Dear big brown dog with the fat tail that sweeps objects off of the coffee table with one swish,

I know you don’t remember this, but at one time your nose didn’t even reach to that table in the center of our small living room, not even to grab the last of a sandwich or a piece of leftover popcorn on movie night. I know you don’t recall how I used to take you along in my car when you were so small I had to lift you onto the seat.

Because you’re a dog, and you live for the day, your memory doesn’t reach to the place where it first began, the first month into my marriage to a man I’ve known since I was a little girl. I wanted you to have him. I wanted you to be there at his side for hunting trips, drives to the big lake with a fishing pole, evening walks to the dam with a stick and nights when I was hundreds of miles away singing for my supper.

I wanted him to be yours, so I found you and brought you home to him and he gave you a name and something to chew on. And somewhere in between the pounds and pounds of kibble, the ever expanding collars, the jogs with your long pink tongue drooping out of your jowls, paws that slapped the earth with increasing force on your way to greet me at the car, you scooched on into my heart and became an essential part of a small family that only existed for one month without you.

I know you loved the ranch and the wide open spaces, the endless mud that the creek supplies and the water in the dam that never lets you down–all the smells and trails to follow, all the poop to roll in. I know you love it out here. And I know I’ve never properly thanked you, big brown dog, for giving all that up to sit in the passenger seat of the car on my 24th birthday as I drove us hundreds of miles away from the only home you ever knew, leaving my new husband behind to pack up the rest of our things. I needed you as we searched for a place to call home. I needed you there as I drove into the mountain town late at night and unlocked the door to a lonely apartment, unpacked my bags and rolled out my sleeping bag to lay on the floor.

I needed you to sleep right next to me. To calm my nerves.

And you did.

You always do.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and companionship we found on new trails and sidewalks, you attached to the leash, attached to my arm.

Thank you for waiting patiently in the small backyard, sprawling out in the sunshine or hunkering down in the snow and rain until I returned home from work and husband from school.

Thanks for wagging your tail and helping turn a bad day a bit better.

Thank you for showing remorse and regret when we left you in that apartment on a rainy night only to come home to find that you had shredded my favorite feather pillow to the point of no return.

It’s three years later and I think I still have feathers in my hair, but I forgive you.

I forgive you because you destroyed my pillow, but you have never touched my shoes.

I forgive you because you follow me, blindly faithful, even when I beg not to be followed…you follow.

And you are always eager to sit down next to me in the passenger seat–you do so time and time again. When I loaded you up and drove you back toward home, so close you could smell it, you didn’t run the rest of the way when we stopped to repair an old house, to work, to think on how we might get there in the end….

You waited as we worked it out. You nudged my dirty hands as I held my head and helped soak some of those tears up on your snout.

You cleaned up the pieces of burnt chicken that fell on the floor and went outside to wait with a stick, just in case I had the time today. Just in case I felt better. Just in case you could convince me that a little fetch fixes most things.

Thank you big brown dog for being right. Thank you for your perseverance.

And thank you for holding on to hope that someday we would bring you back here for good, back to the land of porcupines and wood ticks and water tanks and every specimen of bird just waiting to be chased.

But most of all, thank you for not running away, disowning me, howling in protest or indulging in a late night snack when I wasn’t looking, after, to your horror and in a complete moment of weakness, hubby brought this home to be mine.

And he began taking over.

And chewing on the shoes you always stayed away from. And eating your food, laying in your bed, hiding your bones in between the couch cushions and worst of all, stealing your sticks after biting your hocks during a game of fetch.

Thanks for not eating him when he does that.

I really appreciate it.

Because big brown dog with the fat tail that clears the coffee table with one swoop, you were meant to come into my life to take care of the man I love, to be his and he yours and walk off into the sunsets on hunting trips like a scene in one of those sportsman calendars.

But you could not be fooled, not by your name, not by your breeding, not by a small, black, one eyed monster biting your heals…

No matter what they say, from the very beginning,

on into the middle…

and until the end…

I’m yours.

With love,

The woman who feeds you

Momentum

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Momentum. Forward motion. Moving.

I have been thinking about the act quite a bit lately as I have been guiding my car through back roads and highways, my feet along cattle trails and off to cut my own path. The act of moving forward, in any capacity, whether it’s walking, riding or driving, is what I envision the stream of consciousness to look like: sweaty, breathing, flushed, meandering or running in a straight line following a bird, a path, a rainbow or nothing in particular.

Because there is something about covering ground that propels not only your body, but your mind. It frees it up a bit, opens it. And even when there is somewhere else to be, a dot at the end of the map, a destination, there is something about the space between point A and point B that takes on a life of its own entirely–the space where you can’t go anywhere but forward. Where time ticks away with the miles.

I drove across the state on Tuesday. 350 or so miles from the northeast corner to west. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and the wind was blowing across the flat landscape. The road I was following was completely unfamiliar to me as I headed in the direction of home. I had my radio blaring familiar music, music that I could sing along with and softly I mumbled through words I have forgotten only to crescendo as I was reminded of the ones I always knew. I rolled down the windows. I sipped coffee. I adjusted and readjusted my visor and my sunglasses. I put a stick of gum in my mouth.

My mind wandered and I found myself back on all of the unfamiliar roads I have traveled during the time I was on the road with work and music. In pieces those moments flashed in and out of my memory–the toll booths on my way from Fargo to Chicago in the early daylight hours, my eyes heavy from the unexpected miles. The long stretches of yellow lines on the interstate in Kansas. The blacktop backroads on my way to a small Wisconsin college town. The bridges that confused me in Green Bay. The antelope infested stretch in South Dakota. The mountains that unexpectedly jutted out as I hit Boise. The white-out road that welcomed me home to North Dakota and forced me to spend one spring night in my car along the interstate.

While I remembered parts of my life that weren’t significant enough to make it out of my mouth and into stories to friends and family, the miles carried me forward and turned me onto a highway I have taken home hundreds of times. And while I sped between its straight lines it was as if someone was playing DJ and handpicking the soundtrack that came through the car speakers and into my conscious to help me replay the events I moved away from and back into during the time I spent on the pavement that stretched out in front of me. Pavement I haven’t been on for years. The songs and the road and the setting sun bounced off of my aviator glasses as I thought of beer, coffeehouse gigs, sidewalks in my college town, movie theatre trips to pass the time, crying from pure loneliness, a future naively hopeful and wanting so bad to be somewhere else.

My tires hummed along as I watched the sun dip down a little further, changing from gold to pink to red and I thought about the idea of wishing to be gone. How I used to exist in that thought, in that wish, so passionately. Driving toward the horizon I suddenly felt a little uneasy, like I needed to begin constructing plans for what was next. That I couldn’t just move through the miles thinking about what could have been, but concentrate on what is now and what could be so great.

I started constructing plans for what was next. Ideas passed through my mind like a slide show, progressing with each mile marker, playing themselves out as the sky turned from red to black and headlights flashed in my eyes. But by the time the landscape started to roll a bit, after I crossed the big lake and the road began to wind the unease calmed and I settled into my thoughts, sorted them out in my head, planted some and let others fly away when I flung open the doors of my car to breathe in the familiar air of the ranch–wet grass and dirt and horse hair.

When my husband and I moved to the ranch when we were first married, we weren’t ready to be here. We weren’t ready to plant our lives. We had more to see, more to do and be. We didn’t understand yet that we did not have to hang up our wings to exist on this landscape.

And the best thing we could do for ourselves make the decision to leave. Because time was always something we understood. Time and the knowledge that only we have the power to change the way we feel, the way we live.

So we left. That dream we had since we were twelve or thirteen was staring us in the face, but our arms weren’t open, so we left it there, alone.

To know that you can always move, to know that you have an option of a road, an option of your feet to take you where you don’t even know you need to go is one of the greatest freedoms. That is what my husband taught me.

That is what we taught each other.

That we can always move. That we have hands to hold and feet and roads that are there to lead us anywhere we want to go.

And those hands, those feet, that longing to fly, those same roads brought us back here. When we were ready. When we understood that sometimes freedom isn’t always about leaving…

sometimes freedom is choosing to stay.

Life: one damn masterpiece after another

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I have a theory about this world we live in. I know I’ve said it here before, but it just proved itself to me again on Monday evening and I feel I have to share it once more.

Because there it went spinning outside the windows and walls of this little home in the buttes and I found myself catching my breath again…

because life is just one damn masterpiece after another.

And that is my theory, in case you missed it the first time.

Because on Monday evening after my day was coming to a close–a beautiful, 70 degree day spent cooped up in the house answering emails, scheduling, making phone calls, organizing and checking things off my list–I stepped away from my desk and moved to the kitchen to shift the cans in my cupboard and pretend to think about dinner–the next task. But just as I was giving up on the idea that I would come up with some sort of brilliant meal and heading toward the front door to fling it open and splay my body out on the deck to catch the last afternoon rays, I was met through the window of the door by pops, wide-eyed and looking urgent…

the first human person I had laid eyes on for a good twelve hours.

“Whew…hey there…you scared me…whats up?”

“There are elk on the hill right across from the house…just saw them as I was driving in…a bunch of them…”

“Really?”

Here is where I will explain that before I even uttered the word “really” I was already heading for my boots, snatching up my camera and throwing on a hat…

…and pops was already in his pickup, behind the wheel and shifting into drive.

That was all the exchange we needed right there.We knew what we were going to do.

Because elk are still a rarity, a treasure, a bit of an oddity on this landscape and we needed to witness this, we needed to get in close and watch them pass through our world.

So as the fluffy clouds rolled on over the farmstead, creating patches of shade and sunshine on the brown ground, pops and I bounced along in the green Dodge, turning off of the road and toward the elk herd–a site that would have gone unnoticed by eyes less trained and in tune to the landscape.

See, pops is the kind of guy who is always looking. After years spent as a rancher the man is always scanning the horizon for something amiss, something important, out-of-place or occasionally, if he’s lucky, something spectacular.

And Monday he found the spectacular and chose to share it with me.

So in the green Dodge pops drove toward where the wind was right so the elk wouldn’t smell us. And when it wasn’t advisable to go any further with the pickup we stopped, opened the doors and stepped out into the landscape. As soon as the doors latched, just like that pops was on the hunt and it was like I was twelve years old again walking behind his strides in his footsteps as he snuck up on a big buck–always so eager to come along, pops always so willing to allow me the experience.

Over the fence and along the side hill we reached a point where we had a spectacular view of the herd and I snapped some photos while pops counted and recounted under his breath…”three…four…ten…seventeen…I think there’s about seventeen, eighteen there Jess…”

We sat there watching the two bull elk as they moved toward the rest of the herd, discussing whether they had antlers, using my telephoto lens as binoculars. We watched them graze along the flat below the clay buttes as pops explained to me in a hushed voice the way elk graze and what kind of grasses they eat.

I am not sure how long we sat before pops made the decision to get closer, but seeing that the beasts didn’t suspect we were there he took off at his hunter’s pace down the steep hill and along the muddy cow trail before leaping, without pause, in his cowboy boots and spurs through the wide and moving creek.

I followed diligently, a good ten steps behind, wondering how close we would get, wondering if we would spook them, wondering if the herd would be there when my ponytail appeared over the clay knob.

Pops slowed his pace and stepped softer.

I did the same.

He crouched down.

I crouched down.

He stopped.

I froze and held my breath.

“The two bulls, they should be right over there. Right over that knob. Get your camera…go ahead…you should get some great shots…”

I looked at him, little sweat beads forming on my forehead, and for a brief second (because that’s all the time I have in situations like this) I wondered how he was so sure of the exact location. How was he so certain after a fifty-mile-an-hour trip through brush and mud and a raging creek?

But it didn’t matter. I believed him. Because in my experience with pops and things like this he is always right.

Always.

And he was right again as I flung my hat down in excitement and crouched and belly crawled and peeked my way over the knob to find before me something I had never been so close to in the wild of my backyard in all of my 27 years.

I was shaking as I pulled the camera up to my face, certain that the beasts were going to bolt at the first click of my shutter.

But it was as if I was just a little breeze, a bug in the grass as the mighty bull elk lifted their noses at the sound.

I clicked and took a few steps closer…

and clicked again.

The elk froze, looked me directly in the eye…and nuzzled each other.

I looked back for pops, whose black hat was peeking over the hill. He nodded.

Encouraged, I put my sites on a bald bump in the landscape, thinking if I could lean in on that I would be close enough to almost reach out a give their noses a scratch.

I snuck.

They stared and snorted a bit.

I crawled and crept until I reached my destination, laid flat out on my belly and clicked my camera in a panic, certain now that they were going to run from me at any moment.

But they stayed.

They looked.

I stayed.

I looked.

And although I know it wasn’t possible, even from my ideal distance, I swear I could feel their warm breath…I swear I could smell the dust on their shaggy coats…I swear I could hear them sniff the air as I held mine.

I swear I have never been so close to something so wild.

We sat there like this, the three of us looking at one another, and the magnificent elk posed for me, taking turns walking in an out of my shot until I exhausted all possible photo opportunities and the elk were no longer curious.

And after hours, or minutes, or seconds, slowly and reluctantly we turned away from each other, sneaking glances back over our shoulders, wondering what we had just witnessed…

…wondering what the other was doing out here in a world that, just moments before, belonged only to us.

When I was growing up out here I never laid eyes on an elk on this ranch and as pops and I walked back to the pickup he informed me that, until recent years, the beasts never passed through this place at all.

And it makes you wonder where they are going, what the grass was like where they came from, how many women with wild ponytails they have watched sneak up on them…

and how long they will stay.

But mostly it makes my jaw drop in awe that while I am busy living my life between walls and windows and the nook of the barnyard, these creatures are living their lives, grazing, snorting, shedding, pawing, living and moving on through my backyard, into my life and out again, free and magnificent as the wild wind.

I may never be that close to the nose of an elk for the rest of my life and I could have very well missed it, just as I have most certainly missed them passing through dozens of times before.

But I didn’t.

I was there.

Pops was there.

We were there.

Right smack in the middle of yet another masterpiece.

How do the crocuses know?

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It’s official.

Deep breath in and out.

Whew.

After a winter that dug its frozen fingers in, ate us out of house and home, turned our skin pasty and soft and all in all outstayed his welcome, peaking up from the once frozen ground is the first genuine promise of warmer days to come.

And when I say genuine I mean it, because this little signal that comes to us quietly on the hilltops has never failed to lift the dreary spirits of country people in the northern states.

Yes, the crocuses are here.

And if there was anything I needed to do upon returning to the ranch yesterday evening after a lovely day with family sitting out in the 60 degree sunshine–if there were chores or phone calls or words that needed to be said to you about Easter and family and the sweet memories this holiday stirs inside of me, all of that was trumped by husband’s and my deep desire to fling open the doors of the car, pull off our town clothes, change into our muck boots and climb the hills to find springtime treasures.

For anyone who grew up in a northern state or in the countryside where your world turns white for months you will understand this. You will understand what the crocus means to us here in rural North Dakota.

You will understand the sweet smell of dirt that accompanies the search and anticipation of spotting that first vivid purple petal emerging from the cold, damp, brown earth. And if you have patiently watched the snow drifts disappear and reappear outside your front porch as the months drag on, you will not laugh when I say at that moment you feel as though you have never seen a purple that deep, a petal as soft, a color so vibrant. Beauty has arrived.

And if you are from the prairie you will smile as you think of that first breeze catching your hair and the sunshine warming your shoulders as you fling off your spring jacket, let the warm soak in your skin and fall down to your knees to inspect the new arrival.

You will understand how, at that moment, you are eight years old again and you have your grandmother’s hand and you can hear her voice through the breeze. You can hear her exclaim “Oh, now look at that…” as your eyes move from the first flower and across the hill to notice that there are purple dots are everywhere. Scattered.

And if your world has been white and you have been restless you will appreciate the challenge you face just then where your enthusiasm for the change of season begs you to grab the flowers up, collect them for your pockets, pluck them for your basket or your bucket and bring them home to proudly display on windowsills and kitchen tables and countertops.

But instead you pause as your fingers run over the fuzz of the fragile flowers that reach for the sky in groups, holding hands with a promise to face this uncertain sky together.

Yes, if you are from the windswept buttes, the wheat fields, the quiet streams that cut through small cow pastures you will nod your head when I tell you that yesterday, when I finally found what I was after, I made sure I only picked one crocus from each group, careful to not leave any alone out there, certain not to pluck the hilltop clean of this precious flower that enters this world so confident, the first bud of prairie spring…

because life is short and a little piece of me felt like, for all this flower has given me, there should be some left out there to live it.

Yes, if you are from the once frozen Dakotas, you will nod your head because you have done the same thing and returned to your home with a modest bundle of furry purple flowers, shaking off the tiny bugs that have made their home inside the petals before setting the bouquet on your table with pride.

This is the ritual, these are the emotions conveyed by such a small and simple gift from nature. And we repeat this ceremony year after year, our excitement builds, our childhood reinvented, our hope for a new season renewed.

We anticipate, we make time, we know it’s coming every year…

But how do the crocuses know?

How do they know the ground is ready and the sky won’t forsake them?

How do they know that momma’s desperately need flowers just as much as papas desperately need to pick them for her?

How do they know when children need a treasure hunt and grammas need to lead the way?

How do they know just when to make a quiet and brilliant entrance to come and finish thawing us out?

How do they know just exactly when we need them?

A country girl’s guide to hitting the big town.

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

When you are a ranch woman or woman living at a ranch…

or a female who loves her serene country lifestyle even if it exists at least 30 to 70 miles away from the nearest shopping mall/friendly neighborhood coffee joint/specialty pub/bowling alley/mexican restaurant…

or a lady who happens to have an extensive fancy shoe collection hiding out under her bed but mostly just plops around in muck boots whenever she pulls her hair up to leave the house…

or just a plain old country girl surrounded by dogs and dirt and sky, there are certain and particular instances where you may have to leave the cats and the cowboy hat clad hubby in the dust, pluck your eyebrows, apply heat to your hair, dig out those shoes and head toward civilization to get some things done.

..like when you realize you actually let someone document you in this outfit...

Yes, even though it takes a certain amount of coaxing for some, it is necessary, can and should be done for the sanity and femininity of our species.

That being said, besides the sudden realization that it may be necessary to pay attention to her outer appearance, there are a list of activities that increase a country girl’s odds of painting her toenails and taking the long highway to the big city.

One of the items on this particular list has to do with work, of course. Occasionally a ranch woman treks to the big city in order to network with other country girls, to learn about her profession and to talk it out the way women do so well. But rural girls are resourceful and if they are going to go all that way for the sake of professional development there is no way she is going to pass on the opportunity to enjoy the other items on the aforementioned list:

Shopping

Eating

Dancing

And all of the above are done with a passion that only a remote country girl can possess for the activities that city girls, surrounded by such luxuries, have come to take advantage of.

Luxuries like the easy access to pizza prepared in someone else’s oven, seventeen-thousand coffee choices, buffalo wings, specialty margaritas and brand new jeans of every shape, size and color waiting for you around every corner.

It should go without saying that in these situations country ladies waste no time and take no prisoners. And while we are waking up early to drive to the coffee-shop to get started on that list of specialty brews to help propel us through Hobby Lobby and Bed Bath and Beyond and Home Depot and all the quaint downtown gift shops before lunch at our favorite restaurant where we order a fancy cocktail, an appetizer, soup, salad, entree and dessert then take a deep breath of preparation to tackle the next phase of taking on the town and every store at the mall, we are busy making plans for the dancing.

Cue photo montage of a few country girls in action so you can catch the vibe I’m throwing…

a toast with a dear friend to beer I didn't have to buy in a box and drive thirty miles home...

The music...

The mayhem...

ahem..

Taming it down with a dinner date with one of the country cousin's cute offspring...

and finishing up with a cute cousin sandwich...

Ok moving right along…

So while country girls immerse themselves in life between stoplights and restaurants and pavement, back at the ranch the snow carries on with the melting, the grass with the growing, the clouds with the rolling, the husband with the working, the horses with the grazing. We call home in the morning and get the report and most of the time it’s “Oh, nothing new, just working….the weather’s been shitty, the dogs ran away…nothing new at all.”

But sometimes a country girl, a ranch woman donning the appropriate footwear choses to hit the big town for a week and accidentally misses a milestone, some activity, a transaction, a big exciting, adorable event and nothing she can purchase or drink or stroll around in the big town could compare to being on the road on her way back home…

to find this walking out into the barnyard…

to tend to the newest additions to the Veeder Ranch….

Sigh…

This country girl’s not going anywhere for a while…

And while I love my fancy shoes and seventeen thousand unattainable flavors of coffee and music ringing in the streets from open bar doors, it is and always will be…

so sweet to be home.

Reporting from Fargo with thoughts from the ranch…

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

This weekend I was in Fargo hanging with my little sister and other good friends that reside here in the Red River Valley. And this morning I am still in Fargo to attend the North Dakota Tourism Conference this week and a writer’s workshop today.

Hey, if I make the five hour drive through spring slush, I am going to make the most of it.

And so far I have.

There has been shopping and dinner and dancing to a bluegrass band and hot wings and bottomless mimosas and a private rap concert by my very talented four year old cousin (followed by laughing until I literally almost peed my pants).

So that’s what I call a good weekend.

And I’m looking forward to a great week full of networking and ideas and a little more sunshine please.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch….I’ve been told husband bought us our first bottle calf from our neighbor (after some prodding from yours truly) and pops bought another and we will be feeding them this spring to grow them up big and hefty.

I am looking forward to a project that involves being chased around by a large hungry mammal that thinks I am his momma…

Anyway…good day to you and I hope you enjoy it. While you’re out milling around or working in your office or taking care of your babies today tune into North Dakota Prairie Public Radio either on your radio or online and listen to me tell a story about a girl and her horse today at 3:49 pm Central Time.

If you miss it today, the replays can be found on the “Hear it Now” section of the website later in the week.

And then read the full blog here and imagine yourself on the back of your favorite horse running like the wind, hair tangled, sun shining down and eyes closed tight in a smile: There’s nothing wilder…

What a good thought for a blustery spring day.

Oh, and if you feel up for it, in honor of the Tourism Conference, give a shout-out to your favorite North Dakota destination!

Love from Fargo!

The 105 pound heart

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

If you were the lab with your sleek coat and paws that make tracks like a wolf in the mud, your tail would clear a coffee-table with one sweep while running to the door to enthusiastically welcome the neighbors with an accidentally and completely oblivious swat to the groin.

And you would be confused as to why you didn’t fit on the couch, or on a lap, or in the arms of your favorite human, but nothing could keep you from trying.

Because if you were the lab your self perception would be slightly off. In your mind you would be fluff, weightless and wishing to fit in the palm of a hand, or in a pocket, or on the soft cushion of a chair all the while working to squeeze your body between the small spaces of this house, taking up the limited carpeting available for walking.

But if you were the lab you would be polite and move out of the way when prompted, not recognizing that perhaps you are indeed fluff after all…and the rest of the 105 pounds is taken up by your heart.

Because if you were the lab your heart would have to be big enough to fit in the one-eyed pug who came into your life as a little black, squishy blob with two eyes that couldn’t climb the stairs and quickly took over the house and the walks and the yard and the lap that used to belong only to you.

And your sticks. He would always be taking your sticks…

while biting at your back legs.

And yes, if you were the lab your 105 pound heart would give a nice growl, but never a snap, after the 330th time the cat bit your tail and you would attempt to protect the barnyard with enthusiastic barking, only to follow it up with head rubs and giant licks and tail wags and all of the things dogs that love their world do when approached by good humans.

And you would chase deer and pheasants and cows when told a million times to back off to go home, but you would avoid porcupines at all costs, forever remembering the single quill you once had barely dangling from your snout from the first and last encounter with the prickly demons.

And in the depths of your slumber when you’re drooling from your floppy lips and your droopy eyes are closed up tight for the night, you would have nightmares about this, squealing and whining and moving your legs as you lay on your side.

If you were the lab you would drag out garbage, and bring home dead things and roll in poop and bark up trees and almost spontaneously combust at the site of your person putting on tennis shoes or boots or grabbing a gun or hitching up the boat for a trip to the lake.

You would be four years old with a gray beard and the softest ears and joints that seemed to ache when your old soul arose and you would howl at my harmonica with the same vigor you use to howl back at the coyotes at night…

and during the course of a day your 105 pound heart would fill up, combust and be broken 175 times.

Yes, if you were the lab all of that love and life and adventure you made room for in the 105 pound heart of yours—the pug, the tolerance and acceptance of the cats, the cow poop, the neighbors, the sticks and the fear of the sting of the porcupine would be incomparable, thrown to the wind, forgotten and completely and utterly abandoned at the first site of water….

…water, the only place you, the lab, is truly weightless…

…105 pound heart and all.

We’re like the water

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

We’ve got mud here people. It’s official.

And never has a girl been so happy to see this slop and slush and muck. I’ve have enthusiastically switched from snowshoes and boots with three inch insulation to those of a muck variety and I have no intention of dodging or jumping or leaping over any puddles or rushing streams.

I have every intention of stepping in as much of the stuff as I can.

Because we have mud people.

We have mud and blue skies

and a bug on my backpack

and magic sunshine that is turning those white drifts into rivers in places rivers only exist for a few short days during this time of year.

The time between winter and the full on sprouting, buzzing heat wave of spring. The time where the snow still peeks through the trees, the wind still puts a flush in your cheeks, birds are still planning their flights back home and the crocuses haven’t quite popped through the dirt.

My favorite time of year.

When I was a little girl I lived for the big meltdown. My parent’s home is located in a coulee surrounded by cliffs of bur oak and brush where a creek winds and babbles and bubbles and cuts through the banks. And that creek absolutely mystified me. It changed all the time, depending on rainfall, sunshine and the presence of beavers or cattle.

In the summer it was lively enough, home to bugs that rowed and darted on the surface of the water and rocks worn smooth by the constant movement of the stream flowing up to the big beaver dam I would hike to daily. In the typical North Dakota fall it became a ribbon carrying on and pushing through oak leaves and acorns that had fallen in its path. In winter it slowed down and slept while I shoveled it’s surface to make room for twists and turns on my ice skates.

But in the meltdown it was magical. It rushed. It raged. It widened in the flat spaces and cut deep ravines where it was forced to squeeze on through. It showed no mercy. It had to get somewhere. It had to open up. It had to move and jump and soak up the sun and wave to the animals waking up.

And I would follow it. I would become obsessed. I would step out on the back deck and at the first sound of water moving in the silence of our backyard I would pull on my boots and get out there to meet it, to walk with it, to search for the biggest waterfalls and gawk at how it would scream out of its banks and marvel at how it changed.

I would be out there for hours. Around every bend was something a little more amazing–a fallen log to cross, a narrow cut to jump over, a place to test the water-proof capacity of my green boots. The creek runs through multiple pastures on the place and as long as the daylight would allow I would move right along with it for the miles it skipped along and then return home soaked and flushed and refreshed and completely and utterly exhausted.

And then I would do the same thing the next day. Because even as a kid I knew this magical time was fleeting. I knew the creek wouldn’t always act this outrageously marvelous so I had to get out there…because someone had to see this. And at that time, and still to this day, there are places on that creek that very few people have ever been.

But I was one of them. I was one of them and that creek was performing for me. Oh, I remember feeling so secret. So special and lucky to have this show in my backyard. And although I loved summer and all the warmth and sunshine and green grass it brought with it, I never wanted this early spring witching hour to end.

I vividly remember a dream I had about the creek when I was about 10 or 11. I dreamed the creek behind my house was huge, like a river you would find in the mountains–a river I had yet to discover at that time. The landscape the creek wound through was the same in real life as it was in my dream–the oaks and the raspberries existed there–but the water was warmer and crystal clear and it pooled up at the bottom of huge and gentile waterfalls that rolled over miles of smooth rocks and fluffy grass. And I was out in it with friends I had never met before as an adult woman with long legs and arms and we were swimming in its water and letting the current push us over the waterfalls and along the bottom of the creek bed until we landed in the deep water where we would float for a while and then launch ourselves out for another run. And we were laughing and screaming with anticipation for where that water was going to take us. But we were never afraid. We were never cold or worrying about getting home for dinner or what our bodies looked like in our bathing suits.

We were free. I was free. And the water was rushing.

We may never know if there is a heaven while we are here on this very volatile and fragile earth, but that there could be that much water and that much power and change rolling through our backyards and then one day we wake up to find that it has just quietly moved on and out and along still mystifies me to this day.

That there are snowbanks that fly in with the burning chill of winter’s wind and reach up over my head and stay for months on end only to disappear in one day with the quiet strength of the sun is extraordinary for lack of a more powerful word.

That the water in my creek is made from the snow that fell from the sky in early November and is currently rushing around the trees, settling in hoof prints, being lapped up by coyotes and splashed in by geese and sinking in the earth and changing it forever is something that makes me believe in something.

…like perhaps we are like that drop that fell from above, afraid of the mystery that was waiting for us as we hurtled through the atmosphere only to find when we finally hit the earth that we are not one drop alone in this world…

…we are the water.

The life we chose.

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Husband stopped the pickup yesterday as another spring snow storm came rolling over the horizon. He stopped along the road where the horses were working on an alfalfa bale that pops plopped down to keep them content through the last of this harsh weather.

We were on our way somewhere, to drop something off. To pick something up. But husband stopped in his tracks and while I sat waiting in the passenger seat watching the clouds turn a deep, menacing blue, without a word husband flung his door open and marched out in the wind and dropping temperatures.

He walked past the paint mare and the gelding we call Tucker, notorious for checking pockets for treats.

He breezed by the two sorrels and the buckskin my father rides.

He dodged the blind mule who never bothers to dodge a thing and slid his hand across the back of Stormy the trail horse without pause even for an ear scratch for the old brother. Because husband was on his way. He had his eye on something, the one living and breathing thing he has missed most during the gray days spent shoveling snow and plowing through the ice and slush and mist and repairing things in this old house while looking out the window to the snow covered buttes, waiting patiently for the meltdown…

And I sat there in the passenger seat, looking out the window at what appeared before me the most quiet and impulsive moment in the home stretch of the longest winter.

As husband reached his cold hand out to scratch the nose of his bay horse, to wrap his arms around his neck, to smell that sweet horse smell I found myself holding my breath.

I imagined them saying things like:

“Well hello. Yeah, well I’ve missed you buddy. Lookin’ good. You’ve wintered well.

We’ll get out there soon, friend. Just waiting on the thaw.

We’ll be out there soon.

Just waiting on the sun.”

It wasn’t a long moment, but after I released my breath and watched the wind blow through the bay’s mane and husband’s scruffy hair rustle as he pulled down his hat and headed back to the road and to life’s schedule, I felt like I should turn away.

It was like watching old friends reunite after months apart. Friends who have grown up together and trusted one another with plans and secrets and sadness and the most happiness and respect a body can offer, but there wasn’t time to grab a drink or take a walk or do what both of them wanted to do so badly and that was catch up.

Go back to the old days when the grass was green.

The meet-up on Saturday that occurred along the pink road that winds down through the coulees and up to the deep blue horizon was one my favorite moments since I have moved back here, very nearing a year ago now. Because it has been a rough winter. There has been a hard frost, some deep snow, days without power, things that need to be fixed and storms that have kept us from grocery stores and big events and far away friends. And I have been reminded of what we have given up to live out here surrounded by dirt roads without the conveniences of sidewalks, gas stations, fancy restaurants, gym memberships, dozens of latte flavors, late night shopping runs and constant plows and garbage service.

Oh, yes, I have missed those things at times when the winter nights came early and stretched on into the mornings. I have felt far away from my friends and isolated when the snow covered my windows and the morning called for shoveling and more snow and another day at home.

But as I watched that man, the one I have known since I was just a little girl, the one who walked with me down the halls of high school and somewhere along the line became my husband and unpacked all of my things and my heart on to this landscape, I didn’t wonder if we did the right thing. I didn’t see a man overwhelmed with the burdens of the weather and isolation. I didn’t see resentment or loneliness or a husband charged with making sacrifices for a wife he loves because this is what she wanted.

I have worried about this.

We have talked about this.

But no. As he stepped out of that vehicle on his own terms I saw hope and ambition and love and admiration, a little bit of crazy and all of the reasons that brought me back home.

I saw him in a quiet moment where he was his best self. He was the man he had envisioned.

And his heart was unpacked too.

Yes, when we live up here we give up some things. We let loose some perfection, deal with the messes, brush off the mud that enters your home on your boots, fix things that break with more broken things and lean in against the winter with the promise of spring.

These are the tests you must pass to survive.

So on Sunday the clouds rolled in and there was more to repair, more things to fix as the sky spit and looked like it would make good on the promise of more snow, a spring delay…