The sun sets on an old day
I hit the road to see a friend
Some days I need to leave this place
so I can come home again
Coming Home: Winter blues washed away by spring melt
by Jessie Veeder
3/16/14
Fargo Forum
http://www.inforum.com
The sun has started waking us up earlier. A funny little phenomenon called “Daylight Savings Time” made it that way. We moved our clocks back on Saturday night and woke up at 6 am on Sunday, watching the sun come up over Pots and Pans, waiting for some light to help us assess the recent neighbor call regarding a cow (or three or four) out in a pasture by the highway.
I remember when moving the clocks back meant moving the hand on an actual clock. I look around my house and I realize I don’t have an actual clock anywhere. Our clocks blink blue numbers on stove tops and microwaves, on telephones and digital temperature gauges and cellphones, computers and iPads that are smarter than us and don’t even need a human hand to remind them to change. They are programmed to know.
They do the same when we cross the river into Mountain time, switching swiftly and we gain an hour. Switching back and we’ve lost it.
I’ve spent that last few days looking at those clocks, the one on my phone and the one on
the stove I haven’t managed to change yet, and saying ridiculous things like:
“What time is it really?”
“So, it’s 9 o’clock but it’s really 10 ‘o’clock?”
“It’s 6 am but it’s really 7 am?”
“Man, it gets dark early.”
“Man I am tired.”
“Man, I miss that extra hour of light at the end of the day.”
But what’s in an hour anyway? It’s not like the changing of the clocks changes time. There are still 24 hours in these days and the sun still does what it will do up here where the earth is stripping down and getting ready for winter.
Daylight Savings Time, moving the clocks, adjusting the time, is just a human’s way to control things a bit. Moving time forward in the spring months means farmers and ranchers and outdoor enthusiasts get to stay out under that sun, working on the tractor, chasing the cattle, climbing a mountain, until 10 o’clock at night when the sun finally starts to disappear.
Moving the clocks backwards in the fall means we might drive to work in the light and get home in the dark.
It means a 5 pm sunset and a carb-loaded dinner at 6. It means more conversation against the dark of the windows, more time to plan for the things we might get done on the weekends in the light.
It means I went to bed last night at 9 o’clock and said something ridiculous like “It’s really 10.”
But it wasn’t. It was 9.
Because we’ve changed things. (Although I still haven’t changed that stove top clock).
I lay there under the covers in the loft and thought about 24 hours in a day.
10 hours of early-November daylight.
If I closed my eyes now, I thought, I would get 8 good hours of sleep.
I wondered about that hour and what I could do with an 60 minutes.
A 25 hour day? What would it mean?
Would it mean we could all slow down, take a few more minutes for the things we rush through as we move into the next hour?
Five more minutes to linger in bed, to wake each other up with sweet words and kisses, to talk about the day and when we’ll meet back at the house again.
Three more minutes to stir cream into our coffees, take a sip and stand in front of the window and watch the sun creep in. A couple seconds to comment on it, to say, “What a sight, what a world, what a morning…”
Four more minutes in the shower to rinse away the night.
Two more moments in front of the mirror to make my hair lay straight and my cheeks blush right.
An extra moment or two for the dogs so that when I throw them their food I might have been given some time to extend that head pat and ear scratch and stick fetching game.
Six more minutes on my drive to town, listening to the radio, the weather report and the school lunch announcements while trailing a big rig with out cussing or complaint. I have an extra hour after all. What’s six more minutes to me now?
Fifteen more minutes for lunch with a friend, a friend I could call for lunch because I have sixty more minutes now and the work can wait.
Five minutes more for a stranger on the street who asks for directions to a restaurant and then I ask her where she’s from and she makes a joke about the weather and we laugh together, a little less like strangers then.
Then, when I get home, eight more minutes on my walk to the top of the hill, to go a little further if I feel so compelled, or maybe just sit on that rock up there and watch it get darker.
Four extra minutes to spice up the roast for supper or stir and taste the soup.
One more minute to hold on to that welcome home hug.
Three more minutes to eat, for another biscuit, to wind down and visit.
And four more minutes to use to say goodnight. To lay there under the blankets, under the roof, under the stars that appeared and be thankful for the extra time.
So what’s in an hour really? Moments spent breathing and thinking and learning. Words spilling out that you should have said, or should have kept, or that really don’t matter, it’s just talking.
Sips on hot coffee cooling fast.
Steps on your favorite trail.
Frustration at dust while you wipe it away, songs hummed while scrubbing the dishes or washing your hair.
Broken nails, tracked in mud, a decision to wear your best dress tonight.
Laughter and sighing and tapping your fingers on your desk while you wait.
Line-standing, hand-shaking and smooches on best friends’ babies as you pass at the grocery store.
Big plans to build things, to change things, to move. Small plans for dinner or a trip to the zoo.
A phone call, an answer, an “I love you too.”
It’s not much, but the moments are ours to pass.
And those moments, they move on regardless of the clock and the hour in which it’s ticking.
Although not many people have clocks that tick anymore.
I suppose that’s just one of the many thing time can change…
October is heading over the horizon and it’s bringing with it all the colors–the golds and reds and browns–of a season that doesn’t stay long enough.
And it’s leaving a trail of frost in its wake.
I see it in the mornings, sparkling and shimmering on the railing of my deck, on the cracked windshield of the pickup, on the leftover leaves and acorns on the trails,
on the stems of the grass and the crust of the dirt.
I am digging out my sweaters again. Funny how it’s only been five months since I packed them away but I can’t seem to remember where they went.
Funny how it’s only been a few weeks since the sun touched my legs and already my skin is fading into its pale winter shade.
I run my hands over the horses’ backs and notice they’re changing too, long scruffy hair growing in to protect them from the promised winter winds.
We are becoming the season it seems.
I’m sipping tea to ward of the little scratch in my throat, the little runny nose that I acquired when the cold came in.
I am North Dakota. Personified in the permanent chilled flush in my cheeks, rolling up the hoses and packing away the cutoff shorts. Swapping cowboy boots for winter boots and my straw hat for one that is knit and covers my ears.
If I were California I would never change. If I were California I would wear summer dresses all year and never be ashamed of my scaly winter skin. I would eat orange popsicles and sip iced tea and put fresh flowers in a vase on my table every week. I would be sun kissed and golden and I wouldn’t wear socks.
Especially not wool socks.
If I were California I would be beautiful all year.
But I am North Dakota and my flowers have dried up now. And we are beginning our predictably unpredictable decent into winter.
The ice rests lightly on the water in the stock tank.
The air bites and the trees have stripped down to sleep. I am cutting potatoes for soup, boiling water and feeling weighed down but hungry the way only Northerners can feel.
If I were a beast I would hibernate.
If I had wings I would fly toward the sun.
If I were a legend I would find a way to catch the snow in my hands and send it back up.
Back up for another month.
And back down in December when winter is welcome.
The hay is baled up and waiting to be moved out of the fields.
he hot sun is starting to turn the leaves on the trees a little bit lighter.
The cattails are bending and swaying in the warm breeze.
The water in the stock damns is getting low and covered in moss.
The tomatoes are ripe.
The school busses are kicking up dust on the back roads.
The days are getting shorter.
Coming Home: Summer can’t last as life goes on
By Jessie Veeder
9/1/13
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com
Summer’s almost over.
It’s Sunday and I might get to it this afternoon. The row of canning jars lined up on my counter top, bags of frozen strawberries preserved in the freezer
and stalks of rhubarb waiting for me in Pops’ garden,
waiting for me to stay home long enough to cut, measure thaw and put together a few jars of strawberry rhubarb jam.
It’s Sunday so it’s possible, if the rain keeps falling, hiding the blue sky that means we should go out and work.
Ride my horse.
Chase some cows.
Cut some weeds.
Cut some wildflowers.
Cut some rhubarb…
Because in this weather where the planting was done late and the vegetable seeds are working to break through the ground, the presence and plethora of the ever hearty rhubarb plant sitting out there in the dirt or hiding under the berry bushes makes me feel guilty for failing to reap the benefits.
Rhubarb should be appreciated, made into something, tasted, tested and shared. And because I haven’t had a moment to pick and put some sugar on it, I wrote about it.
Coming Home: Showing love with rhubarb
by Jessie Veeder
6/23/13
Fargo Forum
www.inforum.com
So I think I’ll make time for the jelly today. I owe it to the plant and my Pops who keeps reminding me, there’s rhubarb growing out back…
It’s summer now and the days are long, the sun moving slowly across the sky and hanging at the edge of the earth for stretched out moments, giving us a chance to put our hands on our hips and say “what a perfect night.”
It’s summer now and before dark officially falls we ride to the hill tops and then down through the cool draws where the shade and the grass and the creek bed always keep a cool spot for us.
Because it’s summer now and things are warming up. The leaves are out and so are the wildflowers, stretching and blooming and taking in the fleeting weather.
It’s summer now and the cows are home…
and so is Husband, home before the sun sets. Home to get on a horse and find Pops and ride fence lines.
It’s summer now and the dogs’ tongues hang out while they make their way to the spot of shade on the gravel where the truck is parked. They are panting. They are smiling. They just got in from a swim.
Because it’s summer now and the water where the slick-backed horses drink, twitching and swiping their tails at flies, is warm and rippling behind the oars of the water bugs, the paddle of duck’s feet, the leap of a frog and the dunk of a beaver’s escape.
It’s summer now and we keep the windows open so even when we’re inside we’re not really inside.
We can’t be inside.
Because it’s summer now and there’s work to be done. We say this as we stand leaning up against a fence post, thinking maybe if we finish the chores we could squeeze in time for fishing.
Because it’s summer and we heard they’re biting.
Yes, it’s summer and we should mow the grass before the clouds bring the thunderstorm that will wake us in the early morning hours of the next day. And it’s summer so we will lay there with the windows open listening to it roll and crack, feeling how the electricity makes our hearts thump and the air damp on our skin. Maybe we will sleep again, maybe we’ll rise to stand by the window and watch the lightening strike and wonder where this beautiful and mysterious season comes from.
And why, like the storm, it’s always just passing through.
Well, my favorite day of the week, Sunday, got hijacked yesterday for an impromptu trip to the big town to get new tires for Husband’s pickup. And a funny thing happened on the way. He got a flat tire.
So the quick trip turned into a long trip and while we were at it we thought we might as well load up on supplies to finish up the master bedroom, and, most importantly the closest.
I’m going to have an entire shelf for my shoes people.
An entire shelf.
It only took a good hour or so of discussion, planning and negotiation in the closet organizing section of Menards to come up with that plan, but it’s happening.
My life will never be the same.
And so that’s what I was doing yesterday. I was closet planning and waiting for tires and checking off the last of our supply list and sitting next to Husband as we drove home into the sunset and into the evening to unload doors and shelves and trim boards and laundry detergent and a little gift for Little Man and tools and screws and the rest of the things we need into the house in the middle of the pitch black night.
And that’s why you didn’t get my Sunday post. I know you were worried. I even got a worried email, so thanks for that.
But it was a good weekend all in all, one that kicked off with a birthday party for Pops and rolled on into Saturday where I played music for a beer festival in a neighboring college town and ended with my dream of an organized closet one step closer to realized.
And now it’s Monday and the rain is pouring down again, filling up the stock dams, sending the river out past its banks and women running from their cars to the nearest building with newspapers and magazines and jackets and briefcases covering their hairdos.
In the last month we’ve had all the rain we can handle. The grass is green and the chokecherry blossoms are in full bloom.
Everything is alive and another day more beautiful.
Another day older.
Pops turned fiftysomethingorother last Friday and this week’s column celebrates him and how fitting it is that he was born in during the best of the seasons.
Coming Home: Chokecherry blooms signal special time
by Jessie Veeder
6/1/13
Fargo Forum
Enjoy your week. Enjoy the rain, the smell of the chokecherry blossoms, and God willing, let’s enjoy some sun too.
If you need me, I’ll be picking wildflowers and organizing my boot collection…
It’s another rainy, windy afternoon at the ranch. It seems like once the sky decided to open up it just can’t stop. It feels like March when the sky wouldn’t stop snowing. It feels like this spring has been finicky and harsh and extreme and it has enjoyed every minute it has kept me waiting.
Waiting for the snow to stop.
Waiting for the sun to shine.
Waiting for the rain to come.
Waiting for it to stop raining.
Waiting on the sun to shine.
I know there will be a time this summer where the dust will blow again and we will pray for a bit of relief from the heat and the dry, but where I come from there is not a balance.
There is only extreme.
Extremely cold.
Extremely windy.
Extremely hot.
Extremely green.
Extremely wet.
Extremely dry.
Extremely perfectly beautiful.
Some days I feel like the weather. These days especially. The windows have been streaked with rain for a few weeks and I have been suffering from a weird sort of lingering head cold that refuses to break up and leave like the damn rain.
I’ve been working hard to ignore it, to say the rain will clear and I will feel better, but today I submitted. I stayed home under a blanket to watch it fall.
I’ll feel better tomorrow.
Head cold or no head cold, it seems I’m always so affected by the seasons and how they change, like the weather and my mood hold hands to greet the day accordingly.
Which makes me wonder how annoyingly bright-sided I’d be if I lived in the sunny, 70 degree climate of southern California.
It sounds nice right now, the sun.
But I think the constant change of seasons help me and what my husband refers to as my “restless spirit.” He says it’s hard for me to sit in one place. It’s hard for me to be comfortable in routine.
He says it’s good for me to have all this space to wander out here.
Maybe he’s right and maybe it’s hard to understand how a girl can be so rooted and so restless.
But it’s no worry to me really. I know where I belong out here, changing with the weather.
Evolving with the season.
There’s been an invasion on the homestead. It’s horrifying. It’s disgusting and it happens every spring, sneaking up on us, crawling up our legs, surprising us in the shower, torturing our dogs, waking us up in the night, sending small children screaming, strong women shrieking and grown men shivering in their works books.
Oh, I know it’s coming. I should be prepared. But I’m so excited about blue skies and sunshiny things that I forget about the inevitable creepy, crawly, disgusting, critters lurking in the tall grass where I’m busy frolicking.
I forget about it until I come home in the evening, refreshed and sunburned with just the right amount of dirt under my fingernails and I sit down on the couch, kick up my feet, take a deep breath, maybe close my eyes for a moment and then I feel it–that tingling sneaking along my sock line, moving past my leg hair.
Is it my leg hair? Geesh, when’s the last time I shaved?
I scratch at it.
Yup. Just leg hair.
So I lean back again, grab the remote and turn on “Wheel of Fortune.”
I take a guess at the puzzle.
I nail it.
I slap my neck.
Man. I’m itchy.
Must be the fresh grass.
Must be the dried on sweat.
Must be the leg…
Arughhhh, what’s with this shit?!
What. Is. Crawling. On. Me. Oh. My. Gawd. It’s. A. Tick.
A tick.
A TICK!
A TTTIIIICCCCCKKKKKAAAA!!!
I scream and run to the toilet, where I flush the little bastard into oblivion with a satisfaction I shouldn’t be so proud of, but I am.
Because I hate them.
I. Hate. Ticks.
And there is no photo because I am not going to glamorize them in any way, even if it’s for scientific purposes.
So here’s another photo of their habitat.
Rest assured, they are there. You just can’t see them.
Because they’re sneaky like that.
And they are also the only mortal enemy I have out here in paradise, even though I know that rationally the mountain lion sneaking in the trees is probably a bit more of a threat to me and my life.
And, oh, I hate cockle burs too.
And mosquitoes.
But not as much as I hate ticks.
Once, I had one stuck to my head when I went to get my hair done. I was just trying to be fancy. I even took a shower after my ride through the coulee. I swear I scrubbed my head good, but somehow the little bastard got by. Somehow I didn’t notice when his fangs stuck to my head and the evil insect began feasting on my precious blood.
I need that blood.
Especially that blood so close to my brain.
And so close to the poor pretty hairstylist who stopped dead in her tracks when she came upon the tiny beast embedded in my scalp.
Tick. Damn you tick. That was embarrassing.
You embarrassed me.
I hate you.
I hate how you stick in my bellybutton.
I hate how you stick in my armpit.
I hate how you get really big and disgusting, like thirty times your rightful size, and you dangle off my lab’s ear.
I hate how you get stuck a little too close to the pug’s butt and then I have to deal with that.
I hate that I have to deal with that.
I hate that no matter how much money I spend on veterinarian recommended tick repellent it doesn’t phase you one bit.
Because we live in the woods.
And you’re my pesky neighbor. You and all thirty seven bazillion of your disgusting relatives and friends.
And you’re thirsty, apparently.
Thirsty enough to find your way to my bed at night, forcing me to unknowingly sleep-slap my own face, waking me up from a dream about Ryan Reynolds.
Tick. I hate you tick.
But you won’t ruin my summer. I will continue to yank you off of my body and the body of those I love and fling you back out into oblivion without the one and only appendage you need to successfully ruin my life.
Your head.
That’s right.
You went for mine, now I’m coming for yours.
You better watch your back, tick, because Lord knows I’m watching mine.
Hate,
Your mortal enemy
Our summer guests showed up this morning. I heard them honking when I woke up, but I didn’t think it was them. I thought it was another flock flying over, looking for the river, the neighbor’s stock dam or the big lakes east of us.
But the honking persisted.
So I got up from my desk to look out the window and up at the sky where there were no geese, just blue and I thought I’d gone crazy.
It was possible, seven months of winter will do that to a woman.
I sat back down with my coffee and heard Husband call from the kitchen where he stood with his face plastered to the sliding glass door.
“Look down there,” he said, pointing to a patch of brown earth below the house.
“The geese are back.”
And so they were.
The geese.
Our geese, who spend the summer floating and canoodling with the pair of ducks in the stock dam outside our window.
The sight of those big, lanky birds walking around and honking between the snow banks was a welcome sight. We had been waiting for them to show up, as if their appearance solidified what is still quite unbelievable to us.
Summer is coming.
Summer is coming.
Summer is coming.
And just like spring, I would have loved to welcome this couple a bit sooner, but they know what they’re doing.
This isn’t the pair’s first trip back North. It isn’t their first spring together.
And had they arrived Monday they would have come home to this.
But they didn’t. They arrived on a day that turned into sixty degrees. A day I imagined they spent getting reacquainted with the place and showing the third guy around.
I’ve never seen a third goose. I wonder if he’ll stay?
Husband and I opened the door to let in the sunny morning air and watched as the familiar animals waddled and honked and moved closer to the house. We laughed as the pug stood stoic and protective outside the door, contemplating the size, shape and strength of the intruders before deciding to retreat.
We wondered what the hell our bird dog was doing in a time of such an invasion?
We said we loved these geese and were glad they were home.
We said, it’s nice to see them isn’t it?
We said, isn’t it amazing that they keep coming home?
We said we were glad they were still together.
And then we turned away from the window, back to work, back to life and into another season together.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 