How seasons change.

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

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

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

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

Outside my door…

On the branches…

In the grass…

And the thorns…

In the sky…

Outside the barn…

And me.

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

When it pours…

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

We got drenched here yesterday. The morning brought us thunder against the glow of a sunrise trying to peek through the clouds and, well, it just escalated from there.

Around here we don’t get too many downpours like this. Typically we get our moisture in the spring and then watch the sky for a chance of showers to help soften the hard clay throughout the summer, so this day of gully-washing rain was a welcomed site for us.

And when I say gully-washing, I mean it. The coulees were flowing with raging river rapids, the corrals below the house turned into swimming pools, a new ravine was cut along the edge of my driveway and, well, I got myself a free pug wash. It’s days like these that make me feel like I’m in a different world altogether. The ten-year-old in me itches to run around in it, to let the rainwater soak in my hair and squish between the mud in my toes. But the logical grown-up in me decides it’s best not to get pneumonia, even though I’m fully convinced the pneumonia scare was a ploy by mothers and grandmothers everywhere in an effort to avoid soggy kids running into the house with a pile full of muddy laundry waiting to be stripped from their pruny bodies. But whether it was the threat of a sniffle or the scarier threat of more laundry that willed me to stay inside until the monsoon-like rains subsided, it doesn’t really matter. I was out in it at the first sign of let-up.
Because I love the way rain makes my world look. I love how it changes things, how it drenches the wildflowers causing their petals to recoil.

I love the sparkle of the rain drops waiting to be evaporated back into the sky on the soft surface of the leaves.

I want to lick the drips from the un-ripened berries.

I like to visit the horses, to see how they fared as they stood still against the opened sky, their butts turned against the wind, soaking the heavens into their skin. It always seems a storm makes them ravenous, starving for the lush green grass that seems to turn neon at the first drop of moisture.

But after the storm they won’t have me poking my nose in their business. They are not about to come in.
They braved the storm, now they’re going to feast.

I always walk to a hilltop then. I scrape and scramble my way up the face of the clay buttes, my boots, suffering from a severe case of mud-pack, weighing an extra 10-20 pounds. I scour the bushes for flowers, check out the sky for more rain, listen for the birds coming back to life and breathe in the fresh, new air.

Funny how a good rain can cleanse us, even when we watch it from the other side of the windows or come to know it after the calm has set in.

I love this land.

I love what exists here.

The changing and unexpected beauty cannot be recreated, not matter the repetition of the seasons.

I find I’m manic about being a witness to its changes, running out to be a part of it…

to be a part of the down pour…

Because when it rains I feel there’s something up there responsible for this…

When it rains, when it pours…I believe.

If I could be a season…

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

We’ve had a couple beautiful days at the ranch lately. Things are starting to blossom up around here, making way for the butterflies and bees and bugs. The birds have found their way home and so have the pair of geese that live in the dam outside our new house. I’ve been spending my evenings strolling through the coulees to see if I can break the record I set of 25 wood ticks crawling on my body at once.

It seems I’ve always known just where to find them.

But the wood ticks are pretty much the only black blotch on what is my favorite season. Wood ticks and the burdock weed, but I figure I can take a few heebie jeebies and invasive plants in exchange for wild purple violets,

horses with slick spring coats,

rhubarb and blue skies.

The thing about spring around here is that it moves fairly quickly, so you’ve got to catch it before the bluebells wither up in the heat of the day and those familiar birds fly south.

Against the backdrop of late spring everything seems to come alive, and with the windows open in the house I am invigorated and inspired. Because we wait for this warm sunshine all year and northern prairie people everywhere don’t take one “Goldie Locks” day for granted. No, we busy ourselves with lists of things to do before winter rolls around.

And in the summer around here that can mean chores and projects of course, but more than anything it means living out in it.

Because man could not build a better space for us to exist in. No roof can compare to the comfort and drama of the rolling clouds that threaten a few warm rain showers and promise a blue sky that always comes back to us. Families seem at ease here in the hills alive and buzzing with the sounds of life and change and growing things.

The wildflowers are a welcome home present that appear overnight, the grass our living, breathing carpet.

In the creek the minnows appear like magic and along the banks sprout blossoms promising fruit.

A prairie spring is a world that cannot be replicated. It is a world that is so far from the drastic howling winds of winter and the brown and sleeping earth, that you would swear you were living on a different planet just two months ago.

In those months I felt like a down coat and wool socks, steaming hot chocolate and melty white marshmallows.

A dumpling in warm soup.

Heavy blankets.

But today I feel like a garden. Like a picnic, a cold drink, a bratwurst on a lawn chair.

A warm breeze.

Bare feet.

The sun soaked queen of the barnyard.

I want to stand on the hills with the horses, facing the wind to keep the flies away, the only concern for the day.

I want to run close to the ground with the pug, smelling the things he smells, allowing my heart to pump hard, my tongue to hang out, my delusions of grace and agility to run rampant.

I want to jump in the dam with the lab when the heat gets too warm on my skin.

I want to taste what the bees taste.

I want to sit in the clouds and cast cool shadows all of it.

I don’t want to live in this season.

I want to be it.

Flannel shirts and wild plum blossoms

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

When I grow up I want to be the kind of woman who lets her hair grow long and wild and silver. When I’m grown I hope I remember to keep my flannel shirts draped over chairs, hanging in the entryway and sitting on the seat of the pickup where they are ready and waiting for me to pull them on and take off somewhere, the scent of horse hair on the well-worn sleeve.

When I grow up I want to remember every spring with the smell of the first buds blooming on the wild plum trees what this season means to me. When I grow up I pray I don’t forget to follow that smell down into the draws where the air falls cooler the closer you get to the creek, where the wind is calm.

When I grow up I hope I don’t find I have become offended by a bit of mud tracked from my boots onto the kitchen floor. I hope I keep the windows open on the best summer evenings with no regard for the air conditioning or the dust…because a woman can only be so concerned with messes that can be cleaned another day, especially when she needs to get the crocuses in some water.

When I am older and my memory is filled to the brim, I hope that the smell of damp hay will still remind me of feeding cows with my father on the first warm day of spring when the sun had warmed the snow enough to cause small rivers to run on our once frozen trail. I hope it reminds me how alive I felt wading in that stream while my dad rolled out the bale and I tested the limits of the rubber on my boots.

And when my hair turns silver I hope I remember that my favorite colors are the colors of the seasons changing from brown to white to green to gold and back again. I pray I never curse the rain, that I don’t forget the rain is my favorite color of them all.

Yes, when I am an old woman and my knees don’t bend the way they need to bend to get me on the back of a horse, I hope I am still able to bury my face in her mane, to run my hands across her back and lean on her body while I remember the way my spirits lifted as she carried me and my worries away to the hilltops.

I hope I recall how the first ride of spring made my legs stiff, my back creak and my backside sore, even as a young woman with muscles and tall boots.

Yes, boots! When I am an old woman I hope I will wear my red wedding boots every once in a while and recall how I stood alone in them out in the cow pasture at 22-years-old waiting for the horse-drawn wagon to come over the hill and take me to the oak tree where my friends and family gathered and the man I loved was waiting to marry me.

My red boots will remind me, so in all of the shuffle and lost things that become our lives, I hope I remember to save them.

And as I watch the lines form on my husband’s face, little wrinkles around his eyes from work and worry and laughter, I hope I remember to say something funny, to tease him a bit, so I might be reminded again how he got the most important ones…the ones that run the deepest.

Yes, when I am old and my hair is silver and long and wild, I hope I feel it was all worth it.

But more than anything I hope that those things that made me– the dirt under my fingernails; mud on my boots; a good man’s laughter; the strong back of a horse; the rain that falls on the north buttes and the scent of summer rolled up in a hay bale at the end of a long winter–I hope they remain here on this place so that another spirit living along this pink road might one day find herself in flannel shirts and wild plum blossoms.

Victoria’s Secret models don’t get wood ticks…

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

Feel it? You do don’t you? That tingling crawling up your bare leg, on the inside of your pants, towards parts of your body you’d rather not mention. You’ve got a creepy feeling, and now that feeling has spread to the back of your neck where you’re sure something is there poking up toward your hair-line. Go ahead, slap it. Scratch it. I’ll wait.

Ok, now it’s moved to your arm where you feel like the hairs are standing on end. There’s something there you’re sure, and it ain’t a mosquito. What is it? Where is it? You crank your elbow around and retch your neck toward your back to reach it.

Nothing.

But something! It has to be something! There it is moving up your leg again.

Oh, oh dear. You’re stripping off your pants? No worries. I understand. I’ll look away while you inspect your pale white stems, leaning over to rub them down, scratching, calling to your husband, your momma, your sister, your preacher to come and look! Come and check! I think I have a tick!

A tick?!

Yup.

You found it didn’t you.

Invasive little bastards (sorry preacher).

They’re here. It’s official.

He looks innocent, but crawling under that fur and those floppy ears is a nightmare...

Yup. It’s tick season and I’ve rung it in in typical ranch style fashion, celebrating by discovering my first little friend while on a shopping spree to Victoria Secret. I had showered, combed my hair, put on some makeup and made the long trip to the big town for undies. I was feeling good. I was feeling a little less like a grubby ranch girl and nearly presentable, dare I say damn sexy while I thumbed through the racks of impractical underwear. I was wincing at the thought of a permanent lace wedgie when I reached up to scratch my head only to discover one of the many reasons I will never be a Victoria Secret model.

And it's too bad, I mean, I showed so much promise in my early years...

Because I can’t imagine Heidi Klum has ever discovered a wood tick stuck in her hairline while frolicking amongst the ridiculous push-up bras and butt-crack revealing undergarments and smelly lotions and powders and weird music only to wonder just how long the damn thing had been there.

Nope. Victoria Secret models shave their legs…

Victoria Secret models have other people comb their hair for them…

Victoria Secret models live in places with white sand and big sunglasses and gentle winds that blow their hair in just the right direction.

Victoria Secret models don’t have to check for ticks.

But dammit, it’s April in Western North Dakota and I have been reminded, once again, I am no model. And unless I want to show up to a meeting with one of the world’s most loathed blood sucking insects taking up permanent residence on my body, I have to check for them everywhere and on a regular schedule.

Because out here surrounded by grasses and trees and fallen logs and dogs that never stay home, they are indeed everywhere.

Yesterday I found a really large family of them having a Thanksgiving style meal inside the pug’s left ear.

Disgusting.

I wrestled my pudgy black mutt to the ground while I applied Frontline to his back and wondered if they make something like that for wild humans who live in wild places.

Seriously people, after finding a wood tick in my bed last night I have decided I’m not above wearing a tick collar. I mean, I am sure I wouldn’t be the first human to go to these lengths to avoid the plague of the pests. Maybe I could make some sort of fashion statement.

Ugh, it’s intense people, the hatred I’ve had for them ever since I was a kid who would come home from the trees at night only to strip down to my underwear while my momma pulled up to sixty or more wood ticks from my skinny, pale body.

When I was that age, nothing could keep me from those woods. But the ticks? They tried their damnedest.

And we still hate each other.

Well, I hate them.

They love me.

They love the place behind my ear, the spot where my waistband rests at my back, my arm pits, my thick head of hair and even my damn belly button for the love of Martha.

Scratch…scratch…scratch…

You feel itchy don’t you. You’re running your hands through your hair, huh? Calling your husband? It’s that spot on your leg again?

Go ahead, take off your jeans. Inspect for the insect.

I’m doing the same.

Spring is springing…

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

Spring is slowly springing on the ranch and I thought I would send you off into the weekend to enjoy it.

Pick yourself some crocuses…

Climb to the top of a hill…

Count the birds that are finding their way home…

Search for green things…

Follow the winding, thawing, crisp cold creek…

Catch the sunrise…

Stay out until sunset…

And just live in it.

Happy weekend

It was a day like this…

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It was this kind of day
a hug and kiss kind of day

a put your pole in a puddle
and fish kind of day

You ran down the big hill for fun

basked in the warm pre-spring sun

It was a big stick kind of day
a muddy crick kind of day

a ketchup and mustard
picnic kind of day

You took the hand of your best friend to hide
beneath oak trees and sky blue and wide

It was your best horse kind of day
a no-chores kind of day

an open the windows and doors kind of day

you used your paint to you let your art spread
to your cheeks and, oops, the dog’s head

You found renewed energy
forgave your enemies
noticed the small things you’ve missed

like a spider’s spun web
brighter thoughts in your head
the way that it feels to be kissed

It was a day made for races
in wide open spaces
a good day to climb way up there

the best way to tangle your hair

Yes, it was a day just like this
short sleeves, walking sticks

the only place in this world I would wish
to spend next to you in this gift.

Amateur Night in the kitchen–with special guest, Rhubarb

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It’s on the verge of toppling over to summer on the prairie and as I watch all things grow and reach to the sky, blossom and sprout and green up, I talk about it with neighbors and friends. We talk about lawn mowing and how saturated the ground is. We talk about lilacs and what we’re planting this year. We talk about tulips and getting the outdoor flowers in pots.

We talk about weeds and weather and the short growing season.

And we talk about rhubarb.

Because it’s a universal language around here. If you’re from the prairie you have undoubtedly tasted rhubarb in many forms, in jellies, jams, syrups, pies, cakes, cookies, puddings, salads and breads. You have probably had it pickled, cooked, souped, dried and made into wine.

Hell, if you’re really thrifty you’ve probably made boats or clothing or shelter out of it. It’s so abundant around here husband’s working on a way to burn it for an alternative, renewable and cheap fuel source.

It’s so common and hearty that I had a patch of it growing on our land and didn’t even know it–until pops came over with his shovel looking to add a another plant to his garden.

“More rhubarb!? Wait. I have rhubarb?” I said as he marched behind the house and over to the area where my grandmother (his mother) once kept her garden. And sure enough, there on the end of the spindly plum trees and looking dangerously similar to my enemy, burdock, sat a two big, leafy rhubarb plants.

As pops dug his shovel around the perimeter of the smaller plant and placed it in the back of his pickup for transplanting, it occurred to me that these plants have likely been growing here my entire life. And that rhubarb jam and syrup and crisp I remember from my childhood more than likely came from them.

Now that’s what you call an heirloom vegetable.

Anyway, suddenly I had a craving for all things rhubarb. Suddenly I was working hard to channel Betty Crocker with all of these ideas and confidence for creating something delicious with the only edible thing (besides dandelions) growing in my yard this spring.

I called husband to come and help me collect some of the stalks while informing him quite assuredly that I was going to make something delicious out of this.

“It’s easy,” I said to him as he pulled the stocks from the ground. “It’s easy I’m sure because everyone’s doing it. There’s rhubarb something-or-other every where I turn. How hard can it be>”

So off he went to break the inedible (and I heard from the ladies at the museum yesterday, poisonous..eek!) leaves off of the top of the plants and off I went to google the shit out of “Rhubarb recipes.”

Yes. I Googled it.

Just like I Googled jelly making.

Don’t judge.

My human resources are limited on this subject and by 9:30 pm, I am sure all two of them were wrapping up their own rhubarb projects and getting ready for bed like normal, hardworking women with a head on their shoulders.

My head? Well, it was quickly spinning because as soon as I plugged “Rhubarb Recipes” into the search engine the first thing that came up was an entire website dedicated to the plant.

I am not kidding.

Here it is.

www.rhubarbinfo.com/recipes

But you probably all know about it anyway because you probably contribute and wear that rhubarb t-shirt they’re selling around as you work in your gardens and make exquisite rhubarb pies in your kitchens.

Damn you and all your homemaking capabilities!

Sorry. I had to get it out because at 9:45 pm on a Tuesday night I dove into that rhubarb website and didn’t come out on the other end until well past midnight.

It was a harsh lesson in the dangers of being a rookie homemaker with full internet access and all human life-lines tucked tight in bed.

Anyway after purchasing my very own “Got Rhubarb?” t-shirt from the site (because I believe there’s nothing like a t-shirt to commemorate brave events like this) and browsing through countless muffin, sauce, pie and bar recipes, I chose the following after having a recent delicious encounter with a strawberry-rhubarb jam made from a professional.

Ingredients:

2 pounds strawberries (4 cups, mashed)

2 pounds rhubarb (8 cups, 1/2 inch pieces)

6 cups sugar

Procedure:

Wash fruit. Cut rhubarb into 1/2 inch pieces. Cover rhubarb with half of the sugar and let stand 1 to 2 hours. Crush berries and mix with remaining sugar and combine with rhubarb. Place mixture over low heat until sugar is dissolved, then boil rapidly, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Cook until thick. Pour into sterilized Kerr jars to within 1/4 inch of top. Put on cap, screw band firmly tight. Process in boiling water bath 10 minutes. Yield: 10 eight oz. jar

I am not a professional. Did I mention this? But the presence of only three ingredients enticed me.

I had strawberries.

I had sugar. I definitely had rhubarb. I had (too much) confidence and I thought I had a stove around here somewhere… I was certain I was on my way to the Homemaker Hall of Fame…

Until I realized I didn’t actually have jars.

Dammit.

So I jumped in the pickup and made a trip to my mommas to collect the jars that once contained delicious Christmas preserves and tomato soups and homemade pickles and jelly from my aunt and neighbors.

Fifteen minutes later it was 10:00 pm and I was back in the kitchen realizing that not having canning supplies in the house wasn’t going to be my first and only rookie move. Turns out starting this project past 9:00 in the evening after skimming the recipe and skipping over the part where the rhubarb needs to stand in sugar for 1 to 2 hours was my second mistake.

Oh well, I just finished mowing the lawn, fed the calf and took that long anticipated shower while I waited.

And by then I was ready to realize my third rookie mistake: getting a vague recipe off of the internet without even watching a damn YouTube video on the topic.

What do you mean by “cook until thick?” What’s thick? How thick? How long? What am I doing? Where am I and what did you do with Martha Stewart’s voice that’s supposed to be running through my head right now?

Which brings me to rookie move number four: over confidence. Over confidence in a usually under-confident kitchen rat. That and allowing husband to fall asleep while I attempted to pour what I decided was thick-enough, boiling-hot jam into the boiling-hot jars.

“Are you sleeping! HEY! ARE YOU SSSLLLLEEEEPPIIINGGGG???” HHHHEEEEYYYYAAAA!! I NNNNEEEDD YOUUURR HHELPPA HHEREEE!”

I think the snoring coming from our bedroom three steps away was a little exaggerated and a lot fake.

I was on my own. On my own with a sticky mess,

six jars of strawberry-rhubarb jam

and a kitchen that looked like this.

I wept.

And then, at 12:30 am realized my fifth and final mistake:

Not. Making. Wine.

Oh well, I wiped the jars, and plopped down next to husband and poked him.

Still, er, sleeping.

And then I asked: “What’s another name for rhubarb?”

“Snore”

“Celery with a sunburn…bwhwahahahhah!”

I guess he really was sleeping ’cause I know he would have laughed at that one.

Anyway, turns out the jam was rookie-proof and my family has been enjoying it on toast, ice-cream and pancakes. I haven’t dared open my own jar yet, knowing that my family can be overly kind and encouraging, especially when it comes to someone in the family attempting anything domestic.

They always give an A for effort.

Anyone have any rookie-proof rhubarb recipes? I heard that rhubarb grows back….

Oh, and since you learned what not to do here, check out this site for a glimpse into the kitchen of a professional rhubarb connoisseur to learn how to do it right: Rhubarb and Venison

Tiny little miracles (and some other things)

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I went out yesterday morning to feed some babies. It was the first time the sun appeared after a few days of rain and it was fresh and crisp and lovely all around.

I had a major amount of work to do in the house. Like piles of notes and phone calls to make and stories to write. That’s the thing about working from home, when you’re home, that work waves to you all uppity like from that little nook of a desk that sits in the middle of your house. You can’t escape it, you know, unless you wander off.

So I wandered, me and big brown dog. (The pug? So glad you asked. He was snoring on the couch inside, avoiding mornings like the plague is his thing.)

Then I said to myself: “Self, you’ve got time. This is why you live here. To feed the animals and spray the weeds and unload the dishwasher and avoid the laundry and ride some horses and wander. There might be something in there that says write and be productive and make a living, but I can’t be sure right now…oh and look, how convenient, I have my camera with me! How did that happen? I think I’ll just climb up this little knob and maybe I can find something to photograph seeing as things are all showered up and sparkly.”

So sparkly.

I like sparkly.

I wasn’t expecting anything but a couple bluebells, some horse poop, maybe a dried up crocus or two and a little time to clear my head, but as soon as I hit the top of the first butte, BAM!

It’s wildflower season.

I think we’ve been over my wildflower love affair before so you will have to forgive me as I revel in my obsession and breathe in the colors I’ve been waiting for all winter, the colors I could only find briefly in the sky that touched the white buttes on clear evenings.

I love that sky and I’ll see it again someday, but you’ll have to forgive the fact that all I desire is to put my nose to the ground for a few weeks, to poke around through the tall grass, kick the mushrooms, smell those soft petals and take them home for my kitchen table.

You’ll have to forgive all the photos of flowers that will be covering these pages during this very fleeting time in this very fussy climate. Because I am simply amazed, year after year, that as soon as the ground thaws out a garden that no human person planted just appears out of all of that clay and mud and poop and rocks.

Forgive me, yes. Forgive my amazement and overt enthusiasm for tiny little miracles like this…

and this…

and these…

Because who wouldn’t be excited about their own personal floral shop, a small offering given to us out here for enduring all of this snow and rain.

Gifts like the smell of sweet peas on your kitchen table that make a deadline a little more attainable, something that the dried up Glade plugin that has been sitting in my outlet for months has never fully achieved.

So thank you for taking this little wander with me. I tell ya there is a lot more where that came from, but I’ll try to restrain myself to ensure that you get some of the other exciting news from the ranch. Important things like:

it’s wood-tick season
the pug currently still has all of his limbs in spite of his love for picking on things bigger and far more dangerous than him
Cowboy has been grilling the most delicious cuts of beef and venison, reminding me every day that I made the right choice in husband (even if he doesn’t do the dishes)
it has been too wet to get the cows home and
I am making to do lists for little sister to ignore when she comes to live at the ranch for the summer.

Oh, and I’m playing music with pops tomorrow evening in Medora at the Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room. I will also be on Prairie Public Radio today at 3:00 (CT) to talk about being a part of Dakota Air: The Radio Show at the Burning Hills Amphitheater ~~coming up on June 4th~~. Due to flooding in the Medora area, this show has been rescheduled for September 17th! But I’ll still be chatting on the radio, so catch it if you can online or on your dial. They’ll be playing some of my tunes and I’ll be talking about new music, old music and what’s to come.

More details on my upcoming appearances:

May 27, 2011
5:30-8:30 PM (Mountain Time)
Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room
Medora, ND
June 3, 2011
5:30-8:30 PM
Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room
Medora, ND
~~June 4, 2011~~
Rescheduled for September 17th due to flooding in the Medora area
2:30 PM
Dakota Air: The Radio Show
Burning Hills Amphitheater
Medora, ND
June 4, 2011
5:30-8:30 PM
Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room
Medora, ND

Thanks for all your support. Here, I picked these for you:

Hope to see you out west soon!

Back in the saddle

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

Ahhh, finally. I got my butt back in the saddle this Sunday for the first time this spring.

Well, technically this was my inaugural ride:

(Two butts in the saddle, always better than one.)

But after the babies left husband and I saddled up the sorrels and took off over the greening landscape to really test things out.

Really, my first ride of the spring should have happened a month or two ago, but given unpredictable weather, skies spitting snow and writing deadlines the horses got to stay out to pasture for a few extra weeks.

I like to think they were itching to go too, but their big bellies and lazy attitudes gave me the impression they were just fine with procrastinating the inevitable.

Ahh, the first ride. It’s something we wait for all winter long as the snow drifts pile up at our door. We try to remember it ever being green. We talk about all of the work we will get done when it thaws. We can’t wait to rummage through the tack, brush the winter hair off the horses and slip the them some grain to coax them in and see which one has the most spunk and, you know, who might hit the ground for lack of practice in both human and beast.

But no matter the months it seems to come back easy every year. The cinch gets tightened, the horse grunts and swings his head around, I pull up my pants, put my toe in the stirrup and launch my butt into position.

Deep breath in, I give my ride a bit of a kick to ease him out of the barnyard. This time around it took a bit of convincing, but soon we were off, right behind husband who has been oiling and training the stirrups of his saddle in the basement of the house all winter. Finally he got to test it out.

Finally he got to climb to the top of that hill and feel the breeze on his skin, smell the sweet grass, feel the sway of the horse’s back beneath him, test out a trot and then a lope along old cow trails and through the clay buttes…

down the draws to his last elk spotting, just past a bull snake basking himself in the sun, quick to escape to the nearest gopher hole.

Finally I was able to relax and fall in line with the rhythm of my horse’s pace, feel the sun on my shoulders…

be reminded of how the land rises and falls when the weight of winter has been lifted, take in the view of the most handsome man…

smell the sweet sweat of my favorite animal, hollar at the dogs who follow too close and be exactly where I wanted to be.

Yes, no matter what we say during the winter months, the promises we make to ourselves to get the work done, to check the fences and cut trails, the first ride of the season is nothing but a meandering, soul rejuvenating, deep breath in, unpredictable, blissed-out therapy session with just a little edge, you know, because of that hitting the ground thing.