A poem for the hot summer sun…

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Summer if I could put you in the pocket of my jeans

I would take the way the sun shines through my dad’s fresh garden peas.

Then I’d grab the smell of green grass and the sky a vivid blue

I’d leave behind misquotes and I’d forget my shoes.

And oh, if I could catch you under an old mason jar lid

I’d be sure grab a baseball and the sprinklers for the kids.

Then I’d saddle up the horses and put the cattle out to graze

because I need my ponies ready at the end of long, hot days.

We’ve talked about this summer, how you come and go too fast

and I’d like to find a way to hold on tight and make it last.

So summer, I have warned you that I might just catch your light

and keep you by my bedside for those long December nights.

Summer heat

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

When summer sets in out here among the clay buttes and tall grasses it’s like nothing else.

It’s like our world could not be further away from the one we know in the middle of January when the windswept snow drifts outside our door and the cold is so cold it actually hurts.

But in mid July the air swelters. It settles on the top of the water in our stock dams and grows creatures we haven’t seen for months. It pools up under our cowboy hats, drips down the back of our work shirts and moves with us in the slow motion effort we use to make it through the day.

The people and animals of the north were not meant for 90+ degree weather. We see it coming and run for a canopy of trees, find refuge inside the ice cold of a sparkling drink and on the other end of our lawn hoses. We watch our garden grow and wait for the sun to retreat to do the weeding or to check how the radishes are coming along.

We swat horseflies and search in our houses for the summer cutoffs we wear five times a year to sit by the fan and say “Geesh, it’s a hot one.”

Our skin turns from white to red to brown as the wild sunflowers growing in road ditches reach their petals toward the sky.

We know who we are here inside the smells, sounds and sites of a season we wait all year to indulge in. We know what it looks like and what it means.

It means foxtails sweeping and bending in the draws, horseflies biting at our necks, hard cracked earth and tall wild grass that scratches our bare legs.

It means sweaty brows and an alfalfa crop, a sky with no clouds in site and dust hanging in the air kicked up by neighbors and big trucks heading out somewhere.

Summer means rain puddles left in the sun to dry, dragonflies and pink sunsets and a sky twinkling so bright you can’t tell the difference between fireflies and stars.

And we hold this under our skin, the pieces of the hard dirt, the swish of a horse’s tail, the sweet smell of cattle and summer grass and the trails we wore down to dust, we keep this with us as we move through the season, grow tired of the heat and welcome the cool down.

And come January when the ground is white we will say to one another “Can you believe it was ever green out here?”

Then we will close our eyes and dream of a summer that held heat under our hats and sent it trickling down our backs.

Orange popsicles and the smell of the heat…

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

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

It’s gonna be a scorcher today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I want to stay there in that pool while my hair floats wild around my head and watch the grasshoppers leap toward the scorching sky.

I want to jump in that water and out and in again, little pieces of cut grass stuck to my feet.

I want to meet my mother at the screen door for a push-up pop, I want to see her smile and how her brown skin looks against her weekend clothes.

I want the curls to escape from my ponytail and stick to my forehead and I don’t want to care about it.

I want to be thrilled at the heat and forget for a moment that summer doesn’t last forever.

If you need me, I’ll be running through the sprinkler.

Now go get yourself a popsicle.

The long way home.

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Sometimes in the middle of an ordinary weekday, one filled with spilled coffee, peanut butter toast on the run, meetings, missed phone calls and long-lost plans for supper, the world gives you a chance to throw it all out the window and just get lost.

Yesterday afternoon on my way out the office, heavy-overstuffed briefcase on my shoulder, water cup in my left hand, my list under my arm and a trail of papers flailing behind me, I dialed Husband to remind him it was voting day and asked him if he wanted me to meet him at home so we could make the trek together.

Husband works a good thirty-plus miles away from the ranch. I work another good thirty miles away too…in the other direction. And when you live in the middle of winding gravel roads, you do not vote in the town that you travel 30 miles to work in each day. No, you take the gravel to a smaller town sitting nice and neat alongside the county road and cast your vote in a quaint community building as your neighbors from over the hill, across the creek and down the road filter in and ask you about your family, how the house is coming and what you think of the weather.

I thought about taking the fifteen mile detour to cast my vote on my own, but the idea of a little car ride with my husband and the opportunity to actually show up in public together sounded like a nice one. He agreed.

And so we met at home, dropped our piles of work at the door, and husband drove me north on the scoria road, past the substation, and our friends mailbox where the gravel turns to pavement, right on the county road and into Keene, ND where we would greet the ladies who have been working the polls all day and follow their instructions to fill in the circles dark and complete, and for goodness sakes, don’t vote in more than one party column or you’ve gotta do it again.

I took their directions and my packet and followed Husband into the little gym where we played volleyball this winter and where I attended craft club last week. I waited for my neighbor to cast her vote and I took her place at the round table against the wall.

I read the directions thoroughly, wondered if Husband, who was at the table on the other side of the room, was canceling out my votes, finished my civic duty, closed the folder and fed my sheets through the fancy machine.

Husband followed close behind. I waited while he cracked a few jokes, said goodbye to the neighbors and then followed him to the door and back out into a beautiful summer evening in the hub of our little township: Keene, ND-Population 266?

We contemplated heading back home to grill some brats and finish up the laundry. We talked about how the lawn needed to be mowed and that fence that needed a good inspection. We thought we could maybe get some work done on the new house before it got too late.

We said we probably should go home…we really should…

But it was such a nice evening, the sun was shining through the fluffy clouds, the grass was green and fresh from the recent rain, the farmers were out and it smelled so sweet. We rolled down the windows and pointed our car north toward the lake where we heard the restaurant at the marina had just been renovated and is open for business. What’s another 30 miles when the lake is calling and you heard they might have walleye on the menu?

What’s another thirty miles along new green fields, under big prairie skies, next to a handsome man with lots of things to tell you with the windows open and your favorite songs in the speakers?

It’s nothing.

It’s everything.

And the food was good, the water was crystal clear and the sun was hitting the horizon with a promise of a show as colorful as the rainbow that had just appeared in the clouds to south.

Husband pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the county road. He headed toward that rainbow, toward the ranch and our chores…but then, without a word between us, he ignored the turn that would take us there and chose the long way home instead.

I didn’t object. I didn’t ask why. I didn’t say a thing unless it was to ask him to stop so I could take a photo of the clouds reflecting off the glass-like pond in a rancher’s pasture.

The country church reaching up toward the sky.

A family of ducks swimming in reeds.

The sun sinking below the horizon.

We drove this way for hours, tourists exploring the landscape we knew so well, seeing it again with eyes wider.

Hearts more open.

I was exploring our homeland and my husband was my guide, a man who just wanted a little more time to move through the world he loves…

patient with the clicking of the camera and my need to let the cooling air blow through the crack of the window in the passenger seat…

humored by my theory on coming back after my death as a duck…

happy to hear his tires hum along familiar roads…

content to sit next to me and hum along with the songs we love.

And relieved to forget about the things we should do…

and just live in the moments, under the sky, moving quietly and slowly along the landscape that made us…

A good day to be the pug.

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Ahhh, Monday.

I’m not going to lie, I’m a little scared of the days of the week that are to follow. The hustle and bustle that comes with the short North Dakota summers is now officially in full swing. Yeah, we’ve gotta cram it all in before the snow flies again.

And all I want to do is lay next to this guy in the sunshine and soak it all in.

Monday. I have been dreading you and all of your promises about grocery shopping, finishing the laundry, meeting deadlines, cleaning up those dishes that have been sitting over the weekend, returning phone calls, sorting through emails, attending meetings, planning events and being forty-seven places at once with a homemade dessert.

Monday, I’m not ready for you yet.

It’s cloudy, the blue birds are chirping outside my window and my bed and the coffee are still warm.

Sigh.

Days like these remind me of when I was a teenager moping around with that little gray cloud of dread over my head about a chore I didn’t want to do or a class I didn’t want to attend. I remember looking at my cat stretched out on the couch in a spot of sun and wishing I was her…with no responsibilities, no chores, no dishwasher to unload, bed to make or homework to fuss over…nothing to concern herself with but sleeping and eating and pooping and lounging.

At these moments in my life I experienced the same jealousy toward anything with fur and four feet. The dogs and the simple lives they lead. No deadlines or term-papers.

The cows grazing on the hilltop, blissfully unaware of the life and death situations humans had to deal with regarding what to wear to prom or failing your drivers license test.

I wondered if horses felt humiliation. I figured they didn’t.

And I figured the grass and grain would suit me just fine if it meant I didn’t have to worry about being the only teenager in the world to never gain the legal qualifications to drive a car.

I wanted to lounge.

I wanted to graze.

I wanted to stand on a hilltop and let the breeze blow through my mane, my only concern to be switching my tail to keep the flies off of my back.

And it seems today I am regressing. Yes, facing this over-scheduled week I am once again experiencing those pangs of jealousy toward my furry companions who’s only chore is to walk past the food dish a few times to check to see if it’s full.

I want to snore away the morning like the lab at my feet.

I don’t want to make dessert.

I don’t want to do the dishes.

I don’t want to worry about supper or the business of picking out pants…or shoes.

Dogs don’t wear shoes.

And Pugs don’t have to make Jello Salad. Pugs hate Jello Salad.

And meetings.

And showers.
Today would be good day to be the pug…

A few small things

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Around here it’s not too challenging to see the big picture–the buttes against the skyline, the cows in the pasture, the big brown dog in the dam, the fields of wheat and ditches full of yellow flowers, the oaks and birch trees reaching up toward the sky. I love standing on the top of the hills around our house and scanning the horizon and the pink ribbon of road below me, to see who might be coming or going–the sun, a neighbor, an oil field worker on his way home.

But often I feel like looking closer to see what’s happening down there in the grass, bushes and oak trees, in the shady cool places of the ranch. See, all those small pieces that make up the mosaic of this landscape fascinate me, so I pull on my walking shoes, take my camera and my husband if he’s willing and hit the coulees and the rolling pastures to have a look around–to immerse ourselves in the quiet places of the ranch.

We don’t talk much, to blend in, to make sure we see it all as we take turns leading one another through the cow and deer trails and notice how the dragonflies are in a frenzy, swooping and swerving and finding mates…

and how their delicate and transparent wings reflect the sun.

We stay silent as husband pushes a path with his boots along the side of the beaver dam and I take a moment to reflect on the signs of late summer, like the cattail that’s beginning to fuzz…

and the flowers that hang on down here in the shade, staying cool and crisp as they reach for small glimmers of sun peaking through the trees.

I kneel down to check out the mechanics, magic, motivation or science that allows the water bugs to stay rowing and afloat on the surface of the creek…

and husband is also looking closer, pointing out the school of minnows flashing their silver bellies in the hot sunlight warming the water.

I look at him, we look up at the birch tree branches.

He looks at me and I tell him to watch for mushrooms growing on trees…

and chokecherries and the plums in the draw where we picked bucket-fulls last summer…

or the thorns that could scrape through your long pants…

And we walk. Along that creek that runs between the two places and down to the neighbors’, through beaver dams and stock dams and ponds where the frogs croak wildly. We clear a path through bull-berry brush and dry clover up to our armpits. We jump over washouts and scramble up eroded banks and notice how some oak trees have fallen this summer, hollowed out and heavy with the weight of their age, the weight of a world that keeps changing, no matter what, no matter if a human eye ever sweeps past it or inspects it or theorizes about it, or tries to save it…it changes.

My wish is that he and I walk together in the coulees and off the paths in these acres for a lifetime with eyes wide to the small things that live and thrive and swim and crawl and grow outside our door.

My wish is that the small things will never lose their mystery and that the way husband and I move through those trees is the way we continue to move through life–switching leads, pointing out beauty and wonder, asking questions, being silent, stepping forward, taking time and loving the moment…

Sunflower touching the sky

and one another in it.

Summer don’t leave me…

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Summer don’t leave me
stay under my feet
hang warm in the sky
don’t dry up the wheat

Summer stay near me
to kiss my skin tan
mess up my long hair
hold tight my hand

Summer please stay here
in the chokecherry trees
on the back of a good horse
in the green of the leaves

Oh, Summer my good friend
there’s only so many hours
so take the bees and the rainbows…

but don’t take my wildflowers

And then we sang Red River Valley…

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

Sometimes in the middle of a life in the middle of America, you are handed a couple of days, or moments, where you are graciously reminded of what is so good and wholesome about a community that exists on the end of a two lane highway with no stoplight, no Walmart, no mall and no place else you’d rather be on a Friday afternoon.

And so I had a weekend filled with small town, mid-west, rural, main street, wholesomeness that began with the execution of an event I helped to plan on Main Street Watford City, ND–my hometown’s Best of the West Ribfest–where I manned the entertainment stage while community members milled around the vendor booths, ate lunch on picnic tables outside Main Street stores, breathed in the scents of barbecues warming and turning their rib suppers and enjoyed games, music and other entertainment on the big stage…

entertainment that included watching me attempt to help call bingo by turning on the bingo blower machine thingy and launching the numbered balls all over the damn street.

Lord, I just wasn’t meant for some things.

Anyway, husband, along with seventeen other businesses, vendors and crazy grillers, participated in the rib cooking contest. And at 5:30, after the judging was done, Bingo was mercifully over, my big sister’s dancers showed us their Michael Jackson Thriller moves, the kids were all settled in for the rest of the evening on those crazy, sweaty, inflatable jumper things, and Lonesome Willy and I sang for our supper, it was time to eat already.

I had a great view from the stage and watched as people emerged from their businesses, ready for the weekend, and began filling the street, up and down, waiting for the smokey, spicy, barbecue tastes of the grilled ribs. The street flooded with neighbors, tourists, new comers, children and pets.

And from my post it became apparent that this was the most people I’ve ever seen on Main Street Watford City at one time. I was proud of our town as I rested my blistered feet that were shoved in my fancy boots for the day and listened to some of the best local musicians around pick a banjo, a dobro, an acoustic guitar, and sing songs about their North Dakota home.

And the music filled the street, the ribs sold out, I announced the world’s longest chicken dance, signed an autograph for a couple of confused guys who thought I was a famous D.J. and then wondered who the hell’s name was on the back of their shirt as they walked away, the big band showed up, the full moon rose, I found myself a beer and watched my community laugh, relax, dance, shake hands, meet one another and enjoy themselves in the middle of the street, in the middle of America, in the middle of an oil boom, in the middle of a season that passes all too quickly around here.

It was necessary. It was appreciated. It was hometown as hometown needs to be…

I loaded up in husband’s pickup and he drove me home, pulled off my red boots, poked at my blisters and then I got up to do it all over again the next day. Because as wholesome as Friday night was, I got another dose as I put on a dress and headed back to town to sing at a wedding at our hometown church and then pointed my car north to meet the guys out at a farmstead near Hazen, ND.

Because we were scheduled to play a community barn dance and, so, when you’re at a barn dance you need the proper footwear. I did a quick outfit change, squeezed on my fancy boots again and followed the highway out of oil country, down a gravel road and into a perfectly mowed, perfectly beautiful, perfectly placed farmyard on the edge of Lake Sakakawea.

And in the middle of the yard stood a white and green barn that reached up the prairie sky and was spilling out people and children laughing and chatting and singing in cowboy hats and boots. The smell of burgers on the grill greeted me as lugged my guitar towards the band milling around outside, waiting for 8:00 to get behind their guitars, behind their microphones and behind their music.

We climbed the steps to the hay loft where the festivities took place and instantly I was transported to another place, another time, where the world still had barn dances, where the table cloths were still checkered red and white, where people danced the two step and sang along with old time country music, where they still wore cowboy boots.

I was on a movie set, you know, like the one where Sandra Bullock wears a beat up hat and jeans and takes photos and drives around a classic old pickup. The one where the small town band sounds straight out of Nashville. The one where she falls in love at the end after Harry Connick Jr. swings her around the wood floor of the barn as the lead singer taps his foot to Peaceful Easy Feeling and the crowd sings along.

Seriously.

But I wasn’t Sandra Bullock. Sandra Bullock was that beautiful blond in the black hat dancing with her boyfriend. No, I was the band.

And the guys playing next to me, some of the best musicians around, picked all the right songs and played all the right beats. Their grins spread wide as the family crowd requested songs the guys knew and then danced and cheered when they played them. The lead part drifted out through the hay loft window behind me and on over the prairie and to the lake as I sang harmony to my dad’s chorus and then a song I wrote and then Red River Valley and oh my, there they were, singing along.

So we all sang together. That family, that community. We sang Red River Valley and then Home on the Range and stomped our feet and clapped our hands as our voices joined together…

“May the circle, be unbroken, by and by Lord by and by…there’s a better home awaiting in the sky Lord in the sky…”

We sang it again…

and again…

and so did they, the crowd, our hosts for the evening. They sang with us too as they bounced their sleepy children, swung around their grandma, slapped their cousin and uncles on the shoulders, and just genuinely enjoyed themselves.

Genuinely.

I headed home into the dark sky, the guys with the band trailer pushing through the early hours of the morning in front of me, with a renewed hope that the world maybe hasn’t changed much.

That maybe in the hustle and bustle of progress, politics, and technology even the fancy cell phones that can tell you what road your on when you’re on it still can’t tell you where you really might be headed…

to a place where people still wear cowboy boots, where time has been preserved in the wood floors of a nearly hundred year old barn, where the only agenda is to laugh and dance with one another for goodness sake…

where the music really matters and so do the friendships.

A place on the end of a paved street with no stoplight, a place on the edge of a wheat field under the moon under the roof of a green and white barn that the GPS would never find…

but that we should never forget still exists…

Heaven is a wild raspberry…

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Around here you go to bed at night to a landscape brown and ready to shoot to the sky and wake to fields of flowers big and bright and alive. Around here you savor their aroma, their vibrance, their fleeting existence, because as soon as you close your eyes again they have withered into the earth.

Around here you wait for months for the sun to stay in the sky just a little longer to warm the ground and make things grow and allow you to stay out in the air until well past 10 pm.

Around here you must get to the corn before the deer, the tomatoes before the bugs, the berries before the birds, because every creature is waiting in the shadows to savor the fruits of summer before the trees start to drop their leaves, the sun casts shadows sooner, the rain turns to snow.

And so on this early August day I am hit with the realization that we are on the back side of summer now. The hot side, yes, but the down hill slope indeed.

The weeds are tall, the late season flowers are in full bloom, the clover has reached its peak, the kids are buying school supplies, the sun is leaving us a little sooner each evening, I am contemplating what types of celebrations I am going to cram into my birthday month and

and

the wild raspberries have appeared like tiny drops of heaven, little rewards, consolation prizes for a summer on it’s way out of dodge.

These perfect little morsels are what I spent the late summers of my childhood hunting while sitting bareback on a horse with my best friend and a plastic grocery bag. These tart wild fruits that grow on vines along the thick brush are what my eyes are searching for this time of year. To hell with the wild sunflower, the coneflowers, the juneberries that the bugs have demolished. If I can bite down on a wild, perfectly red raspberry and savor the juices that hit my tongue if only once in a summer I am satisfied.

Fall can come tap dancing in.

Winter can bring it.

I got my raspberry.

So it was with delight that I hit the trail last Sunday for a leisurely ride with pops, husband and little sister. It was the last day in July and it sure as hell felt like it. The air was muggy, but there was a nice breeze and the sun was hiding behind a skim of clouds for the time being. It was enough relief to keep us from baking, enough to allow us to saddle up and head for our favorite pasture in the east.

We weren’t looking for anything in particular, the four amigos. We just wanted to be in one another’s company as the morning rolled on into the afternoon. See, the other casualty of late summer is this: little sister is leaving. Yup. Back to east side of the state to finish up her schooling and become a grown up already. I haven’t admitted it yet here, but the fact that time is marching on and out too quickly, bringing with it this type of consequence, has been the catalyst to the waves of dread and the reason I have occasionally pulled on my crabby pants during the past five days or so.

I am lashing out at time and wondering why the bluebells can’t stay….

Why the clover must dry up…

Why the sun can’t maintain its heat…

Why my gray hairs multiply with each pluck of a straggler…

Why little sisters don’t stay little forever.

But anyway, there we were last Sunday strolling on the back of good horses through acres of wild sunflowers and grass up to the heels of our boots. There we were riding just a little further, despite the fact that the sun had reappeared and the temperature was rising. There we were, the four of us, bonded by our love for a place, the desire to be part of something a little more untamed, and the need to be together out in it for as long as we could.

We were chatting about the unprecedented rainfall and the lush vegetation when pops, always in the lead, pushed his horse through a barley visible trail like a cow dog going after an unruly bull and squealed like a little boy. The three of us stopped in our tracks. What could it be? A mountain lion? An elk? A big, black hole? Aliens?

As pops flung his body off his horse and dove into the brush one of us dared to ask that question. You know, the one that starts with “What” and ends with “is it?”

“What is it, what’s the deal. Are you ok? It must be an alien this time…pops? Where you going?”

“RASPBERRIES,” he hollered from behind a tangle of green weeds and thorny brush and vines.

“RASPBERRIES” he mumbled as he dropped his horse’s reigns to the ground to reach and bend and lunge around him, his wide fingers carefully plucking the delicate fruit from its vine before popping his mouth full of the wild, red, succulent berries.

Well, that was it. That’s all he needed to say to get the rest of us to follow suit, fling ourselves off of the back of our sweaty beasts and dive into a draw, braving thorns, mosquitos, poison ivy, bees, ants and that dreaded and inevitable alien to get to the prairie rarity before pops and the birds ate them all.

“There’s hundreds of them guys! Look at all of them….munch munch munch…remember this moment…munch munch…because in the winters…munch munch…we will talk about how we found all those raspberries out east that one summer…munch munch…here you go…taste some…”

And so we did. We all picked and tasted and searched the area like scavengers on a hunt for gold. We talked about what it might have been like to be a Native American out in this area and to come upon berries this sweet on a hot summer day.

We talked about the past summers where we wandered into similar patches. We talked about how many there might be here and what we could make with them.

We talked about coming back with a bucket.

But by the time we were done talking our fingers were stained red and so were our tongues and we had cleared the area of all visible signs of the wild fruit.

Because that’s the thing about wild raspberries, they very rarely hit the bottom of a bucket or make their way into a jam or pie.

No, no, no. They taste the best standing in a pasture, surrounded by sky and bugs and up to your eyeballs in foliage and leaves and vines and pure bliss.

So yes, the summers out here are brief. I don’t know why they have to be that way. I don’t know why the green leaves can’t hold on a little longer or why the wildflowers have to wither at all. I don’t know why 80 degrees only touches our skin for a few short months or where the bumblebees go when the snow comes.

I don’t know why I am beginning to notice lines on my face and a few strands of silver in my hair.

And I certainly don’t know why little sisters grow up and leave home…

or how wild raspberries appear and disappear like magic.

I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s for the best. See, if we had paradise all year how would heaven measure up?

Because I’m sure there are raspberries in every cool draw in heaven.

Raspberries and clover, blue sky and just the right amount of clouds, good horses and sisters and husbands and fathers and mothers all riding together through lush pastures like the one that exists out east of our home…

the one that exists in my heaven.

Bravo to the magic hour…

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It’s been pretty scorching hot around the ranch these days, and I’ll tell you it’s not because of the sexy outfits I’ve been wearing to stay cool.

No, that’s not it at all. It’s just typical late July/early August for you. But you have to appreciate a place on the map where in the matter of six months you can experience a 130 degree weather shift.

March

July

Seriously.

I will be remembering this past weekend of 90+ temperatures when I am in my seven layers topped off with a hooded down parka that reaches my ankles.

Oh yes, I will remember.

But this morning as the thermometer stretches toward 80 degrees and it is only 8 am, I am remembering 30 below…and thinking no matter what, I like summer better. Hands down.

Because after a long, hot day where we’ve watched the sun emerge from the horizon and make its merry little way across the sky, beating down on our lawns and flower beds, sweating up our skin as we stand there, coaxing the flies to buzz around our ears and the corn in the east to stretch its arms a little higher, we sigh and sip our iced tea knowing that in a few hours we may be awarded a sweet reprieve. A breath. A sigh. A little cool-off before we hastily throw some burgers on the grill at dark and crawl under the sheets.

I call it the magic hour.

Others call it evening. Sunset. Dusk. Twilight. It’s that fleeting time where the sun moves slowly toward the west side of the world, promising soon to sink below the horizon, but not before it casts long shadows, turns the hilltops to gold, calls out the dragonflies, kisses the coulees with cool air, and fills our nostrils with the scents of crisp clover, wildflowers and grasses.

It’s the perfect time to grab your horse and head for the hills. Because if it was a windy day, the witching hour calms the breeze. If it was a hot and muggy day you might find yourself some cloud cover at the cusp of an oncoming thunder storm. If it was a sunny, 80+ day and you are out during the perfect time, you will literally feel the temperature dropping around you and your skin cool down as you ride or walk in and out of the draws and up the hill to catch the sunset.

We wait for it here, the magical hour, as we wipe our brow, salty and glistening from a day of work or play. But it’s all about timing, and we have turned it into a science.

See, if you jump the gun too early in the day, you will be saddling your horse in the intense sun of the late afternoon. The flies will still be nasty, you will be sweating profusely, your horse will be stomping at the pests and heat and you might get a little cranky riding toward that sunset waiting for the orange ball in the sky to move along already.

If you head out to the barnyard too late you will be rushing things trying to race the dark. And by the time you get on and move out you will have missed the the moments where the sun highlights the black backs of the cows on the side hill, the air shifts and cools your skin, the sun changes from yellow to pink and the deer might be moving and emerging from the thick trees. And your ride will be cut short, because once that sun touches the last hill your eye can see, it gets dark fast.

So you can see why it’s a craft can’t you? You can see why we watch the sky, take notice of our skin and the shadows and when the sun is in the just the right spot, more west than middle, more down than up, more moderate than hot, we pull on our longer sleeves, head to the tack room to grab a bucket of grain and saddle up.

We climb on and head out along the edges of the oak groves and stay in their shadows while the sun moves a little closer to the edge of our world.

And when we’re cooled down we climb up to the nearest hill to see if we can catch a deer as it moves out of the trees to graze among the clover, to watch the dragonflies dart and dive, to catch the moment when the landscape turns from a painting with all the right highlights to a mysterious shadow with a strip of orange hovering above it.

And before that sun greets the other side of the world completely, we turn and head back home, cooled off, satisfied, decompressed, a little tired, a little hungry, a little more alive…