Morning

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The morning is quickly becoming one of my favorite times of the day now that we’ve moved into the new place. I suspected this would be the case after we planned a house with big windows facing toward the hill where the sun makes her grand entrance each morning. I get out of bed, turn on the coffee pot and stand with my nose pressed to the sliding glass door and take a look at how the day might turn out.

It’s different every morning, sometimes a little dreary, sometimes crisp and calm, sometimes the sky spits out rain and sometimes the sun comes up with a promise of a beautiful day.

I’m blessed to be able to watch it from a few different angles behind my coffee cup. And I’m even more blessed to be able to pull on my jeans and shoes and step out in it if I so choose.

This morning I chose to pay it a visit. Lately I haven’t had time to be anything but be a spectator as the grass grew and dried up, the birds took their morning bath in the dam and the clouds rolled over this house. But I had a moment this morning where I felt there was nothing more important than to be a part of the world outside my window and beyond the road to town.

So I grabbed my camera, my coffee cup and the dogs and took a stroll toward the dam. The lab was thrilled at the chance for a quick dip in the water,

the pug kept busy chasing field mice through the tall grass…

and I worked hard to capture the way the light filtered through the thin skin of the bull berries…

the way it kissed the tips of the wildflowers at the end of their season…

how it made the tall grass glisten

and my world look fresh before the heat of the day.

I am in love with that brief moment where the sun makes my shadow long and tall when I stand with my back toward the light.

Because the wind will blow today. The dust from the trucks will fly.

It might even rain.

But I had my morning.

I will have my evening.

And I’m at peace knowing they will come around again and again outside my windows.

A picture comes to life…

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Well, we moved some furniture into the new house this weekend and it is looking like my birthday month will be the month we move into our new home, whether or not the staircase and/or master bedroom, trim work or basement is complete.

I’ve lived in construction zone before, and I’m prepared to do it again. Just imagining us sipping coffee on our deck (which does not exist yet either) and watching the sun come up over the hills we’re nestled in together reminds me that life is a work in progress that is worth the wait.

Sometimes I get a little anxious about it all. I catch myself thinking that other people have it figured out..that other people have houses complete with carpet and painted walls and tiles, a beautiful, finished staircase and money left over to go on a Mediterranean Cruise.

The reality is, some people do. Some people have the vision and the cash to make what they want appear before them without a smudge of tile mortar crusted to their unshaven legs.

We are not those people. We are the people with the vision and the muscle to watch it come to fruition before us slowly, with a little sweat, a lot of muscle and a few tears mixed in.

But despite the hard work, saw dust on my clothes and paint in my hair, I have to say, at this moment where we’re able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I wouldn’t trade the experience of doing it ourselves for all of the contractors in California.

Because there is something about working alongside your family as they hammer and nail and paint and move heavy things in an effort to see your dream realized. There’s something about hearing thier encouraging comments and seeing their excitement as things come together that makes me grateful to get my hands dirty with them.

And it means everything to be able to stand next to a husband who so desperately wants to make our dreams come true that he works long days and comes home to climb ladders, string wires and nail flooring only to put his hands on his hips and look at me all frazzled, sweaty and cranky and say “dream house, dream girl.”

It means everything to believe him.

It means the most to feel the same way.

So this week my mind’s in a thousand different places–in my music, in my writing, in my work, in the clothes and paperwork I can’t find and the budget we need to stretch to get this done. But I’m going to work hard to stay in the moment and notice the smile on my husband’s face as he checks off his list and gets us one step closer to having coffee together in our new home.

Our view from the kitchen…

Because I want to remember this, as hard as it’s been. I want to remember that when I was sixteen I drew him a picture.

And when I turned twenty-nine he made that picture come to life.

We’ll get the goat and the pigs next year…

The prairie’s gift…

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

The sunsets on this prairie are nothing short of a gift.

After a long day working under the hot summer sun, or inside the walls of buildings that make us feel small, we understand that if we look up towards the heavens to catch the sun sneaking away, we may be rewarded with a splash of spectacular color.

I’ve seen sunsets in other parts of the world–across the vast ocean, peeking over the mountaintops and at the edge of rolling corn fields, but there is something about the way the sun says goodbye along the outskirts of my own world, against the familiar buttes and grain bins and horses on the horizon that puts me at ease and thrills me at the same time.

I have theories about things like hail storms and tornadoes and blinding blizzards, that they’re a way of slowing us down, reminding us to surrender to an earth that spins no matter what our plans are for crops or hair-dos or making it our Christmas party on time.

The storms are unpredictable, but the sun is always there.

And it will always set and rise again.

And sometimes as we put the burgers on the grill, close the gates for the cattle or put the lawn mower in the shed we will find ourselves bathed in yellow, gold, purple, orange, pink and blue and hues we cannot find in our crayon box. We will look above the oak groves or down to the end of the pink road and we will find that sun playing and bouncing against the clouds that roll over the prairie and buttes that we know so well.

I tilt my head up and run to find the nearest hill so that I may watch how this landscape looks under the different shades of light.

Under these prairie sunsets I am a spectator on the familiar ground of home.

A tourist with my mouth agape in wonder.

And thankful for a world that’s round and a sky so vast and forgiving.

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