Have you ever heard the National Anthem performed at full volume by four little girls crammed inside a two-door side-by-side while you’re driving across a bumpy field with a little dog at your feet and one perched on the tool box in the back with the wind blowing a late summer storm in?

It’s the kind of volume that sends even the most seasoned parent into a bit of a twitch. I should have known when I suggested singing instead of arguing over whether we should have stayed longer at the beaver dam to see if we could catch more turtles with a storm coming in. How dumb of me to think that they would choose a sweet folk performance as a serenade…

My sister and I have been taking our daughters and our dogs on little ranch excursions like this since the kids were tiny enough to fit in baby packs strapped to our chests as we drove prairie trails looking for crocuses or new calves, sunflowers and Christmas trees  There was a point all six of us could fit across the bench seat of our old side-by-side and still fit one or two dogs in there with us. We blinked and suddenly we have a six, eight, nine and ten year-old plus six dogs between us. It’s safe to say we’ve outgrown our little side-by-side rides together.  

But that doesn’t stop us from trying. Which is what we were doing last week when my husband came back from his daily rounds of checking on things. He was up in at the big beaver dams behind my parent’s house and walked up on dozens of turtles sunning themselves on logs and one big snapping turtle just swimming around, being his very cool prehistoric self in the middle of the modern age.

These three big beaver dams were a magical place for my sister and I when we were growing up. We would follow the creek from our backyard about a good mile or so through a thick coulee of oaks and ash and scrub trees to pick wild raspberries, catch frogs, collect ticks and see if the lily pads had appeared or if we could catch the beavers doing their work.

Each dam gets deeper and wider the farther you follow it, and the banks are steep, the brush thorny and tangled and the ground is uneven and covered in tall-green grass and reeds, the vegetation staying green until fall because it stays cool in the shade. It doesn’t feel like you’re on the North Dakota prairie when you’re following these trails cut by cattle, deer and elk. You get yourself far enough away from the house and the barn and you think maybe you’re in a true forest. When you’re a kid you think maybe you could be a wild girl out here on our own, living under a lean-to fort and surviving off of chokecherries. Sort of makes you feel that way as an adult too.

I have spent some time in every season of my life sitting on those banks as a spectator, quietly watching the wildlife swim and drink and eat and work. The beavers always fascinated me, how they could take down all those trees and control all that water like little construction workers in round, fluffy bodies— it didn’t seem physically possible. But my favorite was always watching the turtles, so of course I was going to load up the kids to see what we could see that day.

“Can we all fit?” my little sister asked as I pulled into her driveway.

“Only if we leave a few dogs behind.”

But as you can imagine, four girls running, chatting, debating the appearance of poison ivy and complaining about the burs sticking to their jeans, two moms telling them to toughen up and that we used to come back here as kids ALONE and nobody even knew where we WERE and we were FINE and it was the NINETIES and the two dogs that decided to follow along and bark at the ducks fleeing for their lives is only sneaky enough to catch a brief glimpse of two beavers running away.  And the red-eared slider turtles probably heard us coming from three miles away and chose to save themselves the drama.  But that old snapping turtle? He’s seen some things and was so unbothered that he just swam around pulling pond scum with him, giving a show long enough for us all to fawn over how massive and old and cool he was before the wind picked up, folding the leaves on the trees and threatening a bit of rain. And so, we all headed back to that old side-by-side, pulling the barbed-wire fence open for one another to cross one by one.

“I thought we were going to catch some turtles,” Rosie said, sorta disappointed.

“I think we’re going to have to practice our sneaking skills,” I replied as I started up the machine and set her on my lap so the rest of the girls could cram in and shut the door. “Why don’t you all sing a song to get us home…”

“OOOHHH SAAYYY CANN YOU SEEEE!!!!! BY THE DAWNSERLY LIGHT!!!”

Next time they’re driving separate…