Tag Archives: winter

When winter is welcome

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October is heading over the horizon and it’s bringing with it all the colors–the golds and reds and browns–of a season that doesn’t stay long enough.

And it’s leaving a trail of frost in its wake.

I see it in the mornings, sparkling and shimmering on the railing of my deck, on the cracked windshield of the pickup, on the leftover leaves and acorns on the trails,

on the stems of the grass and the crust of the dirt.

I am digging out my sweaters again. Funny how it’s only been five months since I packed them away but I can’t seem to remember where they went.

Funny how it’s only been a few weeks since the sun touched my legs and already my skin is fading into its pale winter shade.

I run my hands over the horses’ backs and notice they’re changing too, long scruffy hair growing in to protect them from the promised winter winds.

We are becoming the season it seems.

I’m sipping tea to ward of the little scratch in my throat, the little runny nose that I acquired when the cold came in.

I am North Dakota. Personified in the permanent chilled flush in my cheeks, rolling up the hoses and packing away the cutoff shorts. Swapping cowboy boots for winter boots and my straw hat for one that is knit and covers my ears.

If I were California I would never change. If I were California I would wear summer dresses all year and never be ashamed of my scaly winter skin. I would eat orange popsicles and sip iced tea and put fresh flowers in a vase on my table every week.  I would be sun kissed and golden and I wouldn’t wear socks.

Especially not wool socks.

If I were California I would be beautiful all year.

But I am North Dakota and my flowers have dried up now. And we are beginning our predictably unpredictable decent into winter.

The ice rests lightly on the water in the stock tank.

The air bites and the trees have stripped down to sleep. I am cutting potatoes for soup, boiling water and feeling weighed down but hungry the way only Northerners can feel.

If I were a beast I would hibernate.

If I had wings I would fly toward the sun.

If I were a legend I would find a way to catch the snow in my hands and send it back up.

Back up for another month.

And back down in December when winter is welcome.

A boot in a snowbank and a puppy in the house.

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And now, for a brief story about how my momma came home one evening last week to find one of her fancy boots laying haphazardly in a snowbank in the front yard…as told by my mother, to me, over wine sloshing in a glass while she waved it in exasperation and disbelief.  

Jessie, I have to tell you something. Did I tell you this already? I don’t know. Well, oh my gawd, yesterday I left the house to go to work, and, well, oh you know that puppy just makes me so nervous when I’m backing out of the garage. She jumps around and follows me, it’s like the most stressful part of my day trying to get her to stay out of the way. She’s so cute but, ugh, I don’t want to run her over…

Anyway, so I go to work and come home that night and open the door from the garage to the house, and, Jessie, I know that door was shut when I got home, and I’m sure I closed it when I left for work. You know that puppy tries to follow me in the house and I say, ‘no, get back’ and shoo her out of there, so I know I shut it.

But anyway, I open the door and I get in the entryway and I feel like something’s off, you know. Like someone’s been in here. Then I notice a FedEx package, so I figure that was it. The FedEx guy dropped off a package, no big deal. But I walked a little further into the house and I see little tracks on the kitchen floor leading into the living room, like the puppy had been in the house! And then I get to the living room and some of my shoes and clothes from my bedroom were strung out into the living room. And I look around then and there’s other things too, like dad’s gloves and hats from the garage are in the house. It was weird. So I wondered if somehow I accidentally let the puppy in before I went to work, but I’m sure I didn’t. I’m sure of it. And she was in the garage when I got home, but if she got in how did she get out?

Anyway, so I start picking up the stuff from the living room and notice one of my new Corral boots, you know, the fancy ones, the ones I just bought…yeah, those…one of them is missing! I can’t find it anywhere in the house. It wasn’t in the living room or kitchen or back in the bedrooms.

Well, you know where it was? Outside! Outside in a snow bank.

I looked out the window and there it was. And I don’t get it. How did she get in and how did she get out? Oh, that puppy, she just loves to drag things. Dad told you she got his box of gloves down from the shelf in the garage last week, somehow, I don’t know how she got up there, anyway, she pulled them down and spread every glove out on the garage floor and out into the yard. She’s even found his power tools, has been chewing on them.

Anyway, so my boot was ok. Thank gawd. Thank gawd it wasn’t snowing or anything and she didn’t eat it. But I still don’t know how she got in the house and out of the house while we were gone? I know I shut that door when I left and I’m pretty sure I didn’t lock her in there.

The only thing I can think is like maybe the FedEx man accidentally let her in when he dropped off the package. You know how she can sneak in the door behind you and if you’re not paying attention she’s gets in the house…but how did she get out? Maybe the door isn’t latching the right way…I don’t know…

I don’t know. It’s a mystery. But my boot? Can you believe it!? Ugh, thank gawd it was ok…

Oh, Juno...


Three princesses.

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When you’re an aunt to three princesses your world can turn from dull to pink with the simple opening of a car door. Suddenly the wind blowing quietly through the brown bare trees and the sound of the snow softly falling on the roof is eclipsed by tiny, high pitched voices asking tiny high pitched questions about where the horses are, why we have a giant hole dug in front of the house in the shape of a garage, can they put on their cowgirl boots, do they have to wear their mittens, where are the dogs, where is my dad, who is my dad, where is my mom, where is Little Man, can they get a drink of water, can we go ice skating, can we go sledding, can we climb that tree we climbed when we were here this summer, can we walk in the deep snow up through the trees and to the top of the hill?

Can you and Uncle C come with us?

When you’re an aunt you answer all questions. Every. Single. One. No matter how hard it is for you to sort through all the talking at once, because your world has been quiet and brown lately and it takes a while to adjust to a different pitch and all that sparkle.

And when you’re an aunt to three princesses you have a duty to really think through your answers. Because I was a princess once I’m pretty sure, and princesses don’t ask questions they don’t intend on remembering the answers to.

Same goes with promises.

So I keep those, especially the one I make when I’m half sleeping about homemade chocolate chip pancakes in the morning without thinking about the ingredients I may or may not have in the fridge.

When you’re an aunt to three princesses who lives thirty miles from town and you have made a promise about pancakes only to discover that there is no Bisquick for miles, you figure out pretty quick how Betty Crocker does it.

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When you’re an aunt you let them wear their cowgirl boots in the house and suggest they wear their mittens while you take them sledding and climbing through the trees and skidding across the frozen dam because real cowgirls wear mittens on 20 degree snowy days in March because cowgirls need all of their fingers.

And then you take them to see the horses and promise them that as soon as the weather turns they will come out with those cowgirl boots and you will take them riding. And they will believe you.

Because once you were a princess too and princesses keep promises.

When you’re an aunt and you load those three princesses up into your car to take them home only to promptly get pulled over by a very detail oriented police officer, you secretly hope the cuteness he finds when he arrives at your window will help get you out of the offense while you calmly explain that cops are nice humans who are just looking out for other humans like their aunty who forget about important laws like putting the new tags on your license plates.

Then the princesses will shrug their shoulders and say that’s ok, the same thing happened to their daddy.

When you’re an aunt you will take a similar calm and assured approach to the blizzard you suddenly find yourself in with precious cargo in tow.

You will ask them to sing “You are my sunshine” while you white knuckle it on icy, snowy roads, the windshield wipers on full blast, praying that the Good Lord helps deliver you the last twenty miles to their house where you let them eat Girl Scout Cookies while you make them supper.

And then you might eat a whole box of Thin Mints all by yourself, blaming it on the stress of driving three princesses 90 miles through a blinding blizzard, the 3,000 calories a reward for getting them there safely and without any screaming.

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When you’re an aunt to three princesses you don’t forget when it’s Saint Patricks Day, even if it means that your fingers may be permanently green from all the food coloring you put in their noodle soup and thirty seven glasses of milk they insisted on drinking before bedtime.

When you’re an aunt you don’t think about things like maybe they shouldn’t have thirty seven glasses of milk before bed because little princesses have little bladders.

But when you’re an aunt to three princesses you just say “Oh well, it’s alright” and then you ask them to put on their sparkly dresses and twirl while you watch and laugh and clap and remember what it was like to be small looking up to your big sister and chasing your little one around the coffee table…

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and you don’t ever mention to anyone the soft spot you have for the middle one, because you were a middle princess once too and you know how it is.

But you will quietly thank her for reminding you as you watch them all dream, tucked in snug under the covers of their parents’ king sized bed, little pink arms and legs sprawled out so that there is no room for you to squeeze in.

When you’re an aunt to three princesses you accept your fate, grab a pillow and make a bed for yourself on the couch, wondering how you will go back home tomorrow to all that quiet and beige, cupboards without fruit snacks, clothing without sequins, pancakes without chocolate chips, trees and hills and soon to be melting snow without children waiting to break in those cowgirl boots in the puddles…

And then you will close your eyes and dream of fairies and horses with wings, dolphins who can sing, puppies who can talk, diamond encrusted crowns, beautiful dresses and matching shoes, monkeys jumping on beds, leprechauns and all of the things princesses teach you to remember exist…

And then you might snap out of it to find that you’ve been watching three straight hours of  the Disney Channel…

Restless waiting.

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This is what March looks like from the inside of my house with the door open as I watch nature do her thing.

In ten to fifteen minutes the wind will really pick up, whistling through the branches of the trees and blowing that fluffy snow in white, blinding swirls.

I will think about Husband out there on the roads that were coated in rain yesterday afternoon and likely frozen solid today and I will worry until I hear the sound of his boots clump up the steps and the creak of the door as it swings open.

Home, safe and sound in the middle of a full-blown March blizzard.

Oh, we get one or two in this month that promises spring pretty soon, but not quite yet.

Kids all across the state are celebrating the first snow day of the winter by bundling up to head outside and build forts and fling snowballs or snuggling in their jammies under a blanket with popcorn and a movie.

Teachers are taking this free day to catch up on paperwork, housework or finish that book they haven’t had time to start, dads and moms are shoveling sidewalks and driveways, college students are drinking beer or playing video games, grampas are watching the radar, ranchers with cattle under their care are worrying about calving and throwing an extra straw bale out on the snowy ground and the southerners up here for work are wondering what the hell they’ve gotten themselves into.

Me? Well, I’m in my long underwear staring out the window at the way the snow swirls and drifts and makes the walls of this house moan a bit. The snow is melting from my boots and making puddles on the warm floor in the entryway and the dogs are snoring on their spots, a result of our morning trek outside to admire the way the snow had settled on the trees overnight.

That was before the wind picked up and shook it off.

That was before Husband was home safe and sound.

That was before I ate a sandwich and wrote a song I think I might have written before and thanked the heavens from where this snow was falling that I didn’t have to be anywhere but home.

Because an hour ago I was making my way to the top of the hill to see what the overnight snow had done to yesterday’s brown landscape. The dogs reached the summit before me, their ears blowing in the wind and their eyes squinting against the snowflakes landing on their eyelashes with growing force.

I knelt down to snap a photo of a frozen, sleepy flower and headed for the shelter of the oaks.

No matter the wind and the weather those trees are a haven and a sort of quiet mystery to me. I know that’s where the horses are, somewhere in this pasture huddled together in the oak groves. I know that’s where the deer bed and the elk hide and the squirrels and grouse and maybe even the mountain lions go to wait out the weather.

To wait  for spring.

And I know I won’t see them today, the blizzard growing more severe and the dogs more obnoxious and curious as they snort and roll and climb in and out of the banks.

This time of year I get restless. This time of year I get worried that I won’t have another great idea, that my skin will never be brown again, that I won’t ever warm up.

Last night I declared these worries out loud to Husband who lay next to me in bed, relaxed and assured and breathing softly in the dark.

In the quiet calm of a Sunday night, a night working on brewing a storm that would keep us tucked in our houses the next day, I said, “What if I never write another song? What if all of my ideas are used up? What if I’m not good enough to keep up with the plans I have? What if I get sad and stay sad? I can’t be sad. I don’t have time to be sad.”

He was silent for the moment after the words I chose, the ones that went… “I wish you understood…” and then he said, “You can be sad. And you can do nothing. Sometimes you need to do nothing. And then, you need to get up, go outside and live a life that gives you something to write about.”

So I went out in the storm today, not because I don’t know what it feels like, but because I wanted to feel it again. Because I wanted to be reminded.

And I wanted to be cold and out of breath and far away from the house and the work and the worry and sheltered by nothing but the heavy branches of the oaks.

I wanted to be quiet and let nature–uncontrollable, unpredictable, fascinatingly, frustratingly, beautifully unyielding nature–do her thing while the rest of the world made snowmen and banana bread, mopped floors and read newspapers, navigated snowy roads, called friends, made plans and wrote novels.

And I, like the deer bedded down and undetectable, did nothing but wait.

Snow on the backs of horses.

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This is what it looks like when you put a house cat out in the snow for the first time in its life.

Coincidently this is also the face that was staring back at her after I peeled her out of my arms like a piece of velcro with really strong legs ..and then again off my head…and then again off of my boots.

We’re in a fight, but don’t feel bad for her, the weather is warming up and I think it’s time she gets acclimated to this wild place.

Yes, tomorrow it will be March and my longing for green grass, crocuses and creek beds overflowing with melted snow will summon me to pull on my muck boots and go exploring for the slightest change in scenery.

It will be March tomorrow, and I feel the chilled surrender that January brings start to break up and separate inside of me, even as I stand under a gray sky that blends into the horizon as if it weren’t a sky at all but a continuation of the snowy landscape…below us, above us…surrounding us.

Flakes fell from that sky yesterday afternoon, big and soft and gentle they drifted down to the icy earth and summoned me from behind my windows to come outside and stick out my tongue.

When the snow falls like this, not sideways or blowing or whipping at our faces, but peaceful and steady and quiet, it’s a small gift. I feel like I’m tucked into the mountains instead of exposed and vulnerable on the prairie. I feel like, even in the final days before March, that someone has shaken the snow globe just the right amount to calm me down and get me out of my head.

When the snow falls like this I go look for the horses. I want to see what those flakes look like as they settle on their warm backs, on their soft muzzles and furry ears. I trudge to the barnyard or to the fields and wait for them to spot me, watching as they move toward that figure in a knit cap and boots to her knees, an irregular dot on a landscape they know by heart.

I know what they want as they stick their noses in my pockets, sniff at my camera and fight for the first spot in line next to me. I know they want a scratch between their ears.

I know they want a bite of grain.

They know I can get it for them.

Our horses in the winter take on a completely different persona. The extra layer of fur they grow to protect them from the weather makes them appear less regal and more approachable.

Softer.

I like to take off my mitten and run my fingers through that wool, rubbing them down to the skin underneath where they keep the smell of clover and the warmth of the afternoon sun. I like to put my face up to their velvet noses and look into those eyes and wonder if they miss the green grass as much as I do.

On this snowy, gray, almost March afternoon the horses are my closest link to an inevitable summer that doesn’t seem so inevitable under this knit hat, under this colorless sky.

I lead them to the grain bin and open the door, shoveling out scoops of grain onto the frozen ground. They argue over whose pile is whose, nipping a bit and moving from spot to spot like a living carrousel. I talk to the them, “whoah boys, easy” and walk away from the herd with an extra scoop for the new bay, his head bobbing and snorting behind me.

In a month or so the ground will thaw and the fur on the back of these animals will let loose and shake off, revealing the slick and silky coat of chestnut, white, deep brown, gold and black underneath. We will brush them off, untangle their manes, check their feet and climb on their backs and those four legs will carry us over the hills and down in the draws and to the fields where we will watch for elk or deer or stray cattle as the sun sinks below the horizon.

I move my hand across the bay’s back, clearing away the snowflakes that have settled in his long hair and I rest my cheek there, breathing in the scent of hay and dust and warmer days.

He’s settled into chewing now, his head low and hovering above the pile of grain I placed before him. He’s calm and steady so I can linger there for a moment and wonder if he tastes summer in the grain the same way I smell it in his skin.

My farewell to winter is long, lingering and ceremonious.

But it has begun. At last, it has begun.

Not so sparkly love.

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There’s something about existing in nothing but white and brown for months on end that makes people around here head out to search for some color.

Some of them book a flight to Jamaica for sandy beaches, blue water and umbrella drinks, some head for the mountains so they might see the same white at a different height and some just step outside to see if the sunset is up for putting on a show tonight.

I think that’s why they put a holiday like Valentines Day in the middle of February, because we all need a little warming up by now, a little snuggle and a little smell of a rose to remind us that they are blooming somewhere.

Last night I played music for people out on dates at a fancy restaurant in the middle of the badlands. I sat at the front of the room and tried to pull out as many love songs as I could muster, wondering while I was singing Elvis’s “Fools Rush In” why I have a closet full of earth tones and black. I wondered why the only colorful thing I own is the pair red boots I wore with my wedding dress.

And my guitar strap with the little red birds.

I was glad I was wearing both as I finished up…”and I can’t help, falling in love with you…” and watched a couple hold hands and eat little pieces of lobster and steak off one another’s plates in a sea of men and women in their best clothes, dressed up right for a Thursday night.

I wished I had a sparkly pink shirt like the young woman toasting a glass of champagne with her husband or boyfriend at the table in front of me.

The night before I had warned Husband not to worry about Valentines Day this year.

“I won’t be home until well after midnight,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”

And he said “Ok.”

And that was fine. I’m not a fan of chocolate and where Husband works, there’s not a floral shop for miles. My Valentines Day gift to him was to let him off the hook.

His gift to me was his yearly rant about the holiday and why we have to designate a day to remember we love each other when he remembers he loves me everyday.

I know it’s coming, his little rant. And I know it will be followed directly by the “flowers are so predictable” speech.  I smile and remember the time he left a rose in my locker on a Valentines Day in 9th grade and I’m happy for the memory.

And happy for all the Valentines Days I’ve been able to share with with a cute and thoughtful boy who turned out to be a man who makes the coffee nice and strong, searches for his clothes in the early hours of the morning with a headlamp so he doesn’t wake me, knows his way around a kitchen, unclogs the clogs, fixes broken things and promises he will be there tonight when I sing again, no matter the hours and miles he has to put in at work today.

And I think that’s pretty nice, those little promises to make life a little nicer for one another.

It’s not always that way. Sometimes you just have to make a comment about the dirty dishes that have been piled up in the sink for days because of the silent protest you’ve made not to touch them just to see how long it will take for him to get fed up and put a few in the dishwasher already.

Sometimes you have to say something about the way his feet smell when he takes off his work boots because you fear the hidden toxins coming off of the green steam is killing the cat.

And sometimes he just has to ask what the hell is going on with your hair, because really, what the hell is going on with your hair.

But when you come in after midnight because you’ve been out singing to pretty people eating cheesecake and toasting to love to find the lights on and that smelly-footed man waiting up for you in the kitchen just to say hello and goodnight, somehow those dirty dishes don’t seem to catch your eye.

And it doesn’t matter that you’re not wearing that sparkly pink shirt you should have in your closet but you don’t.

Because in the glow of the kitchen light in the middle of a February night that was coating the world with snow and promising more white and cold, a stubborn, thoughtful, groggy man reminds you that love is never off the hook.

Especially on Valentines Day.

Winter crazy.

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I know I’ve been talking about the weather a lot lately, trudging through the snow, climbing to the top of it, bundling up and taking it on by looking for the beauty in 30 below.

Well, we’re at the end of January now so I would like to take this opportunity, in the midst of another dangerous wind-chill advisory, to say ‘good riddance’ to the hardest and most brutal month of the year up here in the great white north.

Yup, that’s a little negative sign right there next to the 20. This is before the windchill. But hey, the sun is shining so what the hell, let’s just call it a beautiful day.

I think we made it through just fine admiring the sundogs,

and the fluffy puppy,

eating egg rolls, throwing sledding parties

and climbing the frosted badlands.

But I feel now it’s time to confess the fact that all of those things did their best to distract me from going crazy in this cooped up state, but they did not succeed entirely.

No.

I am afraid I might have hung on to a bit of that inevitable winter insanity.

But please, don’t judge me. Let me remind you that I’m still a woman living in an unfinished house, sharing my winter space with a good number of power tools and using a shop vac to complete the majority of my cleaning. And in a situation like this, unexpected additions to the decor and atmosphere pop up unexpectedly.

I mean, you try staying sane when you can be jolted from your sleep at any given moment by the excruciating and terrifying gun-shot like sound of the air-compressor shaking the house as it recharges in the loft.

You try remembering to unplug that thing when the only time it makes itself apparent is at 2 am! The dogs wake up and start a barking frenzy right before one of them pukes on the floor. The cats in the basement cling to the ceiling and you shake your husband, telling him that this time, you’re sure it’s a robber.

Or an alien.

You try keeping your cool as your knight in shining armor rolls over and falls back to sleep.

I mean, I always swear I”ll unplug that thing first thing in the morning. But in the morning all I can think of is coffee, and so the cycle continues as I make my way from the coffee pot my favorite chair, but not before I trip over that stack of cedar my husband decided to place in my path, sending me flailing forward as my coffee splays across the floor and I invent thirty-seven new curse words.

And those words are in addition to the ones I invented yesterday when I tripped over that same stack of wood three times.

I’m serious. It blends in. I get comfortable in my environment and I don ‘t find it necessary to look down.  It’s a defect that I blame for the multiple times I’ve stepped the wrong way off of our front step and into the pit that will become our garage in the spring.

These types of outcomes are precisely the reason I’ve  never been a furniture rearranging kind of person. Because I strongly believe that if you put something in its place, it should stay there.

Forever.

My life, limbs and coffee, depend on it.

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Anyway, I am blaming those miseries on my husband. But I will tell you, I’ve created plenty of my own this winter, starting with allowing our one and only barn cat to take up residence in our basement. I mean, it’s so damn cold out there and now that we’re not in the barnyard I felt she needed to be close by, you know, to take the pressure off of the dogs to keep wild cat occupied while keeping her diet in check by batting her away with a vengeance if she dares get too close to the food.

I’ve been questioning this arrangement, but it seems it’s too late. Last weekend I attempted to put that barn cat outside to enjoy the 40 degree day and before I even opened the door she managed to claw her way out of my grip and up to my shoulder before flinging her body off the top of my head and running for cover.

And so I’ve been warned. There’s no way in hell that cat is every leaving my basement–rain, snow, forty below or 80 above.

Shit.

Allowing another animal into this house is not the weirdest mistake I’ve made this winter. No. A few days ago in my attempt to reach Husband I dialed the wrong number and asked a complete stranger if he planned to come home tonight. The man on the other end of the line sounded a lot like my husband, and, well, I didn’t appreciate his tone.

Turns out he didn’t appreciate mine either.

And then there was that time my car was making weird noises as I drove through the neighboring town, forcing me to pull over in the parking lot of Runnings where it became evident that when I put the thing in park it was going to ignore me and just kept rolling…and when I put it in reverse it sounded like it was going to blow up.

So I sat there with my foot on the brake for a half an hour while I waited for a tow truck to bring me to the mechanic and for Pops to come and save me and take me grocery shopping before bringing me 60 miles back home. I waited, car-less through the holiday season, only to get a call informing me they couldn’t find anything wrong with the vehicle, except, well, you know the thirty-seven rock chips in the windshield.

Yup, that really happened. It was an annoying Christmas miracle and I have spent every day since driving that car just waiting for it to blow up or something.

Oh, I know we all have little mishaps and results of poor judgement in our lives, I just think the annoyance is multiplied out here by the fact that we’re also cooped up and freezing. So I guess I decided to share them so we could laugh about while we dream about summer.

But I’ll I make sure to roll my eyes first.

And sometimes I might hollar “Really?! Really!” so don’t be alarmed.

Happy last day of January. I hope you made it through with your sanity.

If you need me, I’ll be looking for mine…

Goodbye Summer

Seeing it all.

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We’re finding our way to the end of January, and around these parts that’s a huge relief.  I’ve been keeping busy playing music, writing and eating carbohydrates, and after a Friday evening spent singing to a full house, I was thawing out and happy with the way life gives you gifts, like 40 degrees on a January weekend.

Funny how a little warm up can turn an attitude around. Suddenly I was in love with winter again and while Husband worked on hammering and nailing and putting up walls in our master bedroom, I worked on ways I could sneak out the door unnoticed.

Because I decided it was of utmost importance that I load up little Juno and give her a tour of her new home turf.

Because we needed to check on things, ensure the gears were grinding right, the snowbanks weren’t too deep and the view was still as beautiful.

We needed to make sure those weird clouds weren’t storm clouds above us.

We needed to introduce her to the horses.

We needed to play…

and run…

And do whatever Tucker was doing here…





That looked like fun.

See, around here, if we chose to look, we can see things like this every day.

And although winter gets long, it’s one of those seasons that changes the landscape constantly. And so I suppose I’ve made it my mission here to keep tabs on the way the horses grow beards to ward off the chill…

The way the clouds roll and shift and change directions and colors…

How the light hits the grass and makes it sparkle…

How the horses settle lethargically into a pile of grain…

and how their noses feel under our hands.

I watch it all because I don’t want to miss it.

Because I like the way a puppy kiss looks.


And the sound of snow melting under a blue sky.

And the tree rows planted all those years ago? I like that they’re scraggly but standing still under a slow to rise winter sun.


I like the idea that this all will be green again, but first it has to be blue and white and brown.

I like that I’m here for all of that changing.

And I like the feeling, that like Juno, I’m hearing it all, seeing it all, discovering it all for the first time…on a 40 degree weekend at the end of January.

The beautiful things.

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I have a good life. Not much to complain about when it comes down to it really, except for a weird tail-less cat trying to climb up my leg, not enough hours in the day, unfinished projects and cold toes.

But some days, during a break in the morning news, I cry at the Walgreens commercial.

And the commercial for a web browser that tells the story about a dad sending his daughter off to college. And then they video chat.

And anything with a cute baby or a puppy or a grampa or a soldier coming home.

And lately I cry at the weather report.

Now, don’t get all worried about me yet. I’m not sure I would be diagnosed with any emotional disorder, although Husband has diagnosed me simply “emotional.”

And he’s right.

I spend quite a bit of my life laughing though, so I figure I’m balanced.

But I admit, some days are worse than others. I admit it because I’m human and I know you’re human (unless you’re a dog and humans haven’t discovered your abilities to access the web without thumbs) and we all have days like these.

Days that send me running for the hills.

I’ve learned over the course of my nearly 30 (gasp!) years alive in this breathtaking and heartbreaking place it’s the only thing to do to recover my senses and gain my balance and center myself once more.

I remove my body from the television screen, the radio, the music, the computer and all of those heartbreaking, heartwarming and heart wrenching stories and just try to live in my own for a moment.

It hasn’t been easy to do this lately, between the life-threatening cold temperatures, scheduled meetings and darkness that falls too early in the winter, I’ve had to make a special space in my day for clarity.

It’s why I keep an extra pair of snow boots and a furry hat in my car just in case. You never know when you might have a chance to escape.

I found one yesterday afternoon. I had a few of those teary moments over coffee and the news while I moved through my morning trying to pull it together, get to the office, make it to the meeting, keep up on emails, plan for an event, meet a deadline and live comfortably in pretty work sweaters between four walls.

4:30 came around and I had a meeting at 6.

An hour and a half hours would do it.

I got in my car and pointed it toward a favorite refuge, the only other place in the world beside the ranch where I can look winter in the face and call it truly beautiful.

The Theodore Roosevelt National Park.


 I’ve taken you there before on similar weepy days in the  fall when I’m overwhelmed and worried, on summer days when I’m tan and moving to the next adventure, and winter.

I really love it in the winter.

And it never lets me down.

So in 15 minutes I was there, turning off of the highway and following the snow coated road toward the river and the buttes,


stopping to capture how the sun looks above the frozen water and if I might catch the bison grazing somewhere in the snow.

I drove slowly to admire the lighting. I rolled down my window a bit to feel the fresh, 20 degree air and pulled over where the road ends, next to a trail that can take you to the top of it all.

I checked my watch. I had 20 minutes before I needed to turn my car around and head back to my other world. I was in my town coat and dangly earrings.

I switched out my fancy boots for snow boots, covered my hair with a beanie and trudged on up there, slipping and sliding and panting because, well, I just felt like it.

I felt like climbing.

Because this is what winter looks like in the badlands.

This is what it looks like from the top of it all…






all 360 degrees of it, surrounding me and telling me it’s ok to cry.

Especially for the beautiful things.

Summer horses.

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I miss my summer horses. I miss the way their coats lather up under the saddle after an evening ride to the east pasture.

I miss the way that smells and the way it feels to see them grazing on the green grass of the season–admiration and beauty and peace and home all wrapped up in their breathing and munching, snorting and fly swatting.

I even miss those damn burs I pull out of their mangled manes every evening.

I miss my summer horses because they have turned into winter horses, wild and free in the big pastures chewing on hay bales and hiding from the wind in the coulees at night.


We don’t ride much in the winters, the ground’s too hard, the wind too bitter, the hills too slick, so we give our working animals a much needed break during the coldest months and in no time they turn into a sort of wild and wooly that always amazes me.

On the coldest days they find their way to the barnyard and I bury my face in their thick coats where they keep the summer,


feed them grain from the buckets in the tack room and watch as they argue over the first and last bites.

You have to have respect for the animals that bear the burden of this extreme weather on their backs. I know the white tale deer that bed down on frozen hillsides or in a bull berry patch, the grouse roosting in tree tops and the wild elk competing for the same domestic feed as our horses are built for endurance with instincts that save them, but I still wonder if their noses get cold.


On frozen days like this I go looking for them, as if catching a glimpse of how they’re surviving this season might help shed some light on how I might do the same.

There are bison that live on the land next ours. I catch a glimpse of them when I’m on the highway, stopping to watch as the young ones run and the old ones nuzzle the ground for grass. Frost forms on their muzzles where they breathe in the cold air and on days the ice settles in on our world those creatures wear it, unassuming, as just one more layer of their being.

I wear my sweaters like the bison wear the weather. I cannot grow a wooly coat, so I wrap a scarf around my neck and lean into the cold.

I wonder if those bison miss the summer grass.

I wonder if those deer bedded down in the oaks behind this house notice the lights in the bedroom and dream of coming in from the cold.

I wonder if they know I would let them if I could. I would let them all in to warm by the fire if animals were meant for houses.

But I’ve said it before. Houses are for people and this big wide world is meant for deer in the bull berry brush, grouse in the tree tops, elk in the hay bales and horses in their wool coats waiting for a girl who’s waiting on summer to come and drop them some grain.