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Happy Day Earth! Thanks for being our home.
Earth, we love you. We love how you bring flowers after the snow. How you promise them to us, even when you’re still brown and thawing. How you don’t let us down. Earth, we love you. We love how you...
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With that boy…
It’s Saturday and the wind is howling like 50 miles per hour out there. I just spent a good five hours out in it doing the one thing that makes the most sense in 50 mile an hour wind–cleaning up and...
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Sunday Column: When the outside comes in…
Well, it snowed. So there’s that. I sorta knew this was coming. We watch the weather like hawks around here, so on Friday when it was a calm, almost 70 degrees I called in the troops and we saddled up...
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Spring, up close.
I left the house yesterday looking for signs of spring. The wind and sun had dried up that last late April snow storm pretty well and I wanted to see what was emerging under that warmer sky. It took...
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Sunday Column: To simply live.
A few weeks ago on one of the first warm days of not-quite-spring, Little Sister made her way out to the ranch after school. We didn’t have any plans in particular, except that we both felt like we...
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Sunday Column: On slowing down
Well, I found a bluebell yesterday. I was out cleaning the ditches between the two places, doing my part in a community weekend designated to “Picking up the Patch.” There has been a lot of traffic on...
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Sunday Column: Holding on under the sky
Well, what a party! I spent all day yesterday sort of propped up, sipping coffee and eating as much sugar as I could to keep me alive until dinnertime. We couldn’t have asked for a better celebration...
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Rain and how I imagined it.
It’s been raining around here the last few days. I’m listening to it patter outside my open windows now, taming down the dust on the gravel roads and watering my flowers. I could just lay down beside...
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The golden hour…
Summers don’t last long enough here. But the days are long and so we make up for it by squeezing every last inch of sunlight out of our waking hours. We have supper at 11 pm. Quick. Whip something up....
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Like rain in August…
It rained this morning. In August that’s a gift around here. Things have stayed green and fresh because of these little showers. So we are happy and so are the cows. There are things in this life that...
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Wild, restless things…
It has been the kind of autumn weather sent from somewhere good. 65 degrees and sunny. No wind. The leaves are changing quietly and, if it weren’t for the magical mosquitos that somehow made it through...
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A full life, a full freezer…
Heeeyyyyaaaa!!! It’s FRRIIIDDDAAYYY! It’s been an exciting week at the ranch, beginning with this: No, that’s not Ted Nugent, that there is my handsome, bearded husband with the bull elk he called in...
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Colder.
It’s cold. 10 degrees and it looks like that’s where it’s gonna stay. All day. The rest of the week. I wanna snuggle up in a big ‘ol pile with this kitten and all my blankets. It’s funny how fast the...
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Sunday Column: The longest season
It’s been snowing all weekend. Actually, it’s been snowing all week. Yesterday, after a night out singing with the band until 4 am I was a pathetic pile of “I’m too old for this…” and, thankfully, the...
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Sunday Column: Winter and heavy whipping cream…
Out here, in this season, snow comes and goes quickly. We froze our butts off early last week, only to be welcomed by a thaw at the end of it, followed by 30 mph winds that blew the snow sideways on...
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The Christmas Tree Plan
This is what -2 with a -100 wind chill looks like. Don’t let the sunshine fool you. And so the scene is set… Ahem… ‘Twas the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and one of the last free weekends Husband and I...
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Frosting
Last week our world was covered in ice. This week, just in time for Christmas, it has turned nice and white (and rather slippery). The beautiful thing about this place and its erratic weather is that...
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We’re not in Cabo anymore…
We’re not in Cabo anymore. Nope. We’re home. Home to the great white and frickin’ frozen north. You know what that weather report up there doesn’t say? It doesn’t say that the wind is blowing 50 MPH,...
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Spring in Winter.
While the east coast braced themselves for a winter storm that was promising to be so epic they actually gave it a name, North Dakotans were out in shorts and tank tops watching the January snow turn...
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Wanted: April Showers
It’s been a busy couple weeks at the ranch. The weather has been warm and too dry for comfort and we’re deep into “getting the place ready for Little Sister’s wedding” mode. Which means we have...
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