Category Archives: South Dakota

Alongside The Road ..

Posted on by
6

“A weed is but an unloved flower.” ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox

………….

“They’re just weeds,” the Cowboy replied on our drive back from Wall again this weekend. I was asking him if he’s ever paid much attention to the flowers lining almost every roadway in South Dakota this time of year.

Small Roadside Flower

I’ve noticed these beautiful mini-sunflower like blooms the past couple of years in my time back and forth between South Dakota and Wisconsin. But now living here, I’ve been able to enjoy the full season of weeds. Wildflowers. Sunflowers. Whatever you care to call them.

Millions fill the medians of major highways in this state, line thousands of miles of gravel roads and seem to sneak in just about everywhere else in-between. Almost every state boasts something seasonal like this.

Roadside FlowersIt amazes me though, how many drive by wherever they may live, not often noticing. The weeds. Is it because they’re just there, every year .. and we grow accustomed to them? The colors. Their proliferation. Or, is it that far too often, we are too wrapped up in the business of our day-to-day to notice?

Enjoy the weeds while we have them. Their passing means if nothing else, our summer days are numbered.

What I Love About Sunday

Posted on by
Reply

We had wanted to go to church this morning .. but the Cowboy needed to get on the road before we would have been able to return from town. He was leaving to get to a rally for a man he’s grown rather fond of, a man quite honestly we now consider a friend, who is entering officially today the race for U.S Senate.

We stayed home instead, sat down to coffee and breakfast together and logged onto last week’s service from my home church in Madison, Wisconsin. It was a poignant message for us ..

While I still feel incredibly connected to my home church of Blackhawk, a church where upwards of five thousand people attend each Sunday, where it could feel easy to get lost but I’m not sure anyone does, where there is this incredible team of pastors that I miss terribly because their message each week is somehow spot on and where the music just moves you .. finding a new home church here in South Dakota has been heartwarming. Our Sundays, when we are home, have become a mix of attending a nearby contemporary Christian church .. and this wonderful small church in Flandreau that reminds me so much of the church I grew up in back home.

I miss Blackhawk.

But there is just something about a small town church .. and Sundays here on our little acreage, that I love having dearly again in my life.

What I Love About Sunday

What I Love About Sunday

What I Love About Sunday – Craig Morgan

Raymond’s in his Sunday best,

He’s usually up to his chest in oil an’ grease.
There’s the Martin’s walkin’ in,
With that mean little freckle-faced kid,
Who broke a window last week.
Sweet Miss Betty likes to sing off key in the pew behind me.

That’s what I love about Sunday:
Sing along as the choir sways;
Every verse of Amazin’ Grace,
An’ then we shake the Preacher’s hand.
Go home, into your blue jeans;
Have some chicken an’ some baked beans.
Pick a back yard football team,
Not do much of anything:
That’s what I love about Sunday.

I stroll to the end of the drive,
Pick up the Sunday Times, grab my coffee cup.
It looks like Sally an’ Ron, finally tied the knot,
Well, it’s about time.
It’s 35 cents off a ground round,
Baby, cut that coupon out!

That’s what I love about Sunday:
Cat-napping on the porch swing;
You curled up next to me,
The smell of jasmine wakes us up.
Take a walk down a back road,
Tackle box and a cane pole;
Carve our names in that white oak,
steal a kiss as the sun fades,
That’s what I love about Sunday,
Oh, yeah.

Ooh, new believers gettin’ baptized,
Momma’s hands raised up high,
Havin’ a Hallelujah good time
A smile on everybody’s face.
That’s what I love about Sunday,
Oh, yeah.

That’s what I love about Sunday,
Oh, yeah.

A Night of Nothing, Almost.

Posted on by
Reply

I talked with a girlfriend about this earlier today .. about slowing down. Getting caught up again. With work. With life. With getting enough exercise and sleep. Perhaps a haircut and a professionally done color for the first time in, well .. let’s just say far too long.

Summer is supposed to be a time of rest, relaxation, of naps in the shade, long afternoons fishing at the river, of camping or lazy days at the beach or the pool with the kids.

Right?

Or, are we kidding ourselves. Does that place in life still exist or is there just this bizarre fantasy of what we think summer is supposed to be that we try to live up but that doesn’t exist anymore? It seems just about everyone I know has been on the go so much, trying to enjoy summer or life, they’re exhausted.

And relieved school is once again about to start.

cartoon image of dash

We got back the other night, late .. from the Cowboy’s grandmothers funeral. It seemed that night, to be the culmination of many months on the road. Back and forth to Wisconsin, to Wall, to events, to visit family and friends. All wonderful things.

But tonight is one of the first sincere down nights the Cowboy and I have had in far too long. And there is this very grounding feeling in knowing with the start of the school year again, that means for the most part, we will be home.

He booked us both a massage. Something he has only ever done once for himself. Which tells me something about how much he needs a night to regroup as well…

It feels amazing, to slow down. Even if only for a few minutes .. some friends I haven’t seen in probably 10 years just called and said they are passing through in an hour and are hoping to catch up.

Back into the car we go ..

 

Sunset

Posted on by
2

The view from my in-laws house to the west each night is truly amazing.

Sunset from Randy and DarlasThere is little to get in the way of soaking up an entire sky of sunset. A much needed grounding for us this evening ..

As we gathered up the kids after a long day, a long week, family coming to town for the Cowboy’s grandmother’s funeral and an unfortunate situation we all had the opportunity to discuss before heading for home, the above scene was a reminder of how small some things are .. and that the God given big picture is almost always, incredibly beautiful.

The Tuck

Posted on by
Reply

Because I wrote about the Senior Photo shoot the other day .. I thought I would follow it up with this particular post. Because I noticed the Senior the other night doing the same thing the Cowboy does.

Tuckers boots

The tuck.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for awhile now because every time I see the Cowboy wearing his pants & boots like this, I think to myself, ‘that would be something fun to talk with him about.’ I’ve never asked him directly why he does it. The reasons, living on the ranch, have become apparent. I’ve just admired, quite frankly that he doesn’t care what anyone might think about how he looks. And it makes me chuckle because some of the men I know, city cowboys especially, would never be caught dead wearing their pants inside their pointy toed, silver tipped (the Cowboy wanted me to be sure and add that element) boots. Not that there’s anything wrong with that ..

Don’t get me wrong, he can dress up with the best of them and his pants are most often worn with the hem dragging on the ground.

Casey Shoeing

But the day to day can often mean ripped and dirty jeans haphazardly tucked inside the boots.

What can tucked jeans tell you about a cowboy? The Cowboy tells me:

– Chances are, he/she is walking around horse manure often during the day and they don’t want to get their jeans dirty.

– They may want to simply show off the tops of their boots – boots anymore can be incredibly beautiful and detailed, especially those that are custom made. Have you looked at boots lately? Dan Post. Luchesse. Old Gringo. Tony Lama. Justin. Laredo. Resistol. Ariat. Olathe. Seriously, the list goes on and and on.. I haven’t even touched the growing market of custom cowboy boot makers.

“Girls often do it as part of a fashion deal, to show their boots off, right?” the Cowboy says to me. “Same thing.”

Clints boots

Some do it, real cowboys, like ranch cowboys, because they’d rather have their boots take a beating than their jeans.

“You know why boots were made taller?” the cowboy asked me as I’m talking with him about this. “It was originally to protect cowboys from snake bites, the west is full of rattlesnakes. The taller the boot, the less likely a snake could get at your leg. Good boots also protect you from brush, if you’re riding through heavy brush .. you know, if you go to West Texas where the brush is high and thorny? That’s how they wear them, up to their knees. They also keep friction off the inside of your leg when you’re riding. I never had hair on the inside of my legs when I was younger because I rode so much. Nobody ever really questions anymore why boots have tops anymore. They actually have a practical reason for being tall. They’re meant to help protect.”

The Old Barn

Posted on by
Reply

It was a week ago today. A Wednesday. We were browsing through someone’s Facebook page after learning they were involved in an ‘incident’ we had also been a part of earlier that evening …

Among perhaps a half dozen updates this woman had made that day:

“Happy hump day!” 

Sitting around the dining room table talking about what we had stumbled upon that night, we all absolutely bust out laughing.

………….

It was a perfect summer night, that Wednesday night here in eastern South Dakota. Not too hot. The sun was coming down in the sky. We couldn’t have had a better evening to take senior photos for a truly wonderful young man.

Tucker 25

His mother had picked some spots around the family farm she felt would work well and that would be meaningful to them. We had a few more spots to hit and we were trying to decide which we would tackle next when the boy’s mother said, “I really want to show you this old barn. It’s a friend of ours place and we were over there just a few hours ago to look at it. I think getting his picture taken in the doorway of this barn would just be so cool. Is it okay if I take you up there?”

barn doorWe all piled in the truck. Mom, her soon-to-be senior, the Cowboy and I. We talked about the place all the way over there, about how it was abandoned and no one ever goes here and how its a shame according to the mom, because this is the most beautiful barn. We came across the neighbor who’s place it was on the way, he was picking up another load of hay bales from alongside the road. He reassured us, we could go wherever we wanted for pictures and to have fun.

About two miles further up the road, we turned into the drive. I spotted them immediately. There, far enough back off the road you wouldn’t ever really see them in simply passing by, sat two very clean, pricey and pretty cars in an area of mostly dirt roads. As we pulled further down the drive, I said to the mom, “I thought no one was ever here.”

“There shouldn’t be,” she answered. We continue to approach both the cars and the coveted barn. “See, that’s the barn,” she says to me.

I wasn’t sure if she was going to shut the truck off and get out but I didn’t give her a chance. I had been glancing around between the house and the other buildings for either any sign of life or the barrel of a shotgun pointed in our direction. My mind was thinking perhaps we were walking into any number of situations we do not want to be a part of. At all.

“I’m not getting out of the truck,” I told her. “I’m sorry .. I’ve just covered too many stories over the years where situations like this didn’t turn out well. Whoever is here obviously doesn’t want to be seen and they clearly aren’t showing themselves right now.”

I believe I may have been the only one overly concerned about it being something of that magnitude, but everyone stayed in the truck, mom turned it around and we dialed the owners number as we pulled back out toward the road. “Wait a minute,” the mom said and she backed up. “Grab the plate numbers and we’ll find out who they belong to and if there is cause for concern or if we’re just coming upon two people who are here and probably shouldn’t be ..”

“I think they’re in there hooking up,” said the Cowboy, in-between laughs, from the back seat.

……………

The property owner met us about 15 minutes later. We had the names of the people the plates were registered to and we were relatively sure it wasn’t a meth lab we were busting up by going back to the farm. Wearing a fairly big grin, the owner stepped into the barn, listened for a moment and then said to the voices he heard above, they needed to come down. The voices stopped. There was no answer. He went in again a few minutes later, letting them know there was an employee of that particular County Sheriff’s office on the property and if necessary we’d get them a police escort.

A few minutes later, a man and a woman walked out, wide-eyed, apologizing and trying to act somewhat oblivious they might have been tresspassing.

“We just wanted to look around,” the two of them said sheepishly. “We’re sorry. We didn’t realize we shouldn’t be here.” They should have quit talking at that point and left as no one was trying to keep them there.

“I think we should call this place the No-Tell Motel,” the Cowboy said, as the two were driving off in their separate cars. We all bust out laughing ..

………………

While there are many other details of the story that would be entertaining to share, they’re not important. Besides, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble nor am I here to judge. Point is, our senior has quite a story to tell his friends when he heads back to school in a couple of weeks about that evening. And my 12-year-old now understands, I believe, what the word hump might mean besides the fact ‘hump’ combined with the word ‘day’ means it’s Wednesday and you’re halfway through the workweek.  We are still all laughing over that post.

Including our senior. And the smile on his face for the photos at that barn, will forever be priceless.

Spurs

Posted on by
1

We were sitting on the back porch of a friends home last night catching up. Every time someone got out of their chair to go grab something to eat, drink or whatever the reason .. there it was.

The jingling of spurs.

Spurs

Never knew how comforting a sound that would be ..

…………….

I didn’t know much about spurs until I met the Cowboy. Never spent much time around any horse people that wore them. Perhaps a couple. I didn’t understand the value in them, especially when working with a stubborn horse. Not until recently, anyway. I often go to the arena to ride without them because I like to think that I can get a horse to mind because, well just because I want to be nice. And because I know they are good horses. The cowboy informed me the other night am to wear them whenever I ride, regardless. It came as I was increasingly frustrated one of the newest horses to the herd was definitely not going to do what I was asking her to do. And the Cowboy was frustrated with me.

“How many times have I told you to always have your spurs on,” he said .. in a stern tone of voice as the horse reared.

“You’ve got to wear them to help get their attention sometimes,” he says to me today, knowing this is today’s post. “You’ve got to have something to make them respect your legs or your leg cues. Horses often become desensitized to someone sitting on them for any length of time. They do what they want and often do as little as they have to when they can get away with it. It’s like a kid. if there’s no consequence to any of their behavior, ever .. pretty soon they’re always pushing boundaries and going their own way versus the way you want. And a 1200 pound horse pushing boundaries can be dangerous. Most horses don’t behave well just because they want to please you. That’s a rarity.”

My spurs now live on my riding boots. Right alongside the entire family’s ..

…………..

I’ve also learned that the piece that fell off my daughter’s spur earlier this summer that needs replacing .. is called a rowel. A much more technical term than the ‘back of the spur’ as I’ve been calling it until recently. Go ahead and laugh all you veteran cowboys out there. At least I’m trying. And admitting how much I know I have yet to understand about this life and lifestyle.

So far .. despite the setbacks, falls and challenges, it’s been a lovely ride.

220px-SpurDiagram.svg

The parts of a spur include (via Wikepedia):

  • The “yoke”, “branch”, or “heel band”, which wraps around the heel of the boot.
  • The “shank” or “neck”, which extends from the back of the yoke and is the area that touches the horse.
  • The rowel, seen on some spurs, a revolving wheel or disk with radiating “points” at the end attached to the shank.

Enjoying the rain.

Posted on by
1

As I sit working from the kitchen table this Friday .. I hear the sound of hooves and laughter coming down the driveway.

The girls are back together for the first time in months and seem to sincerely be enjoying each other’s company.

It’s drizzing rain today, cool and cloudy. While most people are cursing this summer weather ..

Bareback

They really don’t seem to mind. Beautiful.

Habits That Steal Precious Moments ..

Posted on by
Reply

The Cowboy and I were lying in bed, talking. It had been a very long past week and a half in Wisconsin and I was back in South Dakota. I grabbed one of the books I keep on the nightstand, a book I reference often but not every night.

Not anymore anyways, I had been through it page by page years ago.

Book

The entry for that night, July 30th, was “Habits that Steal Precious Moments”:

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever. – Horace Mann

………….

I really dislike fighting, in any form. Ever. I feel like there is always a better way to work through anything. To talk it out. To compromise. To truly look at the goal for whatever the issue may be and find a better way to get there.

It has been years though of fighting in some capacity, too many years with the father of my daughter. My first husband. Everything it seemed even from the get-go for us was and still is a challenge to work through together. To be on the same page. We try, we have the best of intentions. But it always seems a challenge. Last week, the time in Wisconsin was about taking care of final details of how our lives will all look going forward. I’m glad its over. I pray everyday we find some peace and create change for a better, more workable future and that in whatever strange way possible, our families can come back together. At our core is one little girl we all love with our entire beings. And I believe it is possible to still be friends.

The Cowboy and I also had a rough week while I was gone. It’s tough being apart from someone you want to be with so very much. And while we did it for the better part of two years while dating and even at the beginning of our marriage, it is different now that we are technically under one roof. There are issues I believe come up with many couples when one travels and the other is left home alone to take care of the day to day. It gets old, frustrating, questions arise that never would otherwise and the Cowboy sincerely had a tough time getting any work done with three children to care for and a demanding schedule. We needed to have some tough conversations in person now that I was home again.

Some of the partners I have in business right now are struggling to find a good working relationship, if they continue to work together at all.

It has been an emotionally exhausting past couple weeks. I don’t like to fight. Not because I can’t handle the content. I’m okay to hit tough issues head on. Take criticism. Discuss obvious problems versus ignore. But exhausting because I think there is always a better way to talk and think things through and move on.

I ground myself every God given day in the fact that we don’t get time back.  And in ever perpetuating a fight versus healthy conflict resolution, versus defining a goal and a reason for having the conversation/fight to begin with and getting quickly to the bottom of it and a solution, I believe fully in the final words of that post from the July 30th entry:

“..we only steal from our potential.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach

Farm Fresh Eggs ..

Posted on by
Reply

I had been sitting the other day at the kitchen table, where most of my work is done anymore, when I heard the Cowboy’s van pull up.  He shoes out of a van that is a story in and of itself. Anyway …

I went to the door to greet him, it had been a long day. And as he got out of the van, I saw him reach for and pull out a plastic bag that was absolutely full. I knew what was in it, he often brings bags like this home.

“We got eggs,” he said smiling.

EggsThere are customers of the Cowboy’s that often will send wonderful treats home with him. Farm fresh eggs, fresh bread, wonderful vegetables and the list goes on. I am incredibly grateful not only for their generosity to our family but also that they appreciate the work the Cowboy does trimming and shoeing their horses for them to the extent, I believe this is the country version of a tip.

Fry ’em up!