Jessie Veeder

1 week ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — It’s county fair week, and I’m writing this at 6 a.m. between my first two sips of coffee and before I wake the girls up to get dressed and gather their supplies and their two goats to head to town for four days of trying to convince the judges that we’ve actually practiced leading these animals around every night despite the doe’s tendency to brace up, stick her tongue out and scream. And I know that was a long sentence to start us off here, but this is the vibe right now.

2 weeks ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — I used to take photographs. Not just with my phone, but with a big camera I would tote around almost nightly on my walks through the hills or on rides through the pastures. I would sling it across my body as a constant reminder to stay on the lookout for the way the evening sunset makes the tops of the trees glow or creates a halo around the wild sunflowers if you get down low enough in the grass.

3 weeks ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — Every year at the beginning of June, a group of our friends from Bismarck and Dickinson load up and come to the ranch to help us brand our calves. It’s become a tradition for them to help in the pens as a way to say thank you for allowing them to hunt turkey and deer on the place throughout the years. The gesture and the help are thoughtful and appreciated, but it’s not an expected exchange. We would gladly have them out anytime for whatever reason.

4 weeks ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — Have you ever had to pressure wash the gumbo mud off the clothes and boots your children were wearing when they decided to go splash and roll in the giant mud puddle that had formed from a week of rain behind the dumpster in your yard? As long as I’m living and they’re not dressed for town, I will never deny my daughters full access to a mud puddle.

1 month ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — “What are you doing?” I asked my husband in the dark of our bedroom. He had his face nearly pressed up against the screen of the open window at the head of our bed. That day in May had reached record-breaking temperatures of over 90 degrees, and we soon found out that our air conditioning was on the fritz. We had just switched off the heat a few days earlier, but there we were, lying on top of the covers under the ceiling fan before spring had even officially arrived.