Jessie Veeder

North Dakota

Columnist at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Singer/songwriter, writer, photographer, blogger, wife and new mom living on a ranch in Western North Dakota. Dirt roads, wind, wheat fields, hope and home.

Articles

Veeder: Calving season comes with all sorts of lessons

1 week ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — Our first calf of the season arrived last week. It’s a bit early to have too many follow suit, but it’s my favorite reminder that spring is on its way. My dad will keep a closer eye on our herd now, fussing over them, checking the draws and hills and taking notes. We gathered the cows last weekend to sort off a couple bulls that got out.
Having tea and a moment to remember what makes life beautiful

2 weeks ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — Recently, I spoke and sang at a local women’s event in my hometown. It was a tea party, and the room was full of ladies dressed in their best, seated around sweetly decorated table settings. I stood on the stage in front of them and imagined how much needed to be arranged and rearranged in their schedules to get them in these seats on a Saturday morning. The sitters or the kids’ sports runners. The newborn baby holders so she could get a shower in.
America in one room was a beautiful sight to behold

3 weeks ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — Recently, our high school student council members held their third Community Cultural Fair alongside parent-teacher conferences. The large fieldhouse typically used for open gym and youth volleyball and basketball practices was lined with tables and décor from over 20 different countries that are represented in our community. Behind those tables stood students and community members serving samples of food from their respective cultures.
Memories from family vacation always last long after returning

1 month ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — There’s ocean sand on the floor of my landlocked North Dakota home and seashells in a plastic cup on my kitchen counter. The smell of sunscreen and the ocean lingers in my laundry room as I let our vacation clothes pile up for a few more days, beach wear underneath dusty Carhartts underneath button-up shirts underneath spaghetti-sauced sweatshirts. My 7-year-old has a little tan line on her shoulders, her skin kissed by a more tropical sun.
A good day to be a horse

1 month ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — I like it when the clouds are puffy and white, floating against a clear blue sky. It makes me feel like I am not so small after all, like I could reach up and pluck one out of the sky, put it on an ice cream cone and go walking through the pastures, taking licks and bites of the sweet fluff as I make my way to the hilltops.
Art of the Cowgirl event an inspirational gathering of women

1 month ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — I spent last week in the desert of Arizona, where all the northern cowboys go to play and ride horses and escape the deep freeze of winter. For five days, Wickenburg turned into a mecca of Western culture. Well, cowgirl culture, specifically, as tents and arenas and food trucks popped up in the name of an event known as Art of the Cowgirl.
To be young and wild and free

1 month ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — When I was a little girl, my favorite book of all time was “My Side of the Mountain.” It’s a classic about a boy who finds himself living away from home in the wilderness of the mountains inside of a giant hollowed-out tree. I can’t remember the exact story now or why he was alone out there. Funny how those details escape me no matter how many times I went over the pages and marked my favorite parts.
How we survive the deep freeze

2 months ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — By the time you read this, we will have pulled ourselves out of the deep freeze that lingered over us in North Dakota in February. On Tuesday morning, at 8 a.m., the temperature on my SUV read -35. On Monday, it read -40. I don’t recall that I’ve ever seen -40 in my life up here, but that seemed like a perfect time for our furnace to go out. So it did. When it’s this cold, things just break.
The magpies are back, along with memories from childhood days

2 months ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — “The magpies are back,” my dad said casually in conversation while we were driving somewhere. Or maybe he was in the middle of putting honey in his tea at my kitchen counter while the kids interrupted us endlessly? The magpies are back. “I saw that!” I replied. “Saw one the other day near the barn.” And that was sort of that — a nice little revelation among talk about work and ranch plans and weather.
Stories from the stage while life went on at home

2 months ago | inforum.com | Jessie Veeder

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — This morning, I opened a manilla envelope I had stored in my backpack to take back from Nevada to my home in North Dakota. I spent last week standing on a variety of stages in Elko for the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering’s 40th Anniversary Celebration. I sang songs about ranch life and “You Are My Sunshine” at the top of my lungs to an auditorium of 900 elementary school students and then I did it all again the next hour.