Coming Home: Green grass inspires the year of the garden

For a month I've been obsessing over my grass. I've been watering and gauging its level of greenness and then watering again. I've been dreaming of rolling out the mower or organizing a game of ladder ball or beanbag toss on the green stuff.

I've been lying down in it to test out the comfort level.

And so have the dogs. They've gathered a nice bone and stick collection, rolling around and claiming their spot on a little corner of the grass by the garage.

Yes, we've been pretty much obsessed. But with good reason. Because a month ago we had nothing. We had dirt with a weed sticking out and some construction supplies tossed over on the side. And that's the way it had been around here for a good two or three summers because we haven't had a chance to get to the lawn.

But one little phone call to the sod farm changed the fate of our yard forever, and found my husband unloading 16 giant pallets of rolled up grass and me calling in the troops to attempt to puzzle piece together a soft, green and living lawn.

And now here we are, thousands in grass, hours in labor and $150 in sprinkler equipment later and we've made ourselves a little green manicured moat around our house in the hills.

We'd almost look domesticated if it weren't for the deer leg the dogs keep dragging up from the coulee and the giant cocklebur plants growing as tall as the trees in the front yard.

But we'll get to that later. Because now that one dream is realized, I'm on to the next.

Because out back next to the new fence made to keep the cows off of our fancy lawn, we left a good-sized patch of dirt all tilled up nice and neat just waiting for me to get down on my hands and knees, dig some little holes and drop some little bean and pea seeds in nice neat rows.

And then I'll make a couple of mounds for a cluster of cucumbers at the edge of the patch, right next to the carrots and radishes.

And I'll have to buy some tomato plants from the greenhouse, probably some romas so I can attempt some salsa and tomato soup in the fall.

Then I'll need onions. Should probably plant some onions.

And if we can keep the deer away, I have high hopes for a few rows of corn. Because summer isn't summer without corn on the cob.

Or watermelon? I've never grown a watermelon. Or a strawberry. Maybe this year is the year.

Because finally! The lawn is really something, but this is the year of my garden.

When I moved back to the ranch five summers ago, I made myself a list of goals.

It wasn't a list of lofty plans, like run a marathon or find a high-paying job (although I think "figure out what to do about a new house" was in there somewhere), but it had some important highlights for my sanity and growth from ranch kid to ranch woman.

• Write. Another album?

• Take more pictures

• Pick plums and learn to make jelly

• Organize and paint the old tack sheds

• Plant a garden

Through the years I've checked things off. Two albums and thousands of wild plums later, I think I've got the jelly thing down. And it may have taken a wedding coming up, but we're finally getting the paint on those old tack sheds, and then some.

And we've got our house.

We've got our lawn.

But we don't have our garden.

To keep up on my skills though, every year I help Dad plant his. But then I leave it to him to weed and water the thing before raiding his peas and tomatoes.

And his peas and tomatoes sure taste good (just ask the fat doe that uses it as her own personal buffet), but somehow I think vegetables grown out my back door are going to taste much sweeter.

Because it seems like my grass is getting greener every day, and so I'm thinking that, finally, the timing might just be perfect in my life for growing things.

Jessie Veeder is a musician and writer living with her husband on a ranch near Watford City, N.D. Readers can reach her at jessieveeder@gmail.com .