Veeder: How could life get any better?

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — I don t know how my life could be any better than this. I was riding my palomino next to my 8-year-old daughter on a beautiful and windy fall afternoon. Rosie had been pretty quiet all day, sort of hanging around the house, maybe a little bored, maybe a little tired, just an 8-year-old who s been asking to go on a ride to the arena so she could run her cute little mare, Sparks, on the barrel pattern. I d been promising this for a couple weekends, but something always seemed to come up — company through the door, cold weather, a meeting that ran late — but Rosie isn t the kind of kid to forget what we said we were going to do. And she doesn t like sitting around. And so finally we were given a nice Sunday afternoon where the two of us found ourselves riding side by side in the cool wind and the warm sun, silk scarves wrapped around our necks. Rosie was singing quietly to herself, satisfied that she got to lope her mare at long last. Rosie s