Minnesota Prairie Roots

Bishop Jon Anderson, Southwestern Minnesota Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, blesses the Prahl family.

SEVERAL WEEKS AGO I wrote about a Tractor Roll-in and Harvest Blessing Service at Trinity Lutheran Church in rural Gaylord.

Yesterday I received my September 30 issue of The Gaylord Hub, a community newspaper where I worked for two years right out of college. Even after three decades removed from Gaylord, I’m still interested in the happenings in this small town.

As I paged through the issue, I came across a photo on page four from the Trinity harvest blessing service. Pastor William Nelsen had e-mailed the same image, and several others, to me. But they were just sitting in my in-box and I wasn’t sure I would ever publish them on Minnesota Prairie Roots.

But then, yesterday, that blessing service photo in The Hub, followed by a story two pages later, prompted me to write this post. The news article shared information about an accident in which a farmer’s clothing became entangled in a power take off driven rotor shaft. The farmer sustained severe head, chest and arm injuries and was airlifted from the scene. The irony of the harvest blessing photo and the farm accident story publishing in the same issue of The Hub was not lost on me.

Yes, harvest season is well underway here in southern Minnesota. And with it comes the added danger of accidents on the farm and on roadways. Farmers are tired, stressed, overworked.

Motorists are impatient and in a hurry.

This time of year we all need to take great care as we’re out and about in rural Minnesota. If you get “stuck” behind a combine or a tractor or a slow-moving grain truck, exercise caution and don’t be in such an all-fired hurry to zoom around the farm machinery.

If you’re a farmer, please use proper signage, turn signals and flashing lights and stick to the edge of the roadway as much as you can. Bulky farm machinery limits a motorist’s ability to see around you, which can lead to accidents.

Together, with understanding and patience and, yes, even consideration, farmers and non-farmers can join in making this a safer harvest season.

Pastor Bill Nelsen blesses the Klaers family and their harvest during the service.

Pastor Bill Nelsen blesses the Kahle-Giefer family and their harvest. Farmers drove about 40 tractors and combines to the worship service attended by 200-plus worshipers.

I snapped this harvest photo along a rural road near Northfield on Sunday afternoon.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photos courtesy of Margie Nelsen