Grey skies and rain create a moody scene along U.S. Highway 14 between Sleepy Eye and Lamberton.
RAIN DRIZZLES, SOMETIMES SPLATTERS, across the windshield of our van as my husband and I aim toward the southwestern Minnesota prairie, driving toward Lamberton for a day of making horseradish with my extended family. It is a time-honored tradition, started by my father, dead 10 years now.
For me, this 120-mile trip from our Faribault home is not as much about the horseradish as it is about family and memories and spending a weekend in my beloved native prairie, the place that shaped me in to the person/writer/photographer I’ve become.
This section of U.S. Highway 14 between Sleepy Eye and Lamberton features many stately and well-kept barns like this brick one.
Even after 40 years away from this place of big skies and flat open spaces, of small towns and family farms, of corn and soybean fields stretching into forever, I still miss this land.
Especially at harvest time.
A cheery smile on a barn off U.S. Highway 14 serves as a backdrop to a ripened soybean field on a grey Saturday morning.
As we journey, my head pivots toward the corn and the beans, ripened mostly to muted gold.
I can almost hear the corn leaves rustling in the bendy wind under moody grey skies.
I can almost smell the intoxicating scent of earth that prevails only at harvest time.
I can almost hear the chomping combines and rumbling grain trucks, the roaring tractors and the lumbering grain wagons, parked and silent now as rain sweeps across the acres.
A serene country scene just north of Lamberton in southern Redwood County.
Later that day, after we’ve reached our rural destination and dug, washed, peeled, chopped, blended and bottled the horseradish, the heaviest of the clouds lift and shift east.
The skies have cleared along Redwood County Road 6 north of Lamberton where corn fields await harvest.
By Sunday morning we awaken to the clear and crisp skies of autumn in rural Minnesota.
Driving U.S. Highway 14 back to Faribault Sunday morning.
It’s a perfect morning.
Barns and ripening crops define the landscape of southwestern Minnesota this time of year.
Sunshine upon fields.
Grain bins await the harvest on a southwestern Minnesota farm.
Sunshine pooling upon my lap as we aim east, past bins and barns and bountiful fields, back home.
Rounding the curve eastbound into Sleepy Eye.
Past the ripening crops. Through the small towns, like Lamberton and Springfield and Sleepy Eye.
And when we reach the western outskirts of New Ulm, I feel as if we’ve crossed a line. Menards and Walmart loom to the left. U.S. Highway 14, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway, is now a four-lane through this German community, busy with traffic and drivers racing to get ahead before the roadway once again narrows to two lanes en route to Mankato.
Barns, like this one, rise above the soon-to-be-harvested corn fields.
My mood shifts. I’ve left the peace of the prairie, the one place on this earth that holds my soul in solace.
FYI: This post was previously published on streets.mn. The above photos were taken on Saturday, September 28, and Sunday, September 29. Conditions change rapidly during harvest time, so I expect harvest is well underway, although delayed now due to the rain.
A post will be forthcoming on making horseradish.
Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Looks just like here, but the land is rollier and the barns better looked after. And you have reminded me that my horseradish must be ready for harvest too. Maybe I will do that this weekend. I love the home made horse radish. beautiful shots Audrey, thank you.. c
Where the land is rollier, the location is near a river. Otherwise the land is about as flat as what I’ve seen in your images from Illinois. These scenes were taken some 30-plus miles from where I grew up.
I love the way you share the prairie with us. The expression of your love for that space makes me want to get in my car and go there.
Thank you, Kathleen. I think the prairie is under appreciated by many as vast and empty and in the middle of nowhere. All true, I suppose. But beauty lies therein, if only we pause to see it.
Yep. That’s home. And you know, it looks pretty good! It must be growing on me. Either that or I’m growing up.
I’d say growing on you.
I think, perhaps, it’s both. 🙂
You would know, Gretchen. Every time I write a piece like this, I think of how much you miss the ocean.
I’m beginning to clue in to the fact that as much as I love it out there, there is good stuff to be found here, too – I need to post about our time at Lake Superior over Labor Day. A huge part of loving a place, of course, is the good memories connected with it…
You are right with that final statement. It’s the memories that cause me to hold the prairie so dear.
The images certainly show a very beautiful and unique part of the world and it clearly holds such a special place in your heart. I have never made horseradish and am very much looking forward to your recipe xx
Making horseradish isn’t exactly a recipe, but more a process. I will have step-by-step photos to guide you.
Oh –the annual horseradish trek!!!! The changing weather scenes really are evident in this post. You can never tell from one minute to the next what it is going to be like these days. Last night we had hail like crazy. Some of my plants are minced!
I thought about you last evening when I heard about the severe storms pushing through parts of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. I hope your house did not get damaged.
Haven’t looked too closely yet…..the geraniums I had planned to pull out today are toast. 🙂
Oh, oh, don’t look at your roof. Close your eyes… Maybe don’t look at your siding either.
We have a fairly new roof because it was replaced due to hail before we bought it…..I will let Chris inspect. It was crazy for about 10 minutes. I was afraid the windows were going to break on the one side of the house. Thank goodness cars are in the garage.
OK, hopefully all will turn out OK and no hail damage. But if you were worried windows would break, that does not sound so good.
I love the wide open spaces….
Just like me.