FIELDS OF GOLDENROD brighten the landscape—edging roadways, filling fields, erupting seemingly everywhere as summer slips ever closer to autumn in Minnesota.
A walk through River Bend Nature Center reveals hues of brown, orange, red and yellow. In leaves changing color. In fading flowers.
In mature milkweeds and drying prairie grasses.
In butterflies galore.
Days carry a visual impression of autumn. But also a feel of autumn. There’s a sense of urgency, of the need to be outdoors as much as possible.
Autumn marks my favorite of Minnesota’s seasons. So I carry my camera through Faribault’s sprawling nature center to take it all in.
The places marked by man with words of adoration.
The trails that trail through the woods.
And always the path cut through the prairie, where I imagine settlers of long ago crossing Minnesota Territory in covered wagons or slicing plow blades through sod or simply journeying westward into dreams.
These are my thoughts within this land set aside to preserve today for the dreamers of tomorrow.
© Copyright 2019 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Recent Comments