Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Soup sampling at the Soup-er Bowl March 10, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:23 AM
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Some of the soups served at the 2011 Soup-er Bowl.

GIVE ME A BOWL of soup—hot, thick, cheesy and packed with vegetables or savory, creamy tomato basil—almost any type will do except oyster or clam chowder.

My friend Mike knows how much I enjoy a good bowl of homemade soup, which is why he asked me recently to prepare a soup for a soup cook-off. But I was out of town on the day of the event and had to decline his invitation.

That was last weekend. This Sunday, March 11, the winners in local soup competitions at four area Lutheran churches advance to a Soup-er Bowl finale at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Morristown.

Cannon Valley Lutheran High School, of which Mike is the volunteer development director, is sponsoring the event where diners will sample eight soups for $5 and then vote for their favorite. I will be there, as I was last year.

Let me tell you, these soup makers can cook, which makes choosing a winner difficult. This year the offerings will include cheddar broccoli, potato ham, potato cheese/Polish sausage, plantation peanut, chicken noodle, cheesy potato, white chicken chili and creamy chicken noodle.

I see a lot of chicken in that list. Just, FYI, last year’s second place winner is returning with his creamy chicken noodle soup that included homemade noodles and hefty hunks of home-grown chicken. Honestly, I am not a big fan of chicken noodle soup, but I loved Steve’s soup. That says a lot right there.

Anyway, if you’re into soup, join me at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 404 W. Franklin St., Morristown, for the 5 p.m. Soup-er Bowl. You needn’t be Lutheran—all are welcome.

CLICK HERE to read a post about the 2011 Soup-er Bowl.

And click here to read a post about an annual soup party hosted by my sister Lanae and her husband, Dale.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Musings in the Clay Center March 9, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:27 AM
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This sculpture sits in front of the Arts Center of Saint Peter along South Minnesota Avenue/U.S. Highway 169 in St. Peter. The downtown is graced by historic buildings like these across the street from the Arts Center.

MY HUSBAND AND I are nearly through the Arts Center of Saint Peter front doors when she waves us in—she being Thalia. Not a Greek goddess, mind you, rather the Greek “muse of comedy.”

She’s not Greek either, but Mexican, this Thalia will tell you and smile as she slaps a hunk of clay, working out the air, mixing the clay just like Joel Moline across the table.

At only four feet seven inches tall, she should be manipulating clay on a table half the height, living in a world where everything is lower, shorter, Thalia Taylor surmises in a voice laced with humor.

“You should see her husband,” Joel says.

“He’s seven-two,” Thalia says and my jaw drops picturing this petite woman next to a towering man.

Then this muse of comedy laughs and corrects her mistake. “He’s six-two.”

Joel Moline and Thalia Taylor knead hunks of clay.

That is my introduction to the two artists, who on this Sunday afternoon are in the Clay Center working mud-hued clay like two bakers kneading dough. When I verbalize the comparison, Joel says he’s a baker.

He also enjoys writing letters, taking on a recent challenge to write a letter daily for 30 days. He collects fountain pens. You would rightly guess that he’s penning his letters the old-fashioned way.

An example of Joel's graceful writing on the Clay Center blackboard. He could teach penmanship. Remember that forgotten art which some of us were taught in grade school?

I tell him I seldom hand-write a letter any more, instead typing correspondence on my computer.

Then we—my husband, the baker/potter/letter writer and the potter/muse—bemoan the inability of today’s young people to write by hand. Joel laments how youth are losing that physical connection to writing, to individual letters and words. We are in agreement on this topic, that the youth of today should be able to write and read cursive.

After we’ve discussed that topic, I slip two business cards onto the table where Thalia and Joel continue to pound clay.

As I walk away, Joel hints at sending me a letter scribed with a fountain pen. I tell him I would welcome such a gift. Then I shoot a few more photos before exiting the Clay Center, leaving the baker/potter/letter writer and the potter/muse to their musings.

Stacked pottery in the Clay Center.

CLICK HERE for information about the Clay Center at the Arts Center of Saint Peter, 315 South Minnesota Avenue, St. Peter.

As any inquisitive writer would do, I googled Joel Moline’s name just to learn more about this man who once lived in Faribault (where I live) and taught art at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf. Turns out Joel, a retired St. Peter art teacher, is also a print maker. If only I’d known that when we met, but we didn’t have enough time to discuss everything… Click here to read a story about Joel  published six years ago in The Faribault Daily News.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Moody March in Minnesota March 8, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:44 AM
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An abandoned farmhouse along Minnesota State Highway 19 east of Vesta on the southwestern Minnesota prairie.

WINTER IN MINNESOTA this time of year and in November often seems stripped of color, a drab world of black-and-white mimicking the melancholy mood of those who wish only for spring.

So it takes some effort to appreciate this month of March which can’t quite decide whether to pursue spring or linger awhile yet in winter.

One day she’s dark and brooding, the next bright and cheery. Understanding her mood swings can be a challenge.

Sometimes you just have to accept who she is and realize that even in her colorless world, a certain sense of beauty prevails.

An aging windmill and a cluster of old buildings define this picturesque farm site along Minnesota State Highway 60 just west of Waterville in southeastern Minnesota.

The sweeping curves in the field drew my eye to photograph this scene west of Waterville along State Highway 60.

A lone tree along Minnesota State Highway 60 between Faribault and Waterville on a brooding March morning.

Farm sites mark the landscape along a back county road between New Ulm and Morgan.

All of these images were taken last Saturday morning from a moving vehicle while traveling through southern Minnesota. Each has been edited to create a more artsy, earthy feel.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Tom at the organ March 7, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:41 AM
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My father-in-law, Tom, at the used Lowrey organ he purchased a few years ago.

THE CONSOLE LIGHTS UP like a Christmas tree or the Vegas strip or a carnival midway as my father-in-law settles onto the bench of his Lowrey organ and flips switches.

I’ve asked Tom to play a tune or two during a brief visit at his St. Cloud apartment.

He’s taking organ lessons. I find that particularly admirable given he’s 81. Not that he’s a musical novice. Tom isn’t. He once played an accordion and piano and even an organ and tuned and repaired pianos. He typically plays music by ear, including on this occasion.

Playing the organ, with his artificial hand, left, and his real hand.

Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “Somewhere My Love,” from the movie “Doctor Zhivago” flow from the keys like music at a supper club all sugary and sweet and smooth. We should be dining in the dark corner of a long ago Saturday night destination, backs pressed against walls pasted with flocked red wallpaper, slicing our serrated knives through pink steaks and sipping our whiskey sours.

But instead, we are cramped into a tiny apartment among a hodgepodge of doll and angel collectibles, beer steins and toy tractors, and a clutter of miscellaneous knickknacks. We’re sipping water in a room flooded with light.

The organ takes up considerable space in the tiny apartment.

In the corner, my step mother-in-law pauses from circling words in a word search book to listen to the organ music, until, finally, she requests that the music stop.

We leave her there, with her words, as we descend several floors to my father-in-law’s art studio, a corner in the basement community room. Just over from a cluster of outdated exercise bicycles, Tom has stashed frames he’s recycling for his own art. Finished and in-progress works lean against each other and we file through them—elk in the mountains, loons, raccoons…

Threshing on the home place, a painting by my father-in-law. While growing up here, Tom already played organ.

He unrolls a scroll onto a table, revealing a sketch of the home place near St. Anthony, North Dakota. His second oldest daughter wants a painting of the farm where Tom grew up with his parents, Alfred and Rosa, and siblings, then later lived with his bride.

My husband studies the drawing, points out the summer kitchen and the creek, the details he remembers of Sunnybrook Farm, the place he called home until moving with his parents to central Minnesota in the early 1960s.

In moments like this, I begin to glimpse the history and the roots of this family I married into 30 years ago.

And in moments like photographing my father-in-law at the organ and in sifting through his paintings, I see the artistic side of this man. The man who once attended Catholic boarding school and worked the land and lost his left hand to a corn chopper in 1967, but never lost his desire, or ability, to pursue his passion to create music and art.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Praying for the tornado survivors March 6, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 11:19 PM
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ON SUNDAY I ATTENDED morning worship services at Peace Lutheran Church in Echo, the sister congregation of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Vesta, the congregation of my youth.

St. John’s members have been worshipping at Peace since a July 1, 2011, series of downbursts with wind speeds of 90 – 100 mph ripped the south roof from the sanctuary.

St. John's, hours after the July 1 storm tore through Vesta. Photo courtesy of Brian Kletscher.

Just to the north, west and east in this region of southwestern Minnesota, EF-1 tornadoes with winds of 95 – 105 mph wreaked havoc on farms and on the neighboring community of Belview.

Eight months later, St. John’s is still in the process of rebuilding.

Eight months after the storm, St. John's is still under construction with a new addition to the right. Congregants had hoped to be back in the church by Easter, but that likely will not happen until May.

The narthex was expanded and a pastor's office and handicapped accessible bathroom were added on the southwest side of the church built in 1974. This photo and the one above were taken on Saturday.

Despite the inconvenience of driving additional miles to worship and the temporary loss of their church home, St. John’s members realize the situation could have been so much worse. No lives were lost in the storms and their church could be salvaged.

This we—visitors and members of the two sister congregations—understood as we bowed our heads to pray for the survivors of the recent deadly tornadoes.

© Copyright 2012 by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Perspectives on life presented in Saint Peter galleries

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:53 AM
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The Arts Center of Saint Peter, 315 South Minnesota Avenue, St. Peter, Minnesota.

The Arts Center of Saint Peter, 315 South Minnesota Avenue, St. Peter, Minnesota.

LIKE BLACK AND WHITE, night and day, the artwork of Pamela Bidelman and Kay Herbst Helms, at first glance, holds no comparison.

Pam, of St. Peter, is a painter, working in the more abstract in her current exhibit, “lamina,” installed at the Arts Center of Saint Peter Moline Gallery.

Kay, of Mankato, is a photographer, grounded in the earth with her black-and-white, rural-themed images in “What Sustains Us: considering the hands and the land of rural south central Minnesota.” Her art is showcased in the Lower Level Gallery of the Arts Center.

Both artists distinguish themselves in their individual approaches to art. Therein lies the essence of art—the ability to create and express one’s self in a truly personal style that emerges from the heart and soul of the artist.

I am more of a down-to-earth appreciator of art, meaning abstracts puzzle and challenge my mind to consider what the artist is attempting to convey.  I don’t have to think so hard to understand real-life art.

Yet, it’s good for me to view more abstract art like that created by Pam and to talk with her and learn that she is trying to show, in her exhibit, “the quality of skin as a container…deconstructing the body parts…the fragility of life.”

Three almost ghost-like faces, with undefined, haunting eyes, created by Pam Bidelman.

I expect that her artistic expression connects to her former profession as a clinical social worker. One can only imagine the experiences she drew on while creating her current exhibit.

There’s a certain translucency to Pam’s pieces that I interpret as a sense of vulnerability.

A series of suspended faces, again with that vulnerable quality.

In Kay’s work, vulnerability also exists, in the primarily close-up black-and-white images she’s shot, mostly of hands, and in the accompanying short stories she writes about her subjects. I know rural people. It is not always easy for them to open up, to allow introspective photos and insights into their lives.

Kay gained their trust and shares her discoveries in art that is as honest as a hard day’s work on the farm.

For example, she writes in her interview with Sharon Osborne:

Sharon tells the story of her uncle, a retired farmer. Her aunt has answered the phone and the caller asked, “What’s your husband doing on this cold, blustery, snowy day?”

Her aunt replied, “What else do farmers do on a cold winter’s day other than crack walnuts down the basement?”

Viewing Kay Herbst Helms' photos in "What Sustains Us." She focuses primarily on hands in her images.

With other photos, Kay pairs poetry by Paul Gruchow and the poetic words of additional writers.

She is, says Kay, connecting the elements of hands, land, photographs and words in her exhibit.

Kay accomplishes that with the spirit of an artist rooted deep in her appreciation of rural life and the rural landscape.

Both exhibits are distinctly different. Yet each can be appreciated for the unique perspectives they offer on life.

Several of Kay's images include cattle, following the exhibit's rural theme.

FYI: Both artists’ projects were supported by grants from the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council with funding provided by the McKnight Foundation. Their exhibits run through March 18.

Kay created a previous, similar project, “Blessed Are the Hands That Have Served,” focusing on photos of 13 retired School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Click here for more information about the Arts Center of Saint Peter.

Check back for another post from the art center wherein you will meet two more artists.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

There is weather outside of the Twin Cities March 5, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 11:02 AM
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A farm site along Minnesota State Highway 67 between Vesta and Echo on Sunday morning.

A farm site along Minnesota State Highway 67 between Vesta and Echo on Sunday morning.

HONESTLY, I HAVE LIVED in Minnesota long enough that I should know better.

I shouldn’t believe the weather forecasters all the time, especially if those forecasters are based in the Twin Cities. How much or little do they care about the weather in rural Minnesota?

Case in point: This past weekend my husband and I traveled 120 miles west to visit my mom in Redwood County. The forecast, which we always diligently check before driving that direction in the winter, called for occasional flurries. That sounded doable to us.

So Saturday morning we set out, bucking strong winds, to reach our destination. The farther west we drove, the more snow we saw blanketing the landscape. Fortunately those strong Saturday winds did not whip up a blizzard.

Sunday morning, however, we awakened to a Winter Wonderland of snow falling in graceful flakes. You know, the kind of snow that makes you just want to stand there and take it all in for the sheer snow globe beauty of it.

So much for occasional flurries.

Thankfully, no wind accompanied the snow, which continued at a steady pace well into the afternoon. It marked an early departure for us.

A few miles north of Vesta, we came across this truck spun off the Minnesota State Highway 19 curve.

We rounded the curve and drove eastbound into this low visibility, snow-covered roadway situation. Fortunately, shortly after I shot this image, the eastbound lane was mostly cleared of snow. The westbound lane was not.

Pulling onto Minnesota State Highway 19 at Vesta, we realized this could be one long trip back to Faribault. It was slow going until we reached Sleepy Eye, where the snow finally began to clear and roads improved. We followed state highways rather than the short-cut, back county roads we usually travel.

When we drove into Morgan about 30 miles later, snow was still falling strong and steady.

That evening, unpacked and cozied on the couch for the10 p.m. news, the weatherman reported only flurries in southwestern Minnesota. No mention of the several inches that slicked up highways and made for difficult travel.

Between Evan and Sleepy Eye, this pick-up truck cut across the prairie on back roads.

IF YOU LIVE in rural Minnesota, where do you turn for the most accurate weather forecasting?

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Remembering Dad March 4, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:33 PM
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My dad was proud of the new grove he planted on our farm south of Vesta in May 1973.

HE TAUGHT ME to respect and love the land.

He taught me to respect and love God.

He taught me to respect and love family.

He taught me the value of hard work.

He was my father.

And today, March 4, would have been his 81st birthday.

I miss him.

Dad farmed, in the early years with a John Deere and Farmall and IH tractors and later with a Ford. (Photo by Lanae Kletscher Feser)

Dad farmed, in the early years with a John Deere, Farmall and IH, and later with a Ford.

I'd never seen this image until yesterday. It captures a rare quite moment of solitude/contemplation/a break from farm work as my dad pets Fritz, our farm dog, in June 1989.

My dad takes a break from farm chores to pet Fritz in this June 1980 photo.

 

Another chapter finished in the book of parenting March 2, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:27 AM
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AFTER 22 YEARS of going to parent-teacher conferences, my husband and I attended our final one last night. The youngest of our three children, who is eight years younger than our eldest, graduates from high school in three months.

And to think we almost missed this notable occasion because I had not flipped the calendar from February to March yet. An ad in Thursday’s local daily newspaper alerted me of that evening’s sessions at Faribault High School.

En route to school, I mentally planned the extra words I would scrawl onto my name tag: “After 22 years, this is our final conference!”

But alas, the school did not provide name tags for parents on this occasion. What a disappointment.  Instead, I had to inform all four of our son’s teachers that they had the privilege of concluding our 22-year parent-teacher conference tenure.

It’s been a good ride. All three of our children have worked hard in school, done their best and been respectful. Teachers have always spoken highly of them.

So then you likely wonder why we have even bothered to attend conferences.

Simply put, we care. We are interested in the individuals who educate our children. We want to connect with them. We want them to know that we care.

We’ve gained insights into our children and learned about what they’re learning, because children/teens don’t always inform parents.

Parent-teacher conferences are a two-way process. We’ve always approached these meetings with the idea that we are there to glean information as much as to share it.

And now we’re done. Twenty-two years later. I’m not all misty-eyed and sad as one teacher suggested. But I’m not jumping for joy either.

I’m simply wondering how we got from crayons to calculus in the seeming blink of an eye.

IF YOU’RE A PARENT, have you attended parent-teacher conferences? What value do you find in them? How would you improve conferences if you think improvement is needed? Please share your thoughts and stories in a comment.

Likewise, if you’re a teacher, feel free to share your thoughts and insights.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Longing to skate March 1, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:15 PM
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My neighbor's temporary "pond."

IF I WAS 10 AGAIN, I’d slip on my winter boots and dash across the street to slide on my neighbor’s pond.

Oh, for the joy of slip-sliding across ice, free and untethered from the worry of falling.

Those thoughts flew through my mind this morning as I viewed the pond that just days ago existed only as a patch of dormant lawn, visually unappealing in the deep of the winter we haven’t had here in Minnesota.

Tuesday brought snow to most regions of our state. But here in the southeast, precipitation fell as strong, steady, relentless rain that gushed down hills, pooled along curbs and flooded basements.

And in some spots, like the low-lying lot that dips between two neighbors’ property, the rainwater just kept pouring in, creating a pond.

That water’s frozen now, and, as I gaze out my window, I’m tempted, oh, so tempted, to pull on my chunky and practical Northwest Territory boots and race over to skate upon the ice. Except that the ice likely descends no more than a half inch.

I cannot risk it, risk the falling , the plunging into ice water, to relive youthful moments of skating across corn field-stubbled ponds in buckle overshoes.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling