Minnesota Prairie Roots

A sampling of the many Christmas photo cards my family received, including an annual photo of my friend Ron's dog, Bailey, decked out for the season.

COME JANUARY, I start feeling older, and not just because the calendar has flipped to a new year.

It’s all those Christmas card photos that put me in an aging funk. I mean, toddlers are now college graduates, for gosh sakes. High school friends are grandmas. My cousins’ kids are having babies.

And I’m in denial. Whenever I send holiday photos, I include only my three children, not my husband and me. Perhaps that’s not the smartest move on my part. Can you imagine the surprise when I finally decide to mail a complete family photo. “Who’s that?” my far-away acquaintances will ask as they furrow their brows and study the unfamiliar woman seated next to the familiar kids. “Is that Audrey?”

Then there’s my friend Ron, who every Christmas sends a photo of his dog, Bailey. If I saw Bailey walking down the street, I’m pretty sure I would recognize her. But Ron? I suppose I could assume that he’s the guy holding Bailey’s leash.

This holiday season brought more creative photo cards than ever to my mailbox as people turn to snapfish.com and shutterfly.com. As much as I enjoy the variety of pictures in these photo collages, some senders erred in choosing distant images of their families. When I need to pull out a magnifying glass to view friends or family with pencil-eraser-size heads, well… Maybe it’s just my aging eyes.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Hand-molded candies, crafted by my sister Lanae, her daughter, Tara, and Tara's husband, Andy.

“HOW DID YOU MAKE these?” I ask my sister Lanae as I admire the individual candies she’s included in a package of holiday treats for my family.

“I used a mold,” she answers. “And I’m not making them again.”

I am almost sorry I asked, so emphatic is Lanae in her reply.

Later, when I pilfer through the contents of the large gift bag, I understand exactly how much time and effort my sister has invested in making this assortment of delectable goodies for extended family members. Her beautifully-packaged foods and wine rival anything Martha Stewart could create.

But that’s no surprise to me. My floral designer sister has a flair for design and color and presentation. And she’s truly outdone herself this time with homemade wine, sweet relish, cut-out cookies, puppy chow, Chex party mix, caramel corn, bounce (that’s fruit-flavored vodka) and those hand-molded truffles. Lanae’s daughter, Tara, and Tara’s husband, Andy, helped with the candies and cookies.

I feel like a decadent, over-indulgent, spoiled-rotten queen when I even think about consuming these treats.

And perhaps that’s exactly as Lanae intended—that we should all feel just a little bit pampered, a little bit indulged, a little bit spoiled, but most of all, loved.

These beautifully-packaged snowflake cut-out cookies are almost too lovely to eat.

Lanae made jars of sweet relish from the bounty of summer.

Lanae and her husband, Dale, have gotten into wine-making and often share their wines with family.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Our frosty garage window, just a few days ago. I strive (struggle) to find the beauty in winter.

IT’S SO COLD in Minnesota that…

…my husband wore long johns under his dress pants to church this morning.

…coats crackle.

…car tires crunch on snowy roads.

…my mom leaves the door under her kitchen sink open so the pipes won’t freeze.

…you warm up the car for 15 minutes to drive a mile.

…houses emit occasional, boisterous cracking sounds.

…I took my jeans out of an icy closet to warm for an hour this morning before putting them on.

…our furnaces run way too much and too long, resulting in dry, itchy skin and, worse yet, higher than normal heating bills.

…ice fisherman smile because the lakes are “making ice.”

…even the hardiest Minnesotans wonder why they live here.

…we would welcome zero degrees as a heat wave.

Minnesota Prairie Roots readers, I would love to post your responses to “It’s so cold in Minnesota that…” Send me your comments.

The outdoor air temperature at my house in Faribault, Minnesota, registered minus 26.1 degrees at 7 a.m. on Sunday, January 3.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Snow drifts across Minnesota Highway 30 New Year's Day morning as we drive west toward Westbrook.

IT’S NEW YEAR’S DAY morning, and we are westbound on Minnesota Highway 30, driving past Darfur, Jeffers and Storden on our way to Westbrook on a journey that is taking longer than usual.

Earlier, icy roads altered our planned shortcut along Watonwan County Road 3. About a block down the glazed roadway, we turn around and head back to Minnesota Highway 60 that takes us further south to St. James, where I lived nearly 30 years ago.

As we drive, the wind whips snow across the four lanes of highway in this place of flat, wide open spaces. My mind flashes back to the winter of 1982, when I lived in St. James and was trying to plan my May wedding. Endless snowstorms stranded me in town on weekends and I wondered if I would ever see my fiancé in Faribault, let alone plan our wedding.

Now here I am, 27 years later, sitting beside the man who became my husband, trying to recall exactly how to get through St. James to highway 30. You would think I could remember the streets in this community, but I don’t. And I’m not exactly watching the road signs.

Instead, I am gawking at the downtown businesses. “Oh, look, they still have a Pamida,” I say. I would stop if we had time and it wasn’t so darned cold. But we don’t have time and I really don’t feel like leaving the relative warmth of the car.

Then we are in the heart of downtown. “I wonder if that movie theater’s still open.” And then I see the theater where my husband, Randy, and I saw the first Indiana Jones movie.

Randy laughs and together we remember the second floor theater with a ceiling so low that part of the movie played on the ceiling. I would stop if we had time and it wasn’t so darned cold.

Then we are driving past the park and the lake and I am pretty sure we are going the wrong direction. We are, because we have been too busy reminiscing. But it’s been fun, and soon we are turned around and headed the right way, west and north out of town to highway 30.

Snow blows and hardens in drifts across the roadway.

Now we are cruising along, bucking the drifts of snow that are edging onto our traffic lane on this endless highway. All around us, white stretches as far as we can see—acres and acres and acres of snowy fields broken only by the occasional farm place and those towns, Darfur, Jeffers and Storden.

In the passenger seat of the car, my legs are getting cold as the wind seeps through the metal and glass. Trips like this remind me just how fierce winters on the prairie can be. Just last week, a woman died in southwestern Minnesota after her vehicle became stuck in the snow and, instead of staying in her car, she tried to walk to a nearby highway for help.

As a prairie native, I am cognizant of winter weather dangers and wish we had a cell phone, although those don’t always work here, in what my kids term “the middle of nowhere.”

There is beauty in this winter landscape, especially in the evergreens iced with snow.

But we are getting closer now to our destination, my brother Doug and sister-in-law Twilia’s house in Westbrook, for a family holiday gathering postponed a week because of a winter storm.

We marvel at the many evergreen trees whose boughs weigh heavy with snow. We worry about the many pheasants foraging for food along the sides of the highway. We see the power of the wind in the rapidly-turning blades of windmills near Storden.

Clusters of windmills near Storden dwarf farm places and cast whirring shadows across highway 30.

We grumble about the cold later, when we leave my brother’s that evening and then again when we wake up at 9 a.m. Saturday morning at my Mom’s house in Vesta, 30 miles further north. The outside temperature is 25 degrees below zero.

We wonder Saturday afternoon whether our car will start. It does, after two cranks. Whew.

And then, after a weekend with family on the bone-chilling cold prairie, we are driving back east, toward Faribault, altering our route again because of icy Brown County roads.

Tonight we are home, snuggled in our house, under our wool and fleece blankets. I am writing. Randy is watching the news.

“What’s the forecast?” I ask.

“Lows in the minus 20s tonight. It might get above zero tomorrow,” he says, hopeful.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

NEARLY SIX MONTHS ago, I launched Minnesota Prairie Roots. The journey thus far has been all I expected. And more.

You, my readers, have responded with a humbling enthusiasm to the stories and photos I’ve shared. I am honored that you have embraced my posts, for blogging has truly become my passion. My readership continues to steadily grow and for that I am grateful.

Often, I am surprised at the posts which receive the most attention.

That said, I want to end 2009 by revealing the 10 most-viewed Minnesota Prairie Roots stories. Here they are, beginning with number 10:

10. “Cream cheese roll-out cookies, a Christmas tradition,” published on December 10, includes my favorite Christmas roll-out cookie recipe.

9. “Preserving the churches of Valley Grove near Nerstrand” ranks ninth among readers, but among the top in my personal favorites. I discovered these duo 1894 and 1862 churches atop a rural hillside while on an autumn drive. Much beauty lies within historic churches. I attempted to capture that in my October 9, 19 and 31 stories and photos from Valley Grove.

8. That legendary Minnesota icon, Paul Bunyan, drew many readers to my September 18 story, “Bemidji: beyond Paul Bunyan.” I published related stories on September 12 and 25 and October 10.

7. For years, I resisted attending a stream and gas engine show with my husband. But this year I decided to see what all the fuss was about by accompanying Randy to a Labor Day weekend event near Dundas. I’m glad I did. The results were some pretty interesting photos, shared in my September 17 post, “Tractors & a whole lot more at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show,” and in several other posts.

6. The Faribault Farmers’ Market also offered plenty of photo opportunities and interviews with some interesting vendors. You readers apparently found the market interesting too as my July 23 story, “Farmers’ market vendors, their stories,” ranked number six.

Chocolate covered jalapenos

5. Ah, what can I say about Dennis and his chocolate-covered jalapeno peppers? I met Dennis peddling his jalapenos at the Faribault Farmers’ Market. If you haven’t already read my July 20 post, “Chocolate covered jalapenos,” do.

Judy Ostrowski applies henna art at Depot Park in Kenyon.

4. I haven’t quite figured out why my September 2 “Henna tattoos and body art by a gypsy woman” story has drawn such readership. But I will say that the tattoo artist I discovered at the Kenyon Rose Fest certainly drew my attention. So I suppose readers would find her equally intriguing.

Rachel Scott, the inspiration for Rachel's Challenge.

3. No other topic moved me as much as a presentation I attended by Rachel’s Challenge in Faribault. Rachel Scott was the first killed in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. I knew I had to share what I learned and the result was my highly-popular November 5 post, “Rachel’s Challenge: Start a chain reaction of kindness.”

The Los 3 Reyes Bakery in historic downtown Faribault, at the center of a controversy over the exterior paint color. The bakery has since been repainted.

2. That “A controversy over color in downtown Faribault” ranks as number two among the most-viewed Minnesota Prairie Roots pieces comes as no surprise. The issue was a hot topic locally for weeks when a contingent of downtown business owners decided they did not like the vibrant color of a Hispanic bakery. I wrote about this controversy on September 30 and again on October 6 and November 9. I am still appalled that business people in my community would “tell” the owner of Los 3 Reyes Bakery that he needed to repaint his building a subtler color. I was hoping that Mariano Perez would resist. But, alas, the bakery has been repainted and an opportunity to embrace cultural differences has been bypassed.

A view of Immanuel from the church balcony.

1. Finally, the most-viewed post: “Preserving the past at Immanuel, Courtland,” published on August 26. In this story, I wrote about the home church of my maternal ancestors. Some might argue that my relatives bumped the numbers on this piece. But I don’t think so. Whatever the reasons, the statistics clearly define this as the top post for 2009.

What will 2010 bring to Minnesota Prairie Roots? Who knows? But I promise, I will continue to write and photograph with a passion. I love Minnesota (well, maybe not our winters). So continue to look here for writing and photos of the people, places, events, things and everyday life that define this place I call home.

Happy New Year!

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

My new 2007 dictionary on the left and a 2004 paperback dictionary on the right sandwich my 1969 outdated word resource book.

“WHY DO YOU NEED a new dictionary?” he asks. “You can just go online.”

Not me, son.

I want a hefty dictionary I can grab from the shelf, hold in my hands and page through to find word definitions.

And that’s exactly what I got from my husband for Christmas—the fourth edition of Webster’s New World College Dictionary.

Just to appease my 15-year-old technologically savvy son, I emphasize that a CD-ROM dictionary and thesaurus accompany the new 1,716-page hard-cover dictionary. All of this should keep me happily in the word business for years.

For a long time, I’ve known that my Random House Dictionary of the English Language needed replacing. But not until writing this blog post did I realize just how badly I needed a new word resource book. My tattered dictionary has a 1969 copyright.

I don’t know why that surprises me. After all, I carted this dictionary off to college in the mid-1970s and then hauled it from one town to another when I worked as a newspaper reporter.

More and more lately, I’ve become frustrated with the words that aren’t listed in that four-decades-old reference book. Try finding e-mail, cell phone, internet, website, blog or blogger in a 1969 publication. You won’t.

Times have changed. And like the computer that replaced the typewriter, it’s time for me to upgrade to a current dictionary.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

The early 1950s barn on the Redwood County dairy farm where I grew up has been basically abandoned.

Nature has taken its toll on the old barn as seen in the weathered wood.

“NOTHING DEFINES RURAL Minnesota more than a red barn.

Whether nestled among the rolling hills of southeastern Minnesota or anchored to the earth in the wide open spaces of the west, red barns symbolize the hope, the fortitude and the dreams of generations of Minnesotans.

For inside the walls of our barns, farm families have worked together, pitching manure, stacking bales, milking cows, building a livelihood as much as a lifestyle. Strong work ethics have been birthed here, life lessons taught.

While many red barns now stand empty, their roofs sagging, their paint peeling, they remain a symbol of all that is good about life in rural Minnesota.”

Several years ago, I wrote those paragraphs for a feature, “Color my world,” published in the fall 2005 issue of Minnesota Moments magazine. The story focused on creating crayon color names—barn red among them—that speak to the uniqueness of Minnesota.

Of the dozens and dozens of stories I’ve written for this Minnesota publication since 2004, I rank this feature as perhaps my most creative and fun.

Clearly, I love old barns.

During my childhood, I spent as much time in the barn as anywhere on my family’s Redwood County farm. I scraped manure into gutters, pushed wheelbarrows full of ground feed down the barn aisle, scooped silage, bedded straw, carried pails of milk from the barn to the milkhouse, fed calves, tossed bales of hay and straw down from the haymow…

I understand barns.

And I enthusiastically support barn preservation efforts, like those of Campbell’s Soup and Friends of Minnesota Barns. See http://HelpGrowYourSoup.com and http://friendsofminnesotabarns.org.

Campbell’s is undertaking a project to restore five barns selected through a voting process. One of the 10 finalist barns is a late 1940s or early 1950s dairy barn at The Farm on St. Mathias near Brainerd. You have until January 5 to cast your ballot for this Minnesota barn that has already been partially-restored with a new roof, dormers, cement floor and hay mow. See the above Campbell’s website to vote. (I had to laugh, though, at the error on the soup website stating that The Farm on St. Mathias is affiliated with the Crow Wine County Future Farmers of America Chapter. That should be Crow Wing.)

Friends of Minnesota Barns recently selected winners in an annual contest aimed at barn preservation. Top honors went to David and Marlyce Logan of Pipestone in the farm use category. Carl and Wanda Erickson of Hawley won in non-farm use. See the Friends website for additional information.

For those of you, who, like me, grew up on farms, there’s a certain comfort in knowing that barn preservation ranks high in importance to a major company like Campbell’s and to grassroots organizations like the Friends of Minnesota Barns.

Farm implements and fields, set against the backdrop of the prairie sky, stretch beyond an open side barn door.

Inside the barn where cows once stood and where I spent many a day feeding cows and doing other chores.

A broken window in my childhood barn reveals a patch of dandelions like those I often plucked for my mom.

The vintage baby stroller that once carried me and some of my siblings around the farmyard now sits abandoned in the barn.

The milkhouse attached to my childhood barn in Redwood County in southwestern Minnesota.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

(Barn photos were taken in the spring of 2009.)

Sister Ellen plays the piano backwards and from memory.

“SHE CAN PLAY BACKWARDS too,” 101-year-old Sister Arno says.

Yeah, right, I think.

But then Sister Ellen swings her legs around the piano bench, stretches her hands behind her back, crosses them and pounds out “Jingle Bells.”

If I didn’t see this, I might not believe it. But this nun at Saint Scholastica Convent in St. Cloud sits, back to the piano, playing holiday songs. Really. Sister Ellen can’t see her long, limber fingers gracefully moving across the keys. Yet, her performance is flawless, nurtured from decades of practice.

Her cousin taught her to play backwards while they were growing up next door to each other in Minneapolis. “She was crazy,” Sister Ellen says of her cousin, but in a kind way.

Crazy or not, this cousin taught Sister Ellen a skill that is entertaining me on this Sunday afternoon in late December. Ten members of the extended Helbling family, me included, have come to this retirement and assisted living facility on the edge of St. Cloud to visit our relative, Sister Arno, and sing a few holiday carols.

We are singing a cappella until Sister Ellen nearly leaps from her chair to accompany us on the piano. Suddenly our singing is livelier, louder. I sway to the music, take in my surroundings in this spacious gathering room that is flooded in natural light, festooned in holiday greenery. Behind me, a bird rattles in a cage. Across the room, I spy a nativity scene below a crucifix.

Sister Ellen's hands on the piano.

Outside, snowy woods embrace the building and we all take note of our beautiful surroundings as we sing, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.”

We don’t always know the words to every song, but we try. And the seven elderly women gathered here tell us how much they appreciate our efforts.

I am intrigued by these nuns, some of whom still wear traditional black and white habits on their heads. I grew up Lutheran and I always find this religious dress rather mysterious and saintly.

These women exude a certain sense of peace that permeates this place. I see peace in their smiles; hear peace in their gentle voices.

Sister Arno asks several times, “How long can you stay?”

“For awhile,” one of my sisters-in-law says.

So we sing. “Away in a Manger.” “Silent Night.”  “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.” These nuns join in. We all clap, then sing some more.

And then we are leaving, but not before I step inside the on-site sanctuary and chapel to snap a few photos of stained glass windows. This place has left an impression upon my heart and so have the women who live here, these nuns whose very presence has blessed me.

Helbling family members greet 101-year-old sister Arno in a hallway at Saint Scholastica Convent in St. Cloud.

My sister-in-law Cheryl and Sister Arno sing Christmas carols.

One of several stained glass windows in the Saint Scholastica Convent sanctuary in St. Cloud.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

My daughters' cars are buried under a blanket of snow in our driveway on Christmas Eve morning.

Snow piled behind my oldest daughter's car measured nine inches deep on Christmas Eve morning.

SCOOP SHOVELFULS of snow tumble over the roof’s edge just above my office window, showering the snow-laden ground. Scrape, scrape scrape. Metal against asphalt shingles. And then, the occasional thump of heavy boots treading. I worry. Will this be the false step that sends my husband sliding off the icy roof?

But he insists that the snow needs to be removed. Fifteen inches on the garage, a bit less on the house. And so he toils, for the second straight day—up the ladder and then scrape and push, scrape and push, scrape and push.

He’s been battling the snow now since Thursday, just like everyone else in Minnesota.

My oldest daughter and I tried to help by shoveling the end of the driveway Thursday morning. He was off to work and I figured even the snowblower couldn’t cut through the chunks of heavy, compacted snow left by the snowplow. So we worked for an hour, scooping and tossing snow onto piles that towered over our heads.

Finally, we quit, exhausted, backs and hips sore from lifting and twisting and turning. When he came home, he said he could have blown away that snowplow-compacted snow with the snowblower. Oh.

Every day, he’s been out clearing the sidewalk and the driveway, and then a neighbor’s sidewalk and driveway of the dozen or so inches of snow that have fallen here the past few days. It is a never-ending chore.

This morning dawned bright and sunny. No snow or rain or sleet falling. Beautiful really.

City crews had cleared the road by our house, but left a large chunk of snow in the middle of our side street. Woe to the inattentive driver who struck that rock.

But when I looked later, the mini boulder had vanished. Good, I thought…until I spotted the Herculean chunk of snow in our driveway. More snow for my husband to move…

The perspective from which my daughter shot this image makes it appear as if Faribault received an unbelievable amount of snow. She was aiming her camera toward the neighbor's place on the hill.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photos by Amber Helbling

A nativity ornament adorns our family Christmas tree.

EVERY YEAR, MEMORIES of childhood Christmases rush back.

And what I remember most from those past years are not the presents, of which there were not all that many in our poor southwestern Minnesota farm family.

Rather, I recall the short, tinsel-strewn Christmas tree that stood on the end of the Formica kitchen table in our tiny farmhouse.

I remember Ham Day, when the Vesta Commercial Club gave away hams and Santa gave brown paper bags of candy and treats to us kids. Marshmallow Santas, peanuts, an orange, a Red Delicious apple.

But mostly, I savor the memories of Christmas Eve services at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Vesta. We Sunday School children filed into the packed sanctuary singing “O, come all ye faithful.”

We spoke our memorized pieces: “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David;). ” I never wanted to recite that verse from Luke chapter 2 because it was too confusing with all of those towns to remember.

Alternating bible verses with songs, we told the Christmas story, sang, “Away in a manger,” “O little town of Bethlehem,” “Behold a branch is growing.”

The pastor preached and we Sunday School children fidgeted with the anticipation that only a child can feel at Christmas.

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord,” one of us later proclaimed to the congregation.

And then, finally, we raced down the aisle sing-shouting “Joy to the world” as we clumped down the narrow basement steps to the church basement. Coats and boots. Men handing out goodie bags of hard ribbon candy and peanuts, an orange and a Red Delicious apple, and the sweetest of all, a Hershey bar.

Oh, sweet Christmas memories. May they be yours today as we celebrate the birth of Christ, the Saviour of the world, the reason for this day.

Merry CHRISTmas!

I saved this baby Jesus from a childhood Sunday School lesson. This decades-old Christ Child ornament hangs every Christmas on my family's Christmas tree and is among my most-cherished deocrations.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling