HEAT AND HUMIDITY gave way to a lovely evening on the prairie. Here, on a grassy space edged by trees, a cornfield, county road and gravel parking lot south of Dundas, folks gathered for “Music on the Prairie.”
And, oh, what an event, the first in a three-part summer concert series hosted, fittingly, by Little Prairie United Methodist Church. As I took in the scene, I thought, life doesn’t get much better than this—great food, music and conversation in the outdoors on a perfect summer evening in southern Minnesota.
Even waiting in line for a fresh local beef patty, a cup of specialty beans (the special ingredient being sauerkraut) and the most delicious homemade chocolate chip cookie sprinkled with sea salt didn’t phase typically-impatient me. Conversation flowed. And the down-home music of the Old Country Boys thrummed a beat across the land as they performed atop a flatbed trailer.
This was an evening meant for pulling out the lawn chairs, for coming here to eat a meal served up by church members, to chat with friends old and new, and to listen to songs like “Ring of Fire,” “King of the Road,” “Sweet Caroline,” “Country Roads” and more. Music that got some in the crowd waving their arms, singing along and others on their feet dancing across the lawn.
The Rev. Penny Bonsell and her husband, Tom Hollenhorst, dressed all in black, briefly took the stage to entertain the crowd as June Carter and Johnny Cash singing “Jackson,” the duo’s 1967 billboard country chart hit. The performance was a hit with the audience as was a song Bonsell sang for her husband in honor of their third wedding anniversary.
Another couple in the crowd was celebrating their 70-something anniversary (I didn’t catch the exact year). They were married at Little Prairie, a picturesque white country church located on a country crossroads corner just to the east of the concert site.
Both anniversaries were recognized with rounds of applause. A band member also led the crowd in welcoming a woman home from a lengthy hospital stay while he videotaped the message for Deb. Such care and compassion builds community, connects us.
All ages came to “Music on the Prairie”—babies in strollers, toddler Afton in her floral skirt and soft pink Princess tee celebrating her first birthday the next day, a four-year-old girl who had just finished preschool, young people, parents and grandparents. All generations.
I watched as a little girl dipped an over-sized wand in a bucket, then drew bubbles across the air. I watched as a dad helped his two-year-old daughter thread beads onto a string, making a bracelet for her mom. I watched as kids climbed ladders inside the Little Prairie Playground, a mini replica of the church.
I listened as a train whistle blew, the train rumbling past on a track through a tree line next to the cornfield next to the lawn where we sat enjoying the music of the Old Country Boys.
I listened to the clang of a church bell inside the playground, the hum of a generator powering the band’s amplifiers and electric guitars.
I hugged my friend Lee whom I haven’t seen in a while. I talked to other friends I haven’t seen in a while. And I made new friends here at Little Prairie where great food, music and conversation connected all of us on a beautiful early June evening in the countryside.
FYI: The next “Music on the Prairie” on Wednesday, July 22, features the Over and Back Band playing funky rock n roll and gypsy bluegrass. The third and final summer concert happens on Wednesday August 19, with The Rockin’ Hep Cats performing roots rock n roll. Attendees can purchase a meal beginning at 5:30 p.m. Music is from 6-8 p.m. The concert is free with donations accepted to support Little Prairie ministries.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Westward bound deep into Minnesota farm country May 28, 2026
Tags: agriculture, barns, Brown County, commentary, farm fields, farm sites, farming, land, landscape, Mankato, memories, Morgan, New Ulm, Owatonna, photography, Redwood County, rural Minnesota, sky, southern Minnesota, travel, Vesta
THROUGH SEVEN SOUTHERN MINNESOTA counties we traveled—Rice, Steele, Waseca, Blue Earth, Nicollet, Brown and, then, home to Redwood. Westward bound.
Only occasionally now, mostly for the annual family reunion and on this day a beloved aunt’s funeral, do Randy and I follow this 125-mile route back to my native Redwood County.
Every trip, I see the immensity of sky and land as the landscape unfolds before me. The farther west we drive, the more rural the look, the feel, with the exception of Mankato and New Ulm.
We bypass the small towns along four-lane U.S. Highway 14 while passing endless farm sites and fields.
I have my eye on the view from the passenger side of our van, scanning the land, watching for photo ops. Photography can be a challenge while traveling at highway speeds. Still, I try, managing to capture images that document the ruralness of this place.
Barns, especially red ones, always grab my attention. They symbolize agriculture more than any other building. Yet, most no longer center a farming operation. Absent of animals, many barns have been repurposed or have fallen into heaps of rotting wood. I always appreciate a well-kept barn still standing strong against elements and the passage of time.
This trip I’m also cognizant of crops at the beginning of the growing season. Corn is popping up in rows across the land, green shoots reaching toward the sun, the sky. Green is good. When my next trip this direction comes in late July, that corn will stand towering and dense across acres of fields.
I may not be a farmer, but my connection to the land more than 50 decades removed from my childhood farm remains strong. I still look at the crops. I still hope to spot a herd of Holsteins. I still see a silo and mentally climb the interior ladder to throw down silage. I still eye a grove of trees with the playfulness of youth.
While nostalgia runs high on trips like this deep into Minnesota farm country, reality is that farming remains as challenging as ever with ever-rising expenses, low commodity prices and the uncertainties of weather. Will rain fall when needed? Will storms come with devastating wind and hail? Always, always, the risks exist from planting to growing to harvest.
But on this day, mile after mile after mile, I see the hope of a farmer. I see a way of life. I see dreams.
And I feel small in this place where land and sky dwarf farm sites, where fields stretch across endless acres, where the highway ribbons ahead of us across seven rural southern Minnesota counties, westward bound.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling