Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

I welcome thee to Minnesota, warm Spring May 17, 2011

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Oh, glorious Spring of warmth and sun, I welcome thee to Minnesota. Thou hath been too long absent.

Thy clouds have overshadowed this land, casting weariness upon the souls of all who dwell here.

Thy waters have poured forth from the heavens and fraught despair in the hearts of those who till the soil.

They who shelter the beasts of the earth have anguished.

But thou hath arrived in green pastures where cattle graze.

The sheep eat of the new grass.

And the mighty trees bask in thy beauty.

The people note the quiet unfurling of the leaves. Thou hath caused them to rejoice.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Pigs and poetry May 14, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:00 AM
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This pig greets diners at Piggy Blue's Bar-B-Que in Austin, Minnesota. This image is posted here for pig illustration purposes only, not because it's specifically related to the following story.

IN A WEEK, my sister-in-law is moving from Minot, North Dakota, to Missouri. In August, my brother-in-law, an Air Force man, will join her and their young son.

She’s leaving early to seed the garden, plant the orchard and ponder the purchase of pigs. This has always been Jamie’s dream, to own a country acreage where she can grow fruits and vegetables and raise an Old McDonald variety of animals.

Chickens, rabbits, goats and a pig or two comprise her animal acquisition list.

But about those pigs…I overheard a man advising her last Saturday to “hold off” on the pigs for awhile. He didn’t give a reason, only suggested she wait.

Her husband, Neil, although supportive of his wife’s plan, also has reservations about the swine. If Jamie wants a pig, Neil says he can shoot one. He would be right. The Missouri Department of Conservation advises residents to “shoot ’em on sight” in an online article about the problem of feral pigs running rampant.

Thankfully we do not have a wild pig problem in Minnesota. Our problem would be an overabundance of deer.

But we do have a book of pig poetry featuring 133 pig poems penned by 103 poets like Robert Bly, Louise Erdrich and Bill Holm. Red Dragonfly Press, a solely poetry not-for-profit literary organization based in Red Wing, published Low Down and Coming On: A Feast of Delicious and Dangerous Poems About Pigs. James P. Lenfestey edited the 232-page anthology printed last October.

Tomorrow (May 15) several of the pig penning poets, including Lenfestey, will read from the book at a “Pig Gig” slated for 2 p.m. at the Litchfield Opera House in Litchfield.

Now if my sister-in-law wasn’t preoccupied with packing for Missouri, I’d propose she check out this pig gig for pig pointers prior to purchasing pigs.

© Text and Piggy Blue’s photo copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Ugly chapped hands February 13, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 12:42 PM
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My not-so-beautiful left hand.

THIS IS THE HAND of a writer. My left hand. I would show you my right hand, too, but I can’t hold my camera and photograph my right hand with my left hand. Never mind.

I’m not showing you my appendage because it’s pretty. It’s not.

It’s really rather ugly. My right hand is worse, with cracks and dried spots of blood edging split skin.

The dry, cold air of winter has been rough on my skin. Cleaning a paintbrush with mineral spirits more than a dozen times during the past two weeks has added to the epidermis damage.

I doubt my hands have looked this bad since I was a child. Back in the day, back on the farm, my hands cracked and bled every winter. That was a result of working in the brutal outdoors, protecting my hands with only a thin pair of brown cotton chore gloves as I fed calves and cows, bedded straw and pushed manure into barn gutters.

Dipping my hands into buckets of hot water to mix milk replacer for the calves temporarily warmed numbed fingers. But it also caused them to chap.

My mom offered a solution: Corn Huskers lotion

Oh, how I detested that slimy, clear gel that she insisted we slather across our skin. I’m not here to endorse or not endorse any hand care products, but this lotion did nothing to improve the condition of my chapped hands.

Only the arrival of warmer weather, of spring, signaled relief from the itching, bleeding and cracking.

So, now, like decades ago, I am awaiting the spring renewal and healing of my hands.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Together let’s make this harvest season safe October 7, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 2:07 PM
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Bishop Jon Anderson, Southwestern Minnesota Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, blesses the Prahl family.

 

SEVERAL WEEKS AGO I wrote about a Tractor Roll-in and Harvest Blessing Service at Trinity Lutheran Church in rural Gaylord.

Yesterday I received my September 30 issue of The Gaylord Hub, a community newspaper where I worked for two years right out of college. Even after three decades removed from Gaylord, I’m still interested in the happenings in this small town.

As I paged through the issue, I came across a photo on page four from the Trinity harvest blessing service. Pastor William Nelsen had e-mailed the same image, and several others, to me. But they were just sitting in my in-box and I wasn’t sure I would ever publish them on Minnesota Prairie Roots.

But then, yesterday, that blessing service photo in The Hub, followed by a story two pages later, prompted me to write this post. The news article shared information about an accident in which a farmer’s clothing became entangled in a power take off driven rotor shaft. The farmer sustained severe head, chest and arm injuries and was airlifted from the scene. The irony of the harvest blessing photo and the farm accident story publishing in the same issue of The Hub was not lost on me.

Yes, harvest season is well underway here in southern Minnesota. And with it comes the added danger of accidents on the farm and on roadways. Farmers are tired, stressed, overworked.

Motorists are impatient and in a hurry.

This time of year we all need to take great care as we’re out and about in rural Minnesota. If you get “stuck” behind a combine or a tractor or a slow-moving grain truck, exercise caution and don’t be in such an all-fired hurry to zoom around the farm machinery.

If you’re a farmer, please use proper signage, turn signals and flashing lights and stick to the edge of the roadway as much as you can. Bulky farm machinery limits a motorist’s ability to see around you, which can lead to accidents.

Together, with understanding and patience and, yes, even consideration, farmers and non-farmers can join in making this a safer harvest season.

 

 

Pastor Bill Nelsen blesses the Klaers family and their harvest during the service.

 

 

Pastor Bill Nelsen blesses the Kahle-Giefer family and their harvest. Farmers drove about 40 tractors and combines to the worship service attended by 200-plus worshipers.

 

 

I snapped this harvest photo along a rural road near Northfield on Sunday afternoon.

 

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photos courtesy of Margie Nelsen

 

Barns full of memories October 6, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:39 AM
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I photographed this barn along Le Sueur County Road 21 while on a recent drive to see the fall colors.

LIKE COUNTRY CHURCHES and abandoned farmhouses, old barns draw me close, calling me to not only look, but to truly see.

All too often these days, though, my view is periphery, a quick glimpse from a car window of a barn that stands straight and strong or crooked and decaying.

Because these are not my barns on my property, I typically settle for photographing them from the roadway, although I would like nothing more than to meander my way around the farmyard.

Barns evoke memories—of sliding shovels full of cow manure into gutters, of dumping heaps of pungent silage before stanchions, of pushing wheelbarrows overflowing with dusty ground feed down the narrow barn aisle, of dodging streams of cow pee, of frothy milk splashing into tall metal pails, of Holsteins slopping my skin with sandpaper tongues.

Such memories come from years of hard work on my childhood dairy farm in southwestern Minnesota. That barn stands empty now, has for longer than I care to remember. No cows. No kids. No farmer. No nothing.

I have only my memories now and those barns, those roadside barns, which symbolize the hope, the fortitude and the dreams of generations of Minnesotans.

The early 1950s barn on the Redwood County dairy farm where I grew up is no longer used and has fallen into disrepair.

A close-up image of the red barn (above), snapped while driving past the farm.

Another barn in Le Sueur County.

Old silos, like this one along Rice County Road 10, also intrigue me. Growing up on a farm, I climbed into the silo to throw down silage for the cows. Below my brother scooped up the silage to feed cows on his side of the barn. It took me awhile to figure out what he was doing, and that was making me do half his work.

If ever a barn could impress, it would be this one I spotted on the Le Sueur/Blue Earth County line, I believe along Le Sueur County Road 16. I doubt I've ever seen such a stately barn.

Here's another angle of the sprawling old barn. Yes, I trespassed and tromped across the lawn to capture this photo. Imagine the dances you could host in this haymow. What a fine, fine barn.

I zoomed in even closer to capture the barn roof and a portion of the silo.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Build it and they will ride September 6, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:04 PM
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WHEN MY BROTHER-IN-LAW showed off the flatbed trailer he and his family recently built and then suggested we all pile on for a ride down the field driveway, I hesitated. Tom sometimes can be a bit of a daredevil with his toys.

So I passed on the maiden voyage that carried 11 family members along the grassy pathway between soybean fields, up the hill, around and back to the farm site.

Then my 78-year-old mom decided she would ride, up front on the all-terrain vehicle, sandwiched between the driver and my oldest brother, who once gave me a ride on his snowmobile and then left me stranded in a gravel pit.

I figured with Mom on board, the boys would behave, drive responsibly and get us all back safely. So I slung my camera around my neck, pulled myself onto the wagon and sat next to my oldest daughter, legs dangling over the edge.

Off we went, bouncing along the field road under a beautiful blue sky scuttled with white clouds. Honestly, September days in Minnesota don’t get much better than this—sunshine and soybean fields, country air and spacious skies, princess waves and smiles as wide as the horizon, dog hugs and happy kids, laughter and the love of family, my family.

My niece practiced her princess wave as we rode between the soybean fields.

I sat next to my oldest daughter. We were all smiling and laughing.

Two of my siblings sit side by side on the edge of the trailer.

One happy boy (my nephew) and one happy dog.

My Mom sits safely between my brother-in-law and my oldest brother in the all-terrain vehicle.

Feet hung or dangled over the sides of the flatbed trailer as toes nearly touched soybean leaves.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

PEACHES and cheese and Splitladder Syder August 20, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 12:33 PM
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IF I HAD TO NAME my favorite fruits, I would choose blueberries, strawberries and peaches.

So you can imagine my excitement upon glimpsing a PEACHES sign while traveling along Minnesota Highway 60 near Lake Crystal last Saturday morning. Unfortunately my husband and I were on a tight schedule and were heading away from that tempting sign.

Welsh Heritage Farms Apple Orchard & Pie Shop near Lake Crystal

Fast forward to the early evening hours when, upon our return trip, I remembered that PEACHES place just in time for Randy to veer into the right turn lane.

I’m so glad I made that split-second decision to stop. We discovered not only juicy Missouri peaches at Welsh Heritage Farms, but a plethora of other goodies inside the double red pole sheds. Heritage Farms, a family-owned business which advertises itself as an apple orchard and pie shop, is that and much more.

I eyed the apple crisp and apple butter, the mustard, the honey and the soup mixes among the many offerings. I tasted the apple cider donuts and almost gave in to hunger pangs. But I stuck to the healthy peaches and Michigan blueberries. Well, not quite, as you will read.

Tempting Welsh Heritage Farms cider donuts

Honey from Harris Honey Company in nearby Madelia

Country style buckets for the in-season peaches

Missouri peaches for the picking from the peach wagon.

NEXT TO THE MAIN BUSINESS sits another building, Harbo Cider Winery and Cheese Shop. We were directed there by Pamela Harbo, Welsh Heritage Farms co-owner/operator. Her son, Tim, runs the business. For a cheese-lover like me, this equates cheese heaven.

Harbo Cider Winery & Cheese Shop next to Welsh Heritage Farms

Tim carries 47 varieties of cheese, all of which (if I recall) hail from Wisconsin. Yes, I felt a moment of disloyalty to Minnesota cheese makers. But that didn’t stop me from sampling several cheeses and purchasing Henning’s Blueberry Cobbler Cheddar—a white cheddar marbled with blueberries—and Hook’s Blue Paradise ™ Cheese, the creamiest blue cheese I’ve ever tasted. (My apologies to the Swiss Valley Farms Cooperative of Iowa which recently purchased Faribo Dairy, my community’s maker of outstanding Amablu and Amablu St. Pete’s Select blue cheeses.)

Of course, along with that cheese, we needed a little wine, or hard cider. Unfamiliar with hard cider, I asked Tim for an explanation as I sipped. Hard cider is made from pressed and fermented apples and was once this country’s most popular alcoholic beverage, he tells me. Think apple trees and Prohibition.

Splitladder Syder. Love that name.

Surprisingly, Tim’s 6.5 percent alcohol content Splitladder Syder, tastes nothing like apples, but similar to a dry white wine. He was the first in Minnesota to produce the hard cider for sale, he says.

While I didn’t buy any hard cider, I would recommend it as a fine accompaniment to cheese.

I would also recommend pulling off highway 60 between Mankato and Lake Crystal to check out Welsh Heritage Farms and Harbo Cider Winery and Cheese Shop. You might want to watch for an APPLES sign, though, as the season transitions from Missouri peaches to Minnesota apples.

The entry to Welsh Heritage Farms Apple Orchard & Pie Shop.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The anatomy of an Allis-Chalmers auction on a Minnesota farm August 6, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:11 AM
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THEY CAME…

the young

and the older

to Allis-Chalmers collector Carl Krueger’s farm

where he sold his beloved truck

and his cherished Allis-Chalmers tractors

to the highest bidders.

The collectible Allis-Chalmers tractors

even the Wallis

and the Allis-Chalmers tractor manual sold.

But the neighbor’s rare 1964 Schafer failed to get a high enough bid.

Auction attendees fueled up on bars from the Lutherans

clasped steering wheels

at the auction on a Minnesota farm field on an August afternoon.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

(See my August 2 post for additional photos from Carl Krueger’s Allis-Chalmers auction.)

 

Fredrickson’s book presents field work, past and present August 3, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:41 AM
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ONCE UPON A TIME, I told my farmer-dad I wanted to be a farmer when I grew up. Clearly, I became a writer instead of a tender of the land or of animals. But my heart remains rooted in the southwestern Minnesota prairie, my childhood home, the place where I worked in the barns, worked in the fields and became the person I am today.

For those reasons I particularly appreciate children’s picture books like those written by Lakeville author Gordon W. Fredrickson who specializes in writing about country life and farming.

His second, If I Were a Farmer book, Field Work, recently released from Beaver’s Pond Press, just in time for Minnesota’s annual celebration of agriculture, Farmfest. Fredrickson and his wife, Nancy, will be in the Craft/toy/home and garden pavilion during Farmfest’s three-day run this week at the Gilfillan Estate between Morgan and Redwood Falls. The event opens at 8 a.m. today.

That pitch aside, let me tell you a bit about Fredrickson. He grew up on a Scott County dairy farm, did his share of farm chores and working the land, farmed for awhile as an adult and taught high school English. He possesses the experience, knowledge, skills and passion to write about agriculture in an interesting, informative and, sometimes, humorous fashion.

Fredrickson’s subtle humor shines in Field Work as page by opposite page, he compares past farming practices and farm equipment to modern-day farming practices and equipment.

His book reconnects me to the past, to those years on the farm. So for that reason, Fredrickson’s story also appeals to adults, particularly former farm kids.

For those unfamiliar with agriculture through the years, Fredrickson’s story provides a history lesson. He even includes a glossary (per my suggestion after publication of an earlier book) to further aid readers in understanding the equipment and other terminology used in his story.

From working the soil through planting and harvesting, this former farmer details the growing season via would-be farmers. Little Nancy imagines herself as a modern-day farmer while Tommy prefers older equipment and practices from about the 1950s. Children, especially those ages 6 – 8, will enjoy the storyline and the educational content woven into it.

I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but the humorous clincher last page clearly shows me that Fredrickson, even though an award-winning writer now, is a true mustard-pulling, rock-picking, scoop-shoveling farm boy at heart.

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IN ADDITION TO FIELD WORK, Fredrickson has also published If I Were a Farmer: Nancy’s Adventure and three books in the Farm Country Tales series–Christmas Eve, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

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FIELD WORK ILLUSTRATOR David H. Jewell of Minneapolis died on July 15 after being hospitalized for pneumonia. He suffered from diabetes and related complications.

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JUST FOR FUN, I asked Redwood County historian and Redwood Falls Mayor Gary Revier if he had any old farm photos he could share for publication on this post. He obliged and here are just three of the many he e-mailed. These hearken back to the days of horse-drawn machinery, even earlier than the time period covered in Fredrickson’s Field Work.

This threshing scene is near my hometown of Vesta in southwestern Minnesota, in Redwood County, home to Farmfest. Given the label, I assume this was at the George Alexander farm.

Another threshing scene, this one from the Whittet place in Redwood County.

A field scene from Sundown Township.

© Text Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photos courtesy of Gary Revier

Book cover image courtesy of Gordon W. Fredrickson