Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Milkweeds, monarchs & memories in Minnesota August 20, 2024

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Monarch on the common milkweed flower. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2023)

I’VE ALWAYS HELD a fascination with milkweeds. Their clusters of vanilla-scented dusty pink flowers draw me to a plant that seems more flower than weed. Unless you were my dad, who wanted the common milkweed removed from his acres of soybeans. Yes, I hoed or pulled plenty of milkweeds from the fields on my southwestern Minnesota childhood farm.

Milkweeds grow next to the conservation building at the Rice County Fairgrounds against a backdrop of identifying milkweed photos. Those include six types: common, poke, purple, butterfly, whorled and swamp. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)

My thinking has shifted since then. Today I plant, rather than eradicate, milkweeds. Dad, if he was still alive, might wonder how his farm-raised daughter strayed so far from hoeing to growing.

A monarch caterpillar. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

The answer is easy. Long ago I learned the value of milkweeds to our monarch butterfly population. The butterfly lays its eggs on milkweed leaves. And milkweed is the sole source of food for monarch caterpillars. If we want the monarch population to grow, thrive and survive, we need milkweed plants. It’s that simple.

A sign at Hy-Vee grocery store explains the importance of milkweed to monarchs. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)

More and more I’ve spotted milkweeds growing in public places in and around Faribault. River Bend Nature Center. Falls Creek County Park. The Rice County Master Gardeners’ Teaching Gardens. Beside the conservation building at the Rice County Fairgrounds. Even in flowerbeds at Hy-Vee grocery store.

Milkweeds grow among phlox. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)

If you walk by my house, you’ll see stray milkweeds popping up here and there. Along a retaining wall. Among the prolific phlox in my messy flowerbeds. The husband has orders not to mow, pull or otherwise remove milkweed plants.

An unripened milkweed pod. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

This time of year, seed pods are forming on milkweeds. Perhaps it’s the writer, the poet, in me that loves the shape of those fat green pods that will eventually dry, burst open and spread seeds on wisps of white fluff carried by the wind.

Milkweeds flourish among prairie flowers in the Rice County Master Gardeners Teaching Gardens, Faribault, (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)

Seeds wing across the landscape, just like monarchs. I remember a time when monarchs were prolific. Yes, even in rural Minnesota where I labored to get rid of milkweed plants.

I discovered milkweeds planted outside Hy-Vee. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)

Naturalists, gardeners and others are working hard now to bring back the monarch population. It’s taken time, effort and education to convince people to plant milkweeds for monarchs. I don’t expect butterfly numbers will be what they once were—when monarchs flitted everywhere. But we have to start somewhere, do something. And that begins with each of us. Educating ourselves. Caring. And then deciding that milkweeds really aren’t weeds after all. They are vital to the survival of the monarch butterfly. It’s OK to plant milkweed seeds or allow nature to plant them.

Monarch on a thistle flower. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

I, for one, delight in watching monarchs flit about my yard. They are magical as only a butterfly can be. Delicate, yet strong. Poetically beautiful. Carrying memories and grace on their wings.

An educational sign among the flowers at the Rice County Master Gardeners Teaching Gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)

FYI: Nerstrand Big Woods State Park is hosting a “Monarchs and Milkweeds” presentation at 10 a.m. Saturday, August 24, in the park’s amphitheater. Kathy Gillispie, who raises monarchs from eggs, caterpillars and chrysalises, will speak about her experiences with monarchs. The program is free, but a state park parking pass is needed to enter the rural Nerstrand park.

© Copyright 2024 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Reminded of the importance of farmers June 16, 2023

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Hy-Vee in Faribault grilled pork burgers outside its patio area on Thursday with a tractor parked nearby. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2023)

I LUNCHED YESTERDAY with a guy from northern Rice County who farms and runs an auto body repair shop. The shop is Andy’s primary business with crop farming secondary. He rents out some of his acreage, tending only his alfalfa field. He has plenty of customers for his hay. Mostly people with horses and dairy goats, he said.

This massive tractor provided photo ops outside Faribault’s Hy-Vee grocery store. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2023)

Before Thursday, I’d never met Andy. But I asked if Randy and I could join him at a patio table outside Faribault’s Hy-Vee. The grocer was serving free pork burgers, chips and bottled water as part of its “Feed the Farmers that Feed America” event. The Iowa-based supermarket chain is working with Feeding America-affiliated food banks to help end hunger. A donation jar was filling with bills.

A farm site north of Faribault, photographed from Interstate 35. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo June 2023)

Events like this remind me just how important agriculture is to all of us. Without farmers, we’d be hard-pressed to feed ourselves. Or at least I would since I don’t have a garden or animals or anything except two broccoli plants started from seed by my 4-year-old grandson.

A tractor waits at a stoplight aside other traffic on busy Minnesota State Highway 21, just off Interstate 35 in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2023)

Events like this remind me also that agriculture is an important part of my community. Farm fields surround Faribault. Tractors rumble through town, sometimes past my house.

Parked at the Hy-Vee event, a corn (and beer) themed ATV. Guests enjoy free pork burgers on the patio. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2023)

Although I was raised on a crop and dairy farm, I don’t always consider how agriculture impacts us in our daily lives. Without farmers working the land, tending crops, the shelves at HyVee and other grocery stores would be empty. Farmers’ markets wouldn’t exist. And I’d be really hungry because, as much as I like broccoli, that’s not enough to quell my hunger.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

How two Faribault businesses made me smile with great customer service May 2, 2018

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In the small town of Ellendale, kids bike to Lerberg’s Foods for groceries and the occasional slushie. Here two sisters and a friend slurp their slushies while sitting on bags of water softener pellets next to the pop machine. This is one of my favorite images of a small town local business. I took this photo in August 2011. Lerberg’s Foods is still in business.

 

I VALUE GREAT CUSTOMER service. It can be the deciding factor in whether I patronize a business. If I have a bad experience, I’ll think twice about returning. If I have a great experience, you bet I’ll give that business my business.

Now more than ever, customer service holds significant value along our main streets. It is one way local businesses can compete with online shopping. Not that that is a personal concern for me; I seldom shop online. But most people do. So our local shopkeepers need to go that extra mile to create a welcoming experience that meets customers’ needs.

What comprises great customer service? For me, it starts with a smile. The minute I walk in the door, I should be greeted, valued. I don’t need a clerk or store owner who hovers, but I appreciate someone who is subtly attentive. Help me if I appear overwhelmed, uncertain or can’t seem to find whatever. Listen. Offer choices. Answer questions. And then listen some more. Or leave me alone if I’m sending body language signals that I’d rather be left to browse.

I expect it’s not always easy to determine how to best serve a customer. But a shopkeeper can’t go wrong by simply being nice. And helpful.

 

 

I cite two recent examples from my community of Faribault where two grocery store employees showed exceptional customer service. Both on the same day. While at Hy-Vee, I was approached by an employee who apparently noticed me filtering for too long through clamshells of strawberries special-priced at $1.28/pound. I couldn’t find any berries that weren’t over-ripe and/or rotting. Even at a bargain, I won’t pay for bad produce and dislike when a grocer tries to sell food that should be tossed.

But this employee decided he wanted a satisfied customer. He offered to go to the back storeroom and find a pack of acceptable berries. Two if I wanted two, although I pointed out the “Limit one to a customer” sign. He would bring two, he said. I waited until he returned. With only one pack. But that was OK. He also promised to have those over-ripe berries cleared from the shelves.

At my next grocery store stop, I experienced exceptional customer service in the bakery department of Fareway Meat & Grocery. I was on a mission to find a smiley face cookie for my two-year-old granddaughter. Typically those cookies are sold at Hy-Vee. But on this Saturday they weren’t immediately available. I didn’t have time to wait an hour so headed to Fareway hoping for the coveted cookie.

 

 

I found smiley face cookies, six to a package. But I didn’t want six. I wanted one. Perhaps, I thought, I could buy a single cookie from the pick-your-own selections. Turns out the cookies aren’t sold individually. I explained my dilemma to the baker, how I had hoped to buy one cookie for Izzy for her second birthday because her mama loved smiley face cookies when she was a little girl. The baker smiled, then told me to pull a package from the shelves. I could have one, she said. At no charge.

You can bet my mouth curved as wide as the blue smile on that cookie. My joy in that simple gesture of kindness shone as bright as the yellow frosting. Granted, giving away that cookie didn’t cost Fareway much money. But it was priceless in terms of exceptional customer service.

That’s what I’m talking about as we celebrate Small Business Month in Minnesota during May and National Small Business Week from now until May 5. Hy-Vee and Fareway may not classify as small businesses. But two employees at their Faribault stores exemplified outstanding customer service to me. And that, my friends, is how Main Street can compete in today’s global online marketplace.

TELL ME: What’s your definition of great customer service? Give me an example. Do you shop local or mostly online?

 

© Copyright 2018 Audrey Kletscher Helbling