Me with my mom in January 2020, right before COVID restrictions stopped visits to care centers. I saw little of Mom in the final years of her life due to the pandemic. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo January 2020 by Randy Helbling)
TODAY, JANUARY 13, MARKS three years since my mom died. I hadn’t intended to write about this anniversary date. But then two friends blogged on topics that changed my mind.
My dear friend Beth Ann from North Carolina, who blogs at It’s Just Life, writes today about observing a grocery store encounter between a daughter and elderly mother that reminded her of her sweet mom whom she lost several years ago. The point of Beth Ann’s post is that grief comes in the most unexpected of moments and hits you hard. She’s right.
Hot fudge pudding cake slathered with real whipped cream and topped with sprinkles. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Then my friend Sue, who lives in Minnesota, winters in Arizona and blogs primarily about food at Ever Ready, published a post featuring Hot Fudge Sundae Cake. Waves of nostalgia and grief swept over me as I scrolled through Sue’s post. Hot Fudge Pudding Cake, as my family called this delectable, easy-to-make dessert, was a favorite of Mom’s and of me.
Neither Sue or Beth Ann could have known I would be reading their words on the third anniversary of Mom’s death. But I did. And it was meant to be because my grief needed an outlet. My friends’ writing prompted me to write this post.
The cover of the altered book created by Kathleen. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
In the process of writing, I headed upstairs to pull a mini keepsake book from a closet. My friend Kathleen, formerly of Minnesota and now of Idaho, created the altered book for me following my mother’s death. She tapped into my blog to pull quotes, information and photos that truly summarize Mom’s life and our relationship. The book brims with words of love, faith, family and farm life, all at the essence of my mom. It truly is one of my most treasured possessions.
The first page in the keepsake book shows my mom holding me. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
So on this day, while the grief of losing Mom feels particularly heavy, it is the creativity of friends that comforts me. Beth Ann’s “Right There in the Baking Aisle” resonates. Sue’s shared recipe brings smiles as I remember. And Kathleen’s keepsake mini altered book stirs within me so many memories of the mom I loved, and still love.
TELL ME: Who are you grieving? What can spark your grief? What comforts you in grief?
A creative merchandise display inside the barn at “Vintage Christmas in the Barn,” which featured old stuff for sale inside a barn, an outbuilding and outdoors. My older brother had a Tonka digger. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
MENTION THE WORD “vintage” and I’m all in. Perhaps it’s my age. But probably not. I’ve always preferred the stuff of yesteryear to the stuff of today. For that reason, I am drawn to shops, garage sales and other places selling antiques, primitives, collectibles, second hand and vintage.
The site of the recent holiday market, “Vintage Christmas in the Barn,” in Cannon City. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
This time of year, especially, “old” is out there, including in Cannon City, where Debbie Glende, aka The Crabby Wren, opens her outbuildings for occasional seasonal sales. Her holiday market, “Vintage Christmas in the Barn,” is no longer open. But it got me thinking about how much I appreciate the goods of yesteryear. And how this old stuff can make an ideal Christmas gift. It’s even a bit trendy now, especially with the younger generation, to shop thrift stores. Repurpose, reuse and keep stuff out of the landfill.
I recycled festive holiday trim and a card from Christmases past to decorate this gift. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I’ve been doing this for a long time. Buying used, using goods passed down to me from family, even gifting second hand. And, yes, I save and reuse gift bags, tissue paper, ribbons and bows and recycle greeting cards as gift tags, all to the ridicule of my siblings. Let ’em laugh. Mom would be proud that I’m following her thrifty example.
A paint-by-number winter scene painted by my Great Grandma Anna and currently displayed in my home for the holidays. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
If you were to step into my home, you would find lots of vintage. I have collections of vintage glassware, which I use daily; vintage tablecloths, pulled out whenever I have dinner guests; and vintage art (including paint-by-number), displayed throughout my home.
My vintage early 1970s vinyl with two songs by Bob Dylan. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo December 2024)
And then there’s my vinyl collection including a recording of a young Michael Jackson of The Jackson 5 singing “I’ll Be There” in a high-pitched voice. I got that record as a Christmas gift in 1970. Likewise my vinyl of heartthrob David Cassidy making his case in “I Think I Love You” with The Partridge Family. I can still belt out the words as that love song blasts on a garage sale turntable. And not to be forgotten, Minnesota native Bob Dylan with his ballad “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” That’s especially timely with the Christmas release of “A Complete Unknown,” a movie about Dylan. Yes, I like vintage.
Gathering with extended family in my home for a Thanksgiving dinner around George and Clara’s table many years ago. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
My dining room table, of unknown vintage, came from George and Clara’s home, purchased at George’s farm auction after he passed. The couple lived a few sections over from my childhood home near Vesta. For the past four decades plus, my family has gathered around that large oval wooden table with the graceful, curved legs. We’ve shared thousands of meals, talked and laughed and, yes, even cried. Kids did their homework there. Grandkids drew. Tabletop dings mark memories.
The 1960s amber glasses purchased for my mom and which I now have and use daily. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Perhaps that’s the appeal of vintage. The memories. Vintage connects me to my past or to loved ones. When I drink from textured amber glasses, I think of my mom. The glasses were purchased at Marquardt’s Hardware Store in Vesta as a Mother’s Day gift for her sometime in the 1960s. They are a tactile reminder of Mom, who died in January 2022.
My Aunt Rachel crafted and gifted this to my mom in the 1960s. Now I have the tree and hang it in my home at Christmas. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
The handcrafted pinecone Christmas tree, which my beloved Aunt Rachel made for my mom in the 1960s, now hangs in my home each December. In the dining room, within view when dining at George and Clara’s table.
Atop a vintage chest of drawers (one my dad and his older brother used as children) in my living room, six plastic angels gather as part of the Shiny Brite Christmas Angel Band. My brother Doug and I bought the tiny figurines for Mom at a hardware store in Echo. A Christmas gift sometime in the 1960s.
Vintage outdoor holiday decorations like this were for sale at “Vintage Christmas in the Barn.” (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
Vintage. Whether viewed inside or outside a barn in Cannon City, in my home or in a local shop, these goods of bygone days spark memories, ignite joy, remind me of the passage of time. Will my adult children or grandkids care about any of this after I’m gone? Maybe. But I expect they will wonder why Mom/Grandma kept all this old stuff. Perhaps they will choose a piece or two to keep as a memory of me. And then they will box up the rest, wondering who the heck David Cassidy is and why I needed all those vintage tablecloths and drinking glasses and what’s with this pinecone Christmas tree?
Me, in the red jumper, with my siblings Doug (back) and front, left to right, Monica, Brian and Lanae on Christmas Eve 1964in our childhood home. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
NOSTALGIA SHAPES my Christmas tree choice, as I expect it may yours. I want a tree that is short-needled, imperfect, leaning toward Charlie Brownish. That type of unshaped tree is the tree of my childhood Christmases on a southwestern Minnesota dairy and crop farm.
UPDATE:Ken’s Christmas Trees, 1407 Fourth St. NW., Faribault, has closed for the season. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo December 2024)
In the old 1 ½-story wood-frame farmhouse where I lived the first 11 years of my life with my parents and four of my five siblings (Brad wasn’t yet born, the new house not yet built), our Christmas tree sat on the end of the Formica kitchen table. The house was too small to put the tree elsewhere. An oil-burning stove occupied much of the tiny living room, which would be the usual spot to place a tree.
A touch of red at Ken’s Christmas Trees, which also sells wreaths and evergreen garland. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo December 2024)
I loved that the tree sat on the table, which was draped with a red-and-white checked oilcloth tablecloth matching the red-and-white checkered linoleum tile floors. Kitchen walls were painted yellow on top with some type of red-bordered gray wall covering below. A maroon Naugahyde rocker sat in front of the trap door leading to the dirt-floored cellar.
An overview of Ken’s Christmas Trees, located in a lot next to Jersey Mike’s. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo December 2024)
In that setting, Dad placed our grocery store Christmas tree. On the kitchen table, on the end next to the window facing west. Imagine gathering there in the dark of December, Dad in from doing chores, Mom dishing up meat, boiled potatoes, gravy and a side vegetable to pass around. Homemade bread piled on a plate. Milk from our cows poured into cups. Meals during the holiday season held a bit of magic because of that tiny Christmas tree.
Tinsel sparkled in the glow of holiday lights. To this day, I drape tinsel on my tree even if it’s a bit of a hassle. I love the old-fashioned look, the memories connected to tinsel.
This paper Baby Jesus goes on my Christmas tree every year. It’s from the 1960s, from my Sunday School Christmas lesson. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I remember favorite ornaments, too. The wax lamb, which Mom cautioned not to hang too close to the heat of a bulb. The glittery gray dove. The mini white church with a red window, hung near a red bulb so the window glowed. The colorful vintage round ornaments that we handled with care lest they break, and some did. I have a few of those. And then the paper baby Jesus, nestled in a manger, and an angel robed in white. I have both, cut from Sunday School lessons and looped with yarn to hang from evergreen boughs.
My husband,Randy, accompanied by Ken’s son, carries our $37 tree to the van. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo December 2024)
When I shop for my Christmas tree each December, usually at Ken’s Christmas Trees in Faribault, these visuals guide me. I am, I suppose, attempting to recapture those Christmases of yesteryear. A time when, unencumbered by the responsibilities of adulthood, I experienced the absolute joy of the season. There were no worries—only that of remembering my line for the Sunday School Christmas service.
This cut-out of Ken Mueller stood at the tree lot in 2023. Mueller faced a major health crisis this past year, but has since recovered. His kids are now running the tree lot. It’s all about family with the Muellers, too. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo December 2023)
Today I experience Christmas through my grandchildren, Isabelle, 8, and Isaac, almost six. Next Christmas another little one—my second daughter is due to deliver a boy in January—will add to the magic of the season. Kids have a way of infusing anticipation and unbridled joy into Christmas.
Shoppers search for the “perfect” tree, for them, at Ken’s lot. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo December 2024)
When my core family (minus the pregnant daughter and her husband, who live 260 miles away) gather around my Charlie Brownish tree in the living room (not the kitchen) on Christmas Eve, I hope they feel the magic. The magic and joy that come in being together, especially with the son in Minnesota from Boston. Celebrating the birth of Christ. Celebrating family. Understanding that, no matter what tree decorates a home, it is the homecomings, the conversation and laughter that matter most. The love we feel for one another centers our family celebrations.
Our 2023 Christmas tree purchased at Ken’s tree lot and placed in a corner of our living room. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo December 2023)
The tree is simply a decoration, a memory, a focal point. In the living room. Not atop the kitchen table.
The Horseshoe Lake cabin where we stay once or twice yearly. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
CLOSING UP THE CABIN (not ours) proved more than a work weekend. Beyond pulling in the dock, mowing, raking, trimming trees, gathering sticks, cleaning rain gutters, scrubbing rust stains from the shower, draining the water heater and more, this was about family.
September sunrise on Horseshoe Lake. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
A spirit of teamwork, of gratitude, of enjoying this place along Horseshoe Lake in Mission Township in the Brainerd lakes area, prevailed. And it was all because of family. I love the Helbling family, which I’ve been part of for 42 years by way of marrying into it.
Gnomes were recently hidden in Mission Park, which is located several miles from the cabin. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
Randy and I joined three of his sisters, their husbands, and a niece and her family last weekend on this property his youngest sister and husband so graciously share. What a gift this has been to us. I love spending time in the quiet northwoods, immersed in nature, creating memories not only with Randy, but also with our eldest daughter, her husband and our two grandchildren. Campfires with s’mores, always s’mores. Walks in Mission Park. Lakeside dining. Fishing and swimming. Ice cream from Lake Country Crafts & Cones. Pizza from Rafferty’s. Great beer and conversation at 14 Lakes Craft Brewing. Day trips into nearby small towns. Lounging on the beach reading a book. Lying in the hammock. Watching loons and eagles. Doing nothing.
This visit we stayed in the main house, a section of which is shown here. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
And now, on this first weekend in October, we trekked three hours north to the cabin for the sole purpose of preparing the property for winter. An added bonus came in time with family. We worked together. Ate together. Laughed. Shared stories and memories and updates. We also built memories.
On a September cabin stay, three deer crossed the driveway. And we discovered bear scat, as did Randy this visit. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
Homemade caramel rolls baked by Vivian reminded us of Mom Helbling, who died unexpectedly 31 years ago at the age of 59. Much too soon. Jon’s smash burgers reminded me of my mom, prompting me to share a story about the hamburgers she fried to hockey puck doneness, the reason I didn’t eat burgers up until several years ago. Jon’s were nothing like hers. He’s quite the cook, I discovered, as I enjoyed his stir fry, his scrambled eggs, his smash burgers.
September moonrise over Horseshoe Lake. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
I also enjoyed getting to know four of my great nieces and nephews. We played Hi Ho Cherry-O!, Go Fish and some panda bear game I never fully understood despite 8-year-old Emmett’s patience in explaining it to me. Autumn insisted I work on a princess puzzle with her, even though I insisted I do not do puzzles. I should note here that the Helbling family loves puzzles. Autumn insisted I help her, also insisting that I not quit. The first grader has a strong personality, a strength as I see it.
Squirrels were busy, too, as winter approaches. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
Three-year-old Quentin checked my heart several times as he did most family members after finding a stethoscope among the dress-up clothes. I also formed a firefighting crew, enlisting Emmett as acting fire chief when I had to step away to do some actual work. And sweet little redhead Annika, almost one and who looks a lot like a Who from Whoville, pretty much had her great aunt doing whatever she wished. That included jumping on my lap. My arms got quite the work-out.
Acorns, leaves and pine needles continued to fall as our crew headed home. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
And so these are the memories I gathered on this work weekend while squirrels scampered, acorns pelted roofs, the night wind howled, dust swirled, and pine needles and branches fell. Up north at the cabin is as much about place as it is about family and the memories we make there.
Parched, cracked earth by the Turtle Pond, River Bend Nature Center. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo August 2021, used for illustration only)
The invitation to the 2012 “It’s All One Water” reception and group show in Zumbrota.
The winning entries were printed in a beautiful 55-page booklet that paired the writing with submitted photos, all themed to water. I opted to pen a poem personifying Autumn as a woman searching for water upon the parched land. To this day I still love that strong visual, inspired by my long ago observations at River Bend Nature Center in Faribault.
And if I were to tap further into my visual memory, I would also see a semi trailer full of hay parked in a southwestern Minnesota farmyard in the summer of 1976. That was a year of severe drought, when my dad bought a boxcar full of hay from Montana so he could feed his cows and livestock. It was the year that nearly broke him as a farmer.
A REALLY DRY & WARM SEPTEMBER IN MINNESOTA
Here we are, 48 years later, settling once again into drought/abnormally dry weather conditions in Minnesota after a winter of minimal snow followed by an excessively wet spring, a dry-ish summer and now a record warm and dry September. This September, the Twin Cities recorded only 0.06 inches of rain and the most days of 80-degree or warmer high temps in any September. It doesn’t feel like fall in Minnesota, more like summer. But at least temperatures cool overnight.
Areas of western and central Minnesota are under a Red Flag Warning today, code words for a high fire danger, due to dry, windy conditions and dropping relative humidity. We are experiencing “near critical fire weather conditions” here in the southern part of the state.
AND THEN THERE’S TOO MUCH WATER
Contrast this with the weather my friends in western North Carolina and other areas affected by Hurricane Helene are experiencing. One is OK (as is her house). But she expects to be without power for a week and is relying on limited cell service at the local firehall. Another friend, a native Minnesotan, lost his car and may lose his home in Hendersonville after a creek swelled, flooding his garage (with four feet of water) and house (30 inches of floodwaters). A foundation wall “blew out” of his home. He is currently staying with family in Florida.
So, yes, even though the lack of rain and abnormally warm weather in Minnesota concern me, I feel a deeper concern for the folks dealing with loss of homes, businesses, infrastructures and, especially, deaths of loved ones. The devastation is horrific. It will take months, if not years, to recover.
RESPECT FOR WATER & MY POEM
In 2012, the following statement published in the intro to “It’s All One Water”: It is our hope to inspire respect, protection, preservation and awe in honor of water, our most precious of Natural Resources. How one views water right now depends on where they live. But I think we can all agree that water is “our most precious of Natural Resources.”
Autumn leaves in the Cannon River, Cannon River Wilderness Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2021)
In which Autumn searches for Water
Water. The wayward word rises in a faint rasp,
barely a whisper above the drone of buzzing bees
weaving among glorious goldenrods.
I strain to hear as Autumn swishes through tall swaying grass,
strides toward the pond, yearning to quench her thirst
in this season when Sky has remained mostly silent.
But she finds there, at the pond site, the absence of Water,
only thin reeds of cattails and defiant weeds in cracked soil,
deep varicose veins crisscrossing Earth.
She pauses, squats low to the parched ground and murmurs
of an incessant chorus of frogs in the spring,
of Water which once nourished this marshland.
Autumn heaves herself up, considers her options
in a brittle landscape too early withered by lack of rain.
Defeat marks her face. Her shoulders slump. She trudges away, in search of Water.
First up upon arriving in Wabasso for my 50th class reunion, a photo with the roadside white rabbit sculpture. (Photo credit: Randy Helbling)
WE MAY NEVER PASS this way again. Ah, but we have. On a recent Saturday, I gathered with some 30 of my Wabasso High School classmates to celebrate our 50th class reunion. In Wabasso, a small farming community 45 miles west of New Ulm on the southwestern Minnesota prairie.
The front entrance to Wabasso Public Schools. The overhang with pillars was added after my days there. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
The cover of my WHS yearbook. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
Signage at the front of the school blends the old and the new. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
I’ve attended many reunions through the decades since 89 of us graduated in May of 1974. I’ve enjoyed every gathering, especially those in latter years when no one cared any more about who was a jock or an academic achiever or a wild one or any label we may have carried through our high school days. Today we are simply individuals who share a history of attending school together. Learning. Having fun. Making memories.
The 1973 – 1974 Wabasso High School FFA chapter consisted of mostly male students. I am among the few females featured in this photo. I’m seated in the second row, third girl on the right. (Photo credit: WHS yearbook)
Coming of age in the 1970s during the Vietnam War, we were a bit of a rebellious bunch testing our teachers’ patience. I was among those who wore a prisoner of war bracelet, embraced the peace symbol, wrote anti-war poetry. Mostly, though, I was quiet, studious, a rule follower. But I did blaze the way for young women at my high school by becoming the first girl to join the WHS Future Farmers of America Chapter. Decades later, a niece would become the state FFA president.
We were given a lengthy tour of the school. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
No one cared about any of that when we got together 50 years later, first touring the halls of our former school. Home of the Rabbits. Yes, Rabbits. Wabasso, meaning “white rabbit,” comes from the Dakota language. I’m proud of our school mascot, which is unique and connects to the history of the region. It honors the town name and the Dakota people who were the original inhabitants of this land and still live in the nearby Upper and Lower Sioux Indian communities.
This Rabbit mosaic once hung on the side of the front office counter. It now hangs in a school hallway. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
The original Rabbit mascot on a gym wall. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
Rabbit pride showcased in the gym. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
As the superintendent of schools led us through the school, I found myself drawn to the many artistic renditions of Thumper, our rabbit mascot. I don’t care for the updated, fierce version that now graces a wall in the new gymnasium. It’s not that I oppose change. I just don’t like the mean look on the rabbit’s face, his appearance of being on steroids. No thank you. I much prefer the old rabbit, the one that appears gentle and friendly. Thankfully, plenty of the original Thumpers remain in a school building I barely recognize.
Oversized photos, including this one of the 1973 homecoming court, are displayed in a hallway of images. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
Building additions, removal of the storied stack, shuffling and changing of classrooms altered the school significantly. The home economics room is now the art room. The shop a classroom. The cafeteria is new, spacious, bright and beautiful. And the new library, although much brighter and modern in appearance, holds far fewer books than the library of my high school years, something several of us noticed and mentioned to the superintendent.
The Roadhouse Bar & Grill sits on a corner along Wabasso’s main street. It’s an especially popular summertime spot with weekly roll-ins. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
The reunion committee set up this mannequin wearing a Class of 1974 graduation gown. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
This shows just a part of Meadowland Farmers Cooperative, which anchors the business community. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
What I did notice, too, was a closeness I felt among classmates as we walked hallways and classrooms and even the old locker rooms. That feeling remained after the tour, down at the Roadhouse Bar & Grill. There we perused photos and memorabilia. Hugged. Laughed. Mourned the loss of 15 classmates. Built burgers at the burger bar. Gathered outside for a group photo. Clustered around patio tables for conversation as the sun set, brushing the sky in a subtle pink hue. All the while the ventilation fans from the grain bins across the street roared in a steady din.
Wabasso’s school song, printed on a gym wall. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2024)
“We May Never Pass This Way Again.” That titled the Seals & Croft tune we chose as our class song. It was our second choice. The administration nixed “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.” There was no mention of skunks—at least that I heard—at our 50th reunion. But Rabbits, oh, yes, Rabbits. We are forever and always Rabbit proud.
A wagonload of oats awaits threshing at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Fall Show. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
MEMORIES. A HISTORY LESSON. A step back in time. The Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Fall Show is that and more. It’s also entertainment, a coming together of friends and families and neighbors. A reason to focus on farming of yesteryear.
Oats drape over the edge of the wagon. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
I was among the crowds gathered over the Labor Day weekend at the showgrounds south of Dundas. This show features demos, rows and rows and rows of vintage tractors and aged farm machinery, a tractor pull, flea market, music, petting zoo, mini train rides and a whole lot more.
The scene is set to resume threshing with thresher, tractor, baler and manpower. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
For me, a highlight was watching a crew of men threshing oats. The work is hard, labor intensive, even dangerous with exposed belts and pullies. It’s no wonder farmers lost digits and limbs back in the day.
This part of the threshing crew pitches oats bundles into the threshing machine. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
While my observations are not connected to memories, my husband’s are as he recalls threshing on his childhood farm in rural Buckman, Morrison County, Minnesota. After Randy moved with his family from rural St. Anthony, North Dakota (southwest of Mandan), his dad returned to threshing oats. In North Dakota, he used a combine. But his father before him, Randy’s grandfather Alfred, threshed small grains.
Hard at work forking bundles into the thresher. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Lots of exposed pullies and belts line the threshing machine. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
The workhorse of the operation, the threshing machine. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
As I watched in Dundas, men forked bundles of oats into a McCormick-Deering thresher. The threshing machine separated the grain from the stalk, the oats shooting one direction into a wagon, the straw the other way into a growing pile. I stood mostly clear of the threshing operation with dust and chafe thick in the air.
Feeding the loose straw into the baler. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
From the straw pile, a volunteer stuffed the stalks into the shoot of an aged baler. An arm tamped the straw, feeding it into the baler. Another guy stood nearby, feeding wire into the baler to wrap the rectangular bales. A slow, tedious process that requires attentiveness and caution.
Watching and waiting for the straw to compact in the baler. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
The entire time I watched, I thought how easy it would be to lose focus, to look away for a moment, to get distracted and then, in an instant, to experience the unthinkable. Farming is, and always has been, a dangerous occupation.
Carefully guiding wire into the baler to wrap each bale. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Randy understands that firsthand as he witnessed his father get his hand caught in a corn chopper. Tom lost his left hand and part of his forearm. But Randy saved his life, running across fields and pasture to summon help. It is a traumatic memory he still carries with him 57 years later.
Threshing at Sunnybrook Farm, St. Anthony, North Dakota, as painted by Tom Helbling. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
But memories of threshing are good memories, preserved today in an oil painting from the farm in North Dakota, Sunnybrook Farm. My father-in-law took up painting later in life. Among the art he created was a circa 1920s threshing scene. We have that painting, currently displayed in our living room. I treasure it not only for the hands that painted it, but also for the history held in each brush stroke.
Threshing grain, living history in 2024. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
The painted scene differs some from the threshing scene I saw in Dundas. In North Dakota, horses were part of the work team, the tractor steam powered. In Dundas, there were no horses, no steam engine at the threshing site. Still, the threshing machine is the star, performing the same work. And men are still there, laboring under the sun on a late summer afternoon.
Mouse art displayed in a show at the Owatonna Arts Center many years ago. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I AWAKENED HOPEFUL this morning. Hoping the mouse that ran into the living room Sunday evening, scurrying into a corner behind a floor lamp when I screamed, was trapped. Dead. That did not happen.
We awakened Monday morning to two unsprung traps still baited with fresh peanut butter. One in the basement, the other between the stove and cupboard.
Have I mentioned that mice terrify me? Or maybe, more accurately, that I am terrified of mice. I detest, hate, abhor them. Always have. I recognize it’s rather ridiculous to be afraid of mice given my size compared to theirs. But they are quick and creepy and varmints I do not want inside my space.
So there I was Sunday evening, feet up in the recliner, semi-watching the 9 pm news between reading Minnesota author Lindsay Starck’s terrifying novel, Monsters We Have Made, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A mouse. Eeeek! I screamed, grabbed my phone, shot to the bedroom, slammed the door and climbed onto the bed. Rats. I forgot my book.
But at least I could Google “why mice come into your house in the summer” while Randy tracked the mouse. Apparently when the temps are as hot as they are now, they, too, want to cool off. Just as in winter, they want to be warm. I can’t fault them for that thinking. Do mice even think?
Mouse and rat killer spotted in The Watkins Museum in Winona during a visit years ago. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
As I hunkered atop the bed, I felt hopeful that Randy would find and kill the mouse. I didn’t think that through. How? With his bare hands? Randy observed the mouse hurry behind the fridge. So he moved the fridge. We haven’t seen it since. But he did catch a mouse in the garage overnight. Same mouse? Highly unlikely.
We live in an old house, next to a wooded hillside, with lots of entry points for mice. So I expect mice and we have caught many in our 40 years living here. Typically, though, they stay in the dark basement. I never invited them onto the main floor. The neighborhood mice apparently did not get the warning memo to stay out. They are risking their lives.
Now why do I detest mice? It started with the scritch-scratch of mice running inside the bedroom walls of my childhood farmhouse. Mice in the house. Mice in the barn. Mice in the hay and straw bales. Mice in the granary. Even with a passel of roaming cats.
In college, I opened a silverware drawer to see a mouse staring up at me.
When I was nearly third trimester pregnant with my youngest, I awakened to pee in the middle of the night at my in-law’s farmhouse. There, in that tiny closed bathroom, a mouse circled. Screaming drew no one to my rescue. Eventually, I climbed onto the edge of the bathtub, tossed a pile of wet towels on the mouse and fled upstairs to my sleeping husband. True story.
Years later, I reached into the sink one morning to empty water from a crockpot left soaking there overnight. Atop the water floated a dead mouse. Enough to scare anyone, especially me. At least it was dead, the sole consolation. I slammed the lid on the crockpot, carried it outside and Randy dealt with it after work. That crockpot never cooked another meal.
Yes, I have experienced mouse trauma. Too often. Traps are set. Should I see the mouse again this evening, I will be sure to grab Monsters We Have Made before sequestering myself in my bedroom to read before dreaming nightmares of monstrous, uncaught mice.
TELL ME: Are you afraid of mice? Any mouse stories to share? Or cats to share?
“The Thrill of Vertical,” posted on a sign in Spring Lake Park as part of the 2013 Mankato Poetry Walk & Ride, was inspired by my college years in Mankato. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2013)
I ARRIVED IN MANKATO with a canary yellow 10-speed bike, a simple orange backpack, my Sears portable manual typewriter, a clock radio, a quilt stitched by Grandma Ida and a suitcase filled with clothes. The year was 1974, the beginning of my freshman year at Bethany Lutheran College, high atop a hill in this southern Minnesota city.
The Ardent Mills grain silos, a massive public art project, dominate the skyline along the Minnesota River in the heart of Mankato. The art depicts the diversity of the area. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2023)
I was only 17, nervous, but ready to leave my childhood farm home some 85 miles to the west. I met my roommate, Rhonda, a beautiful high school cheerleader from western Wisconsin. She was well-traveled, outgoing, vastly different than me, quiet and shy. And she had a stereo for our cozy fourth floor corner dorm room. We were set. Despite our differences, we got along splendidly.
This shows the base of a place sculpture along the Minnesota River in Riverfront Park. The words for Mankato and Minnesota are written in the Dakota language and translated. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2023)
As I settled into the big city (Mankato’s current population numbers around 45,000), big for me when you come from a town of 362, I began to feel at home. Not only on campus, but also in the community. Happy Chef became a go-to destination for conversation and for warm loaves of bread glazed with powdered sugar frosting. A Christian coffee house also drew me off campus. I wasn’t in to the bar scene.
My poem, “River Stories,” highlights the Minnesota River, which winds through Mankato. It was posted along the river as part of the 2019 Mankato Poetry Walk & Ride. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)
For nearly four years, Mankato became my home away from home. The place that grew me educationally and as a person. I earned an associate of arts degree from Bethany, then only a two-year college, before moving on to Minnesota State University, Mankato, to study journalism. I worked at the college newspaper, “The Reporter.” In the winter of 1978, I earned a mass communications degree with an emphasis in news/editorial. Soon thereafter, I started my career as a newspaper reporter and photographer. Years later I returned to work for “The Mankato Free Press,” heading up the paper’s St. James-based news bureau (me living and working from my apartment long before working remotely became a thing).
I am rooted in Minnesota. This art hangs in my home office. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Why am I sharing this with you today? Because of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, now the vice presidential candidate on the DFL ticket. He lived in Mankato, where he worked as a social studies teacher and football coach at Mankato West High School. Walz, likely unfamiliar to most Americans up until recently, has put our state, specifically Mankato, on the map. As a life-long Minnesotan, I am proud to see my state, considered by many to be fly-over land, in the spotlight. No matter your political leanings, such publicity is good for Minnesota.
I’ve only attended the Minnesota State Fair a few times in my life. This mug came from my father-in-law’s collection. The State Fair started yesterday. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Like Walz, flannel shirts hang in my closet. I am wearing one as I write on this cool August morning. Flannel truly is a Minnesota thing, no matter political affiliations. We like our hotdishes (not “casseroles”) and the Minnesota State Fair (although not me; too many people), our cabins Up North. We claim musicians Bob Dylan and Prince, the Coen Brothers (of “Fargo” movie fame) and other notables like vice presidents Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale.
The grain silos are a massive work of public art. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2023)
I cannot imagine living elsewhere, even if I don’t especially like the frigid cold and snow of a Minnesota winter. I loved winter as a Redwood County farm girl. Minnesota is home. I live 40 miles northeast of Mankato, a city originally inhabited by the Dakota. Mankato is a river town, a college town, a regional shopping hub, a community with a rich (but not always “good”) history. It is home to many creatives. I’ve been part of that with poetry showcased on signs through the Mankato Poetry Walk and Ride.
My latest poem, “The Mighty Tatanka,” posted along the West Mankato Trail near West Mankato High School. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2023)
My connection with, and appreciation of, Mankato all started in that fourth floor dorm room with a roommate who was nothing like me. Despite our differences, we connected, forged a strong friendship, together grew and matured. We were on the cusp of our lives. Young. Open to new ideas and learning. The future held endless possibilities. For me, the 17-year-old with the canary yellow bike. And for Rhonda with her stereo system.
A patch of daisies. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
RECENTLY, MY SISTER-IN-LAW Rena asked me to name my favorite flower. I immediately responded, “Daisy.” But that’s not really true, I realized the more I considered the flowers I especially like.
A time existed when my response to Rena was accurate. For a long time, daisies assuredly were my personal pick for most beloved floral. Daisies, like me, are simple, uncomplicated, down-to-earth. There’s nothing pretentious about a daisy with its circle of white petals and yellow center.
Daisies, too, were the flower of my teen years. The age of flower children and peace symbols and rebellion. Daisies, prolific, strong, reseeding on their own, spreading and blanketing the landscape.
I still like daisies a lot. The way they bend in the wind. The way they remind me of my youth. And young love.
Zinnias sourced at the Faribault Farmers’ Market. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
But, after pondering Rena’s question, I would answer differently. Zinnias. Yes, vivid, bold zinnias are my favorite flower today. Like daisies, they trace to my youth. Mom seeded rows of zinnias in her vegetable garden. They jolted color into the greenery, later adding color to our farmhouse in bouquets gathered.
Zinnias and cosmos can be easily grown by direct seeding into the soil. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Zinnias grow easily from seed. They are hardy and prolific and colorful, coming in varying sizes from small to “giant.” They make excellent, long-lasting cut flowers.
My friend Al, left, sells flowers and produce at the farmers’ market. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I transferred the zinnia bouquet from Solo cup to vase at home. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Al and Char’s zinnias up close. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
As I write, a bouquet of zinnias purchased at the Faribault Farmers’ Market graces a vintage chest of drawers in my living room. My friend Al grew them. His wife, Char, artistically arranged the stems of red, pink, orange and yellow with one green-tinted flower tossed in the colorful mix.
Randy bought them for me. For no reason. I love when he does that—spur of the moment gives me flowers. Just because. I was chatting with our friend Duane while Randy paid for sweetcorn purchased from Al along with those unexpected zinnias arranged in a red Solo cup. It was a moment when I felt loved, so loved, as if Randy had given me my daisy a day.
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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