Along Brown County Road 29 between New Ulm and Morgan, MN.
RED
Along U.S. Highway 14 between Mankato and Nicollet, MN.
WHITE
Along Brown County Road 29 west of New Ulm, MN.
AND (touches of) BLUE.
Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Rural driveway May 8, 2014
I KEEP FLIPPING between the three photos.
Original.
Edited.
Or edited.
But I can’t choose a favorite.
I like them all.
I like the lines of the field and drive, how my eyes are drawn to follow that pick-up into the farmyard.
I like the muted tones of grey and blue and those splashes of red in truck and outbuildings.
I like the ribbons of greening grass trimming the driveway, the bare trees edging the farm site.
This rural scene, along Brown County Road 29 southeast of Morgan, pleases me for the memories it holds. Not of this farm, but of my childhood on the farm. My heart is happy every time I travel back to southwestern Minnesota, past the fields and farms, gravel roads and grain elevators…through small towns…
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
A muddy shoe ban in Morgan July 24, 2013
YOU BEST NOT ENTER the Shell convenience store/gas station in Morgan with muddy shoes. I never checked my flip flops nor the floor upon entering. My initial focus was finding the bathroom in Wayne’s C-Store, as it’s known by locals.
Posted on doors of the Shell station in Morgan.
Only afterward did I ponder the message and wonder how many times staff has dealt with mud trekked inside this retail hub in this rural southwestern Minnesota community. Often enough, apparently, given the postings on the two front doors.
A view right outside the Shell station.
My husband and I had just driven about 100 miles, more than an hour of that in rain. But, unless our soles acquired mud while walking from our gravel parking space into the store, they should have been clean.
A rural-themed mural on the side of Wayne’s C-Store.
After photographing the NO MUDDY SHOES ALLOWED! sign and the mural on the side of the convenience store, I swung my camera around to photograph Harvest Land Cooperative across the street.
A snippet of the Harvest Land Co-op complex across the highway from the Shell station.
There’s something about an elevator that always causes me to pause and reflect on my rural Minnesota prairie roots.
The hatchery is closed.
From there I skirted vehicles parked alongside the Shell station and dodged puddles to photograph signage on the next door old Morgan Hatchery.
A side view of the former hatchery.
At that point I likely muddied my flip flops. But that was just fine. I wasn’t returning to the NO MUDDY SHOES ALLOWED! store.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Reflections on harvest time in southern Minnesota September 27, 2011
Westbound on U.S. Highway 14 between Nicollet and Courtland in southern Minnesota Friday afternoon.
I LOVE THIS LAND, this rural southern Minnesota.
You can take your woods and your lakes and your boats or your big city freeways and skyscrapers and traffic jams.
I will take sky and a land that stretches flat into forever.
I like my space open, not hemmed in by trees packed tight in a forest. I want to see into forever and beyond, the horizon broken only by the occasional grove hugging a building site.
A farm site between Mankato and Nicollet, as seen from U.S. Highway 14.
A harvested corn field between Nicollet and Courtland.
I want corn and soybean fields ripening to the earthy hues of harvest. Not gray cement or dark woods.
Give me small-town grain elevators and red barns and tractors, and combines sweeping across the earth.
The elevator complex in Morgan in Redwood County.
A farm site along the twisting back county road between New Ulm and Morgan.
A John Deere combine spotted on the highway just outside of Morgan.
This is my land, the place of my heart.
Although I left the farm decades ago, I still yearn, during autumn, to return there—to immerse myself in the sights and smells and sounds of harvest. The scent of drying corn husks. The roar of combines and tractors. The walk across the farm yard on a crisp autumn night under a moon that casts ghost shadows. Wagons brimming with golden kernels of corn. Stubble and black earth, turned by the blades of a plow.
Today I only glimpse the harvest from afar, as a passerby. Remembering.
A farm site between Morgan and Redwood Falls in southwestern Minnesota.
Harvesting corn on Saturday just outside of Courtland.
Chopping corn into silage between New Ulm and Morgan.
ALL OF THESE IMAGES (except the elevator) were taken at highway speed from the passenger side of our family car while traveling through southern Minnesota on Friday and Saturday.
© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Traveling back home to the southwestern Minnesota prairie September 5, 2011
The land and sky stretch out before us as we drive along Minnesota Highway 67 between Morgan and Redwood Falls in southwestern Minnesota at sunset Friday.
MY HUSBAND, SON and I traveled this weekend to my hometown of Vesta in southwestern Minnesota, the place that inspired the name for this blog, Minnesota Prairie Roots.
My roots run deep into this land, into the soil of Redwood County where I grew up on a dairy and crop farm. Although I left the farm 38 years ago at age 17, the fall after graduating from Wabasso High School, I still consider this home. It is the place that shaped who I became as a person and a writer.
It is the land that still inspires me in my writing and my photography.
Most Minnesotans don’t give this area of the state a second thought. In fact, I have discovered in my nearly 30 years of residing in Faribault, in southeastern Minnesota, that many residents of my community don’t know what lies west of Mankato. They think the state ends there.
That frustrates me to no end. In trying to explain the location of Vesta, I typically say “half way between Redwood Falls and Marshall on Highway 19.” Usually I get a blank stare. What more can I say?
The sign that marks my hometown, population around 350 and home of the nation's first electric co-op.
They consider my hometown in the middle of nowhere. I don’t disagree with that. But I like the middle of nowhere. The prairie possesses a beauty unlike any other. The wind. The sky. The acres and acres of cropland punctuated by farm places and small towns appeal to me. They quiet my soul, uplift my spirit, connect to me in a way that I can’t explain.
This trip we were driving west in the evening, into the sunset. The ribbon of roadway between Morgan and Redwood Falls stretched into seeming infinity under a sky banded by clouds.
The sun sets as we travel along Minnesota Highway 67 northwest of Morgan toward Redwood Falls.
This stretch of highway between Morgan and Redwood Falls seems to go on forever, as do the utility poles.
It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
What more can I say? I love my southwestern Minnesota prairie, the place that will always be my home, no matter where I live.
I prefer grain bins to skyscrapers. I shot this image as we traveled northwest of Morgan at sunset Friday.
My son told me I take a picture of this grain elevator complex every time we drive through Morgan. He is probably right. But I don't care. I see something different each time, each season, in which I photograph it.
My second shot of the elevator in Morgan, taken from the car while driving back to Faribault Sunday afternoon.
This trip I seemed to focus my camera on utility poles, which go on and on across the flat expanse of the prairie. I find a certain artistic appeal in this scene southeast of Morgan.
Soybean fields, pictured here, and corn fields define this rich farm land.
© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
It takes a strong man or woman to farm August 2, 2011
Bins on a farm place somewhere along the back roads between New Ulm and Morgan.
“I COULD NEVER BE MARRIED to a farmer or be a farmer,” I told my cousin Kevin as we stood outside the Vesta Community Hall Friday evening discussing the July 1 windstorms and tornadoes that ravaged my native southwestern Minnesota.
Kevin farms south of Echo, where he lost three grain bins, trees, and, if I remember correctly, an auger, to high winds. He’s looking at replacement and upgrade costs of more than $140,000. And a good chunk of that will not be covered by insurance. Investing so much money in his farm now, at near 60 years old, doesn’t come easily for him, he claims. But he doesn’t have an option if he is to continue farming.
As he was sharing his story, he said, “I told the wife I need to…” Kevin, 56, got married late in life (six years ago), so I still have to remember sometimes that he’s with Kris, a wonderful woman.
It takes a strong man or woman to live a life of farming. As much as I love the farm, I couldn’t farm. I couldn’t handle the financial stress, the “I told the wife I need to” replace the grain bins or I need to borrow money for a new tractor or the beans were hailed out…
I’d stress over borrowing all that money and over the financial risks inherent in farming. Will commodity prices be up or down when I want to sell the corn and beans? Should I sign a contract now or wait? Should I buy that piece of equipment, build that machine shed? Will I get a decent crop? I’m not a gambler or a risk taker, even though I grew up on a crop and dairy farm.
Soybean and corn fields stretch into forever in southwestern Minnesota. I shot this image on Friday between New Ulm and Morgan.
For many Minnesota farmers, this year has been especially challenging. Crops were planted late due to wet field conditions. Then the heavy rains fell, drowning out entire sections of fields. Next, strong winds and hail devastated beans and corn.
For the first time that I can ever recall, I saw black fields near my hometown of Vesta. My cousin told me the fields had been replanted and then the storms came when it was too late to replant again.
Three days this week, beginning today, farmers, agri-business reps and others will gather at the historic Gilfillan Farm between Morgan and Redwood Falls for Farmfest. There, in the heart of Minnesota’s farm country, I bet if you eavesdropped on a conversation or two or ten, you’d hear some farmer say, “I told the wife I need to…”
I spotted this damage to a building on a farm just north of Belview, which was hit by a July 1 tornado.
I took this shot traveling Minnesota Highway 67 west toward Morgan Friday afternoon. Follow this road and you'll end up at Farmfest. You can see Morgan's water tower and grain elevator complex in the distance.
Farmfest at the historic Gilfillan Farm runs today through Thursday.
When I drove by the Farmfest grounds Friday afternoon, tents were already in place for the event.
A barn, outbuildings and a corn field between New Ulm and Morgan.
Bins on a farm site along the back road between New Ulm and Morgan.
© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Recent Comments