Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Attention, Laura Ingalls Wilder fans: A new must-read book by Marta McDowell September 21, 2017

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WHEN A PACKAGE LANDED on my front doorstep some 10 days ago, I wondered about its content. I hadn’t ordered anything. But inside I found a newly-released book, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes That Inspired The Little House Books.

Ah, yes, I had been expecting this. Sort of. But I’d forgotten about the book by bestselling author Marta McDowell that includes three of my photos. More than a year had passed since Marta and I connected.

Now I was holding the results of this New Jersey writer’s intensive research, multi-state visits and hours of writing. It’s an impressive book for the information and the art published therein on the places and plants in the life of author Laura Ingalls Wilder.

 

Every summer, the folks of Walnut Grove produce an outdoor pageant based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books. Many pageant attendees arrive at the show site dressed in period attire and then climb aboard the covered wagon. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

I have not yet read the entire book. But I am sharing this new Timber Press release now because Marta will be at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Avenue, in Minneapolis from 7 – 8 this evening (September 21) to present The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I expect the book to be enthusiastically received here in Minnesota and by Laura fans world-wide.

 

The southwestern Minnesota prairie, in the summer, is a place of remarkable beauty. I shot this image outside Walnut Grove. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2010.

 

I am among those fans with the added bonus of having grown up only three townships north of the Charles and Caroline Ingalls’ North Hero Township home near Walnut Grove in Redwood County, Minnesota. Long before the Little House TV show, long before I realized the popularity of Laura’s book series, I loved her writing. A teacher at Vesta Elementary School read the books aloud to me and my classmates during a post-lunch reading time. That story-time instilled in me a deep love for the written word and a deep connection to The Little House books.

 

The prairie near Walnut Grove is especially beautiful in the summer. I took this photo at the Laura Ingalls Wilder dug-out site north of Walnut Grove in 2010.

 

With that background, you can understand my enthusiasm for Marta’s book which focuses on the landscapes and specific plants that surrounded Laura and her family. Laura writes with a strong sense of place, a skill I’ve often considered may trace to her blind sister, Mary. Laura became her sister’s “eyes.”

 

I cannot imagine so many grasshoppers that they obliterated everything. I took this photo at the Steele County History Center in Owatonna during a previous traveling exhibit on Minnesota disasters. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

Marta writes of specific plants and places in her book, taking the reader from Wisconsin to Minnesota to Missouri and in between—wherever Laura lived. In the section on Walnut Grove, she notes the wild plums, the morning glories and the blue flags (iris) that Laura writes about in On the Banks of Plum Creek. I’ve walked that creek and creekbank, seen the Ingalls’ dug-out, wildflowers and plums. I am of this rich black soil, these plants, this land. There’s a comfortable familiarity in reading of this land the Ingalls family eventually left because of a grasshopper infestation and resulting crop failures.

 

My black-eyed susan photo is published in Marta’s book. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

To be part of Marta’s book on Laura Ingalls Wilder is an honor. The vintage botanical illustrations, original artwork by Garth Williams, historic photos, maps, ads, current day photos like my three and more make this volume a work of art.

There is much to learn therein, much to appreciate. So for all of you Laura fans out there, take note. You’ll want to add The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes That Inspired the Little House Books to your collection.

 

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this book and was paid for publication of my three photos.

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

For the love of green September 14, 2017

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Close-up of a canna lily leaf photographed in my backyard.

 

ASK ME MY FAVORITE COLOR and my answer never deviates. It has always been green.

 

A cornfield. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

The appeal of that hue connects to my rural roots and to memories—of lofty cottonwoods, forever cornfields, freshly-mown alfalfa, a sea of grass bending in the wind, a grain wagon, the putt-putt-putting of a John Deere tractor, my high school graduation gown…

 

I love the lighting, the contrast of green shades against dark sky in this photo taken near Medford. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

Among the variations of green, I favor the sage, the forest, the tints that tie to nature. And lime green.

 

My vintage 1960s purse, reclaimed years ago from my mom’s toybox. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

Lime green pants salvaged from my mom’s basement (did she really save those for 40-plus years?) drape a hanger in an upstairs closet. As a teen I wore those pants with the stick person thin waist and legs flaring to cuffs. I also carried a rectangular lime green purse complementing a lime green suit stitched by an aunt. I still have the purse, but not the outfit. Mom didn’t save everything.

 

Love Story album cover framed at Vintique in Neenah, Wisconsin. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2014.

 

And then there’s the lime green bedroom. Not now. But then. Back then, when I was a teen, in the days of reading Jonathon Livingston Seagull and believing “love means never having to say you’re sorry” (how stupid is that?) and tacking whatever onto a bright yellow smiley face bulletin board and wearing hot pants and flashing the peace sign.

 

My eyes. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

Green holds such memories. And when I look in the mirror, I see, too, the color of my past and of my future. In my eyes. Green eyes.

 

TELL ME: What is your favorite color and why?

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Hints of autumn in Minnesota September 11, 2017

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ALREADY THE EARTHY HUES of autumn brush the Minnesota landscape. Touches of red and orange and yellow tip trees now spiraling leaves onto grass and asphalt and sidewalks.

I delight in autumn, a season I welcome for the crisp nights that birth mornings of warm sunshine. Each day seems a gift to hold heart close.

 

 

Summer memories fly on the wings of butterflies dipping among fading plants—milkweed and goldenrod and petunias drying in pots.

The air carries the scent of corn ripening, the anticipation of harvest approaching, the promise of the yield.

 

 

And in the evening, when the sun slips too soon into darkness, when I close the windows against the overnight cold, I smell still the spicy aroma of chili ladled into handcrafted bowls shaped of the earth. And I am grateful for this season of autumn in Minnesota.

 

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Returning to photography, starting in my Minnesota backyard September 1, 2017

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Brilliant red canna lilies splash color into my backyard patio.

 

IN THE THREE MONTHS I couldn’t use my Canon DSLR EOS 20-D this summer because of a broken right shoulder, I feared I would lose my photography skills. But I didn’t. This week, with my muscle strength returning and weight restrictions eased, I did my first photo shoot using my 2.5 pound (with a short lens) Canon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I experienced joy, pure joy, picking up my DSLR and focusing on subjects in glorious light. I started in my backyard, easing myself into the comfortable familiarity of pursuing my passion. I felt giddy with excitement as I photographed a monarch caterpillar clinging to a leaf near milkweeds that free-range seeded.

 

Coleus

 

A segment of a canna leaf.

 

 

I moved to potted plants and blooming flowers and garden perennials.

 

 

And then I noticed, as I roamed about seeking photo ops, a mini chrysalis dangling from the side of the garage and camouflaged against the green siding. I moved in close, delighting in my discovery.

 

Coleus

 

Canna lily seed pods

 

Polka dot plant leaves up close.

 

As I shot more frames, trying different angles, new perspectives, I remembered just how much I love this art. I seek interesting ways to present what I photograph. I seek light that will enhance an image. I consider textures and color and backdrops and distance. I challenge myself to think and photograph outside and beyond the norm.

 

Coleus leaf close-up

 

All of my skills, retained in my rote memory, returned. And so did the passion, full-blown and beautiful and aching to be released.

 

Hibiscus acetosella soar in pots on my patio.

 

It’s good to be back, camera in hand.

 

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My yard is not the landfill & other examples of littering May 19, 2017

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AS A TEEN, I LABORED one summer for the Redwood County Highway Department through a program for low income youth. Our team of four high school students mostly plotted surveyors’ work onto graph paper, but also flagged one day and picked up litter in road ditches.

That experience of gathering debris which motorists and their passengers tossed out windows left me with zero tolerance for litter. Pick up a dirty disposable diaper, too much paper (with the exception of the torn love letter we found and pieced together over lunch) and too many beverage containers and you can appreciate my perspective.

I don’t understand why people use the roadside as a public dumping grounds for trash they are too lazy to toss into the garbage.

 

 

What prompted this post? The first was the recent deposit of a McDonald’s bag into the middle of the side street by my Faribault home. The second was the dropping, or tossing, of a beer bottle onto the sidewalk in my front yard a few days later. At least the glass didn’t shatter.

 

I found this tire repair tool in a street corner flowerbed.

 

I live along a busy street on a corner lot which means lots of stuff—newspapers, Styrofoam containers, plastic bags, cans, bottles and even a tire repair tool—ends up on my property.

 

This ball rolled into my yard this winter.

 

I’ve acquired a few balls over the years that have rolled down the side street hill and into my yard. Typically I have no idea from whence they’ve come.

 

 

To the left in this image, you can see the black tire mark on the siding.

 

Once a tire broke loose from a car and careened down the hill, just missing the gas hook-up on the side of the house. A black rubber streak still marks that near disaster. Thankfully the motorist claimed his tire.

A driver also claimed his car when it rolled, driverless, down a steep side street and struck my next door neighbor’s house many years ago.

The run-away tire and car are not exactly litter. But I expect tread-bare tires are dumped in ditches and vehicles are abandoned where they shouldn’t be. I don’t understand this illegal dumping. Why do people do this?

 

Photographed at River Bend Nature Center on Saturday afternoon.

 

I especially don’t understand the leaving behind of trash at a nature preserve. On Saturday I spotted a Burger King cup on a bench in the outdoor amphitheater at River Bend Nature Center. A nature center, for gosh sakes. This is the last place I would expect to see improperly disposed of trash.

 

TELL ME: What’s the worst example of littering you’ve seen?

Recently, the Trinity Faribault Radio Club cleaned a section of Interstate 35 near Faribault through the Adopt-a-Highway program. Seven individuals picked up 13 (40-gallon) bags of trash. The traveling trophy for the most unusual find was awarded to the volunteer who found a 10-foot long motor home awning.

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Oh, for birds & flowers & more on a spring day at River Bend May 17, 2017

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THIS PAST WEEKEND took me from the quiet of a nature center to the heart of a city to the neighborhood of a suburb. And, in each place, family surrounded me. It was a good weekend. There is nothing better than to be in the presence of those you love and those who love you. And the bonus was weather so perfect that I wished I could clasp the sunshine and warmth and blue skies to release many months from now in the deep of a Minnesota winter.

In today’s post, I take you to River Bend Nature Center in Faribault, one of my favorite local places to flee the busyness and noise of life. On this Saturday afternoon, I meandered the trails with my husband, second daughter and her husband, visiting from far eastern Wisconsin.

 

Wild columbines.

 

This was no purposeful hike to burn off calories, but rather a pausing to appreciate woods-born wildflowers,

 

 

mushrooms snugged into trees,

 

 

red-winged blackbirds trilling at the pond,

 

 

pastel pink petals dancing in the wind,

 

 

a goose gliding into pond rushes,

 

Along a trail we met a soon-to-be Faribault High School graduate and a photographer shooting senior portraits.

 

and, for Miranda, the memories of elementary school field trips here.

 

This fort I spied in the woods reminded me of the forts I built as a child in the grove on our family farm.

 

This blossom covered tree flowers next to River Bend’s interpretative center.

 

The gnarled branches of this tree drew my eye and interest to compose this image.

 

The slow pace of our hour at the nature center matched our desire to enjoy every single facet of a glorious mid May day defined by blue skies, sun beating 80-some degrees and a landscape lush with the greenery of spring.

 

TELL ME: What’s your favorite outdoor nature space to visit/explore in May?

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Spring in southeastern Minnesota May 10, 2017

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THESE ARE GLORIOUS DAYS in Minnesota. This May. This month when the landscape morphs from greys and browns into the vibrant greens of spring.

 

 

Leaves unfurl a canopy of green.

 

 

Lawns grow lush and sprout crops of dandelions.

 

 

Tulips pop bold colors like exclamation marks in flowerbeds.

 

 

Coiled fiddleheads unwind into feathery ferns dancing in cool spring breezes.

 

 

Bleeding hearts awaken, pushing new growth from stems dangling dozens of pink hearts. Hearts of love and hope and the beating of spring. All of this I see as if for the first time, although 60 springs have passed since I was born a Minnesotan.

 

 

In the countryside, I watch a blue green Ford pick-up truck tool along an Interstate frontage road between strips of greening road ditches.

 

 

I observe, too, farmers working the land. Soon shoots of green will emerge from black soil as corn and soybean seeds erupt in new growth.

This is the season of newness in Minnesota, when anything seems possible. And perhaps it is.

 

TELL ME: How do you view and react to spring, wherever you may live?

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Oh, for the poetic beauty of sunrises & sunsets in Minnesota May 1, 2017

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SOMETIMES I WONDER if nature can offer anything more beautiful than a sunrise or a sunset. But then I have not seen the mountains of the West or the deserts of the Southwest or the ocean other than the Atlantic once.

 

 

Still, the sunrise and sunset are universal. We all see the same sun, just in different places.

 

 

Farm fields and a wide sky backdropped my youthful vision of the sun. To this day, for me, there’s nothing quite like a prairie sunset, the blazing ball of the sun overwhelming the southwestern Minnesota landscape. Those childhood memories leave me grieving for the sunsets I’ve missed while living in a valley within a city for 33 years. Hillside and trees filter and block the sinking sun.

 

 

Still, living in Faribault, a southeastern Minnesota community situated along rivers and lake, gives me an opportunity to view the sunset waterside. And there is beauty in that, too, in the reflections that dance poetry across water backdropped by a day shifting from twilight to dusk to dark.

 

 

FYI: These images were taken in mid-March from the shores of Wells Lake at King Mill Park along the Cannon River in Faribault. Click here to see additional photos of the above sunset as I entered Faribault along Highway 60 from the east.

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Writing poetry as the sun rises

My fingertips linger within a mere whisper of the keyboard
as I pause, half-thought, words interrupted mid-phrase,
to tilt my head toward the window and the sunrise
spreading gold and pink across the sky like jam on toast.

In that morning moment, I desire nothing more
than to dip my fingers into the jar of dawn,
to sample her sweetness, to taste of her earthy goodness,
to delight in sunshine and rain and succulent fruit plucked from vines.

But language beckons me back to the keyboard,
to dip my fingers into the jar of words,
to choose and shape and share the poetry that rises within me,
in rhythm and verse upon the breaking day.

 

FYI: My poem about the sunrise published in Poetic Strokes, A Regional Anthology of Poetry From Southeastern Minnesota, 2012.

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Artistry in a Minnesota sunset April 24, 2017

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The sun begins to set as we head west on Minnesota State Highway 60 toward Kenyon.

 

SUNRISE, SUNSET…so begin lyrics from a song in “Fiddler on the Roof.” I’ve always loved that musical and the song about the seasons of life. How quickly we progress from the sunrise of life to the sunset.

The setting and rising of the sun, while symbolic of life, are of themselves worthy of appreciation. There’s such beauty in the hues that break across the sky, weaving with clouds and sometimes water to produce spectacular visuals. Works of art, really.

 

A line of clouds divided the sky as we continued west.

 

On an early spring Saturday afternoon, returning from a day trip to La Crosse, Wisconsin, my husband and I aimed toward the setting sun, the sky layered in darkness and light.

 

Between Kenyon and Faribault, the sun silhouetted a farm site.

 

As we drove along Minnesota State Highway 60 west to Faribault from Kenyon, the sun slipped closer to the earth, blazing like a brilliant spotlight in our eyes.

 

 

 

 

Then, entering Faribault on the east side, cresting the Highway 60 hill before dipping toward the river valley, I saw before me hues of orange and yellow brushed across the sky like a watercolor painting. It was one of those moments of nearly indescribable, spectacular beauty. A gift at the end of the day.

Welcome home.

FYI: Please check back for photos of the sun setting over the Cannon River by the King Mill Dam. We headed there to watch the final moments of the sunset.

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

About those blue spring wildflowers April 11, 2017

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THE DAINTY BLUE FLOWERS layer the front lawn of a central Faribault home like a lovely carpet. There’s no denying that. After months of viewing a primarily beige, grey and white landscape, it’s a visual delight to see this vibrant spread of Siberian Squill set against the backdrop of an aged brick house painted white.

Thanks to Valerie at Valerie’s Voice, I now know the identity of this spring wildflower. Valerie photographed a similar scene in neighboring Northfield.

 

 

Wanting to know more about these brilliant blues, I searched online. And what I found on the website Minnesota Wildflowers, a field guide to the flora of Minnesota, gave me reason to reconsider my appreciation of Siberian Squill. According to Minnesota Wildflowers, this plant is invasive to our state. The comments section proved especially interesting.

As I consider other particularly invasive plants, several obvious ones pop to mind—dandelions, Creeping Charlie and buckthorn. We’ve battled all three on our property. So, as much as I really really really like those Siberian Squill, the lovely blue wildflowers won’t ever be purposely introduced into my yard.

 

 

I’ll just enjoy the ones growing in that front yard along Fifth Street Northwest in Faribault.

TELL ME: Would you plant these flowers in your yard? Perhaps you don’t consider them invasive.

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling