Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Another beautiful day dawns in Minnesota March 17, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:18 AM
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I raked leaves from flower beds on Friday.

SATURDAY MORNING, 7:15, and already the day holds the promise of record temperatures and of sunshine interlaced with rain showers.

I can smell spring in the undeniable, distinct scent of cold earth turned to the sun, of leaves air drying.

The morning air snaps with a briskness sweeping through the open kitchen door to curl around my bare feet.

I can hear the incessant, piercing whistle of a cardinal calling for a mate too early on a weekend.

My neighbors’ windows are still shuttered to the day, their eyes closed in sleep to this beautiful morning that unfolds.

But I’ve been awake for several hours as seems my habit these days. As I ponder the hours that stretch before me, I glance out the window, see the flashing lights of an ambulance, the golden globe of the sun, a red pick-up pulling a boat.

Turning back to my computer, I wonder what my day will hold. Yesterday drew me outdoors to rake deep layers of leaf mulch from flower beds, to clip back hydrangea. I worry that I may be pushing the season, exposing the new growth of perennials to the frost that is certain to come. Yet, I could not leave these plants buried, struggling to push through the leaves, emerging weak-stemmed and yellow.

The leaves are bagged now and shoved into garbage cans lining the limestone path my husband laid years ago from the backyard patio to the side yard gate.

Last evening we dined on the patio, at a card table topped with a vintage floral tablecloth. My husband carried out the homemade pizza and the mugs of beer, our usual Friday night fare.

As we savored the chicken barbecue ranch pizza, I considered that this must be a first for us—dining on our patio in mid March. In Minnesota.

Friday night alfresco dining in Minnesota, in March.

Around 5 p.m. Friday, I photographed the sun slipping behind the wooded hillside that abuts my backyard. I positioned myself to shoot the sun through a gap in branches on a single tree.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Take this weather, California March 16, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:10 AM
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Daffodils, the first flowers of spring in Minnesota, are springing up during this unseasonably warm March weather.

OH, HOW I TRIED, resisted, told myself not to write on this topic. But I have finally given in to an indisputable Minnesotan urge to discuss the weather.

I will not, cannot, apologize for this geographical predisposition. Weather is always a topic of conversation in Minnesota. Too hot. Too humid. Too cold. Too dry. Too wet. Just like Goldilocks, we are never quite satisfied until…we get weather like this…

…recent string of sunshine-filled mid-March days with temperatures soaring into the 60s and 70s. Typically the weather this time of year is cold, snowy and gloomy, the landscape bleak and depressing.

I suppose we would all feel more grateful if this had been a long cold winter with mountains of snow and sub-zero temperatures. Remember last winter? This season my husband has used our snowblower only once. And this week, as I survey my neighborhood, I spot not a speck of snow, not even under trees or in the north side shade of buildings.

Rather, I see joggers and mothers pushing babies in strollers and a gym class of students running past my house.

I spy tulips and daffodils poking their folded leaves several inches through the soil. I’ve tossed the decaying mulch leaves of autumn from crocuses teasing me with peeks of purple. And Tuesday evening, on a whim, I picked up a packet of spinach seeds. Tell me, is it too soon to sow spinach?

If this weather holds, I expect my crocuses will soon be in bloom, like these I photographed last spring.

I’ve thrown open the windows, allowing the fresh air to sweep indoors, pushing out the closed-up stale air of winter.

Laundry goes out on the line nearly every day now, although I must qualify that even when temps are in the 30s, I hang freshly-washed clothes outside, if the sun is shining. Nature’s dryer will dry clothes in the strong afternoon sunshine of a frigid winter day.

My son has asked me to replace the flannel sheets on his bed with light-weight cotton ones. I’m keeping the cozy flannel on my bed. He is 18; I am 37 ½ years wiser.

My eldest daughter flew out to southwestern California this morning, right into a winter storm predicted to bring significant rain and cold to the West Coast this weekend. So much for warm and sunny California.

How about warm and sunny Minnesota? Eighty degrees predicted today here in Faribault.

A pussy willow snipped on Wednesday from a neighbor's yard.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Moody March in Minnesota March 8, 2012

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An abandoned farmhouse along Minnesota State Highway 19 east of Vesta on the southwestern Minnesota prairie.

WINTER IN MINNESOTA this time of year and in November often seems stripped of color, a drab world of black-and-white mimicking the melancholy mood of those who wish only for spring.

So it takes some effort to appreciate this month of March which can’t quite decide whether to pursue spring or linger awhile yet in winter.

One day she’s dark and brooding, the next bright and cheery. Understanding her mood swings can be a challenge.

Sometimes you just have to accept who she is and realize that even in her colorless world, a certain sense of beauty prevails.

An aging windmill and a cluster of old buildings define this picturesque farm site along Minnesota State Highway 60 just west of Waterville in southeastern Minnesota.

The sweeping curves in the field drew my eye to photograph this scene west of Waterville along State Highway 60.

A lone tree along Minnesota State Highway 60 between Faribault and Waterville on a brooding March morning.

Farm sites mark the landscape along a back county road between New Ulm and Morgan.

All of these images were taken last Saturday morning from a moving vehicle while traveling through southern Minnesota. Each has been edited to create a more artsy, earthy feel.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

On the road to Fargo, where sky meets land February 20, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:07 AM
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Only 192 miles to Fargo, North Dakota. We've already driven 93.

SKY. That single word defines a road trip from Faribault to Fargo.

Don’t talk miles and time to me. Talk sky.

Once past the St. Cloud exit along Interstate 94, you start noticing the sky, how, the farther west you travel, the larger it becomes until the sheer immensity of that above overwhelms that below.

Sky meets land somewhere westbound along Interstate 94 toward Fargo.

For those who live in the confines of the city, where buildings and masses of streets and highways pull the sky downward and ground it, the vastness of the skies can unsettle the spirit and create a sense of vulnerability. You can’t help but feel exposed under brooding clouds and a sky that stretches into a distance without end.

Interstate 94 sometimes seems to run right into the sky as you drive west.

Yet, for me, a prairie native, there’s a certain sense of calm that comes from traveling into the sky. Because that is what you do when driving west from Minnesota toward the Dakotas. You drive into the sky.

After an initial awareness that you really are incredibly small compared to that above, you begin to notice the details. Or at least I begin to appreciate the details—like the hard edge where sky meets land, the ever-changing skyscape as clouds shift and the day wanes, the nuances in colors and texture that define firmament and field.

Power lines set against the backdrop of the sky provide a visual vertical respite for the eyes.

It is as if you’ve brushed yourself right into a landscape painting.

And I can’t get enough of it, of the strong horizontal lines that sweep across my vision, reconnecting me to my prairie past.

The landscape: flat and into forever near Fargo/Moorhead.

The ever-changing clouds blend with the rural landscape.

As the sun sets, the sky broods.

The sharp contrast of black and white against blue pleases my eyes.

Fence lines and farms slice through the land.

A church spire in the distance draws my eye in this place where my soul reconnects to the prairie.

ALL OF THESE IMAGES were taken with my DSLR camera, set at a fast shutter speed, while traveling along Interstate 94. Check back for more posts from this trip to Fargo.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Three bald eagles on a Sunday February 19, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 4:12 PM
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AS OBSERVANT AS I AM, and I’m quite detail-oriented, I don’t profess to have an eagle eye. That would be my husband. Randy possesses an uncanny ability to notice birds of prey in the wild.

A few weeks ago he pointed out an owl perched on a fence post as we traveled along a state highway around dusk. He’s always spotting hawks circling overhead, riding the wind.

See the two eagles in the distant trees here on the west side of State Highway 13 near Waseca?

But this time, this past Sunday afternoon, he saw two bald eagles in a stand of trees several miles north of Waseca along Minnesota State Highway 13. Now typically nothing much raises Randy’s demeanor to a level of excitement. However, he was excited enough to swing our van into a U-turn, backtrack to the grove of trees and pause so he could gawk.

Although we’d seen eagles in the wild before, we’d never seen them this close—about 60 feet away horizontally and another 30 feet away vertically.

Parked along the wide shoulder of the highway, I shot this image of the eagles.

Stopping within feet of a deer carcass, the road kill that we figure drew the eagles to this grove of trees, Randy watched the birds while I photographed, wishing all the time for a telephoto lens.

After our brief eagle-watching, we continued on to Morristown, missed our turn and spotted another bald eagle. This time I requested we backtrack because I was, by then, already formulating this blog post in my mind.

We had just passed Veterans Memorial Park, a new memorial to veterans in this Rice County town of 1,000 residents. It features a bald eagle as the focal point.

This time, without highway traffic passing dangerously close, I exited the van and captured close up our nation’s majestic symbol of freedom.

The bald eagle, flanked by flags, at the vets park in Morristown.

A broad view of the new memorial, which includes pavers honoring veterans.

Shooting into the sun, I took this shot of the memorial eagle.

HAVE YOU EVER seen a bald eagle in the wild? Tell me about your experience.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A Minnesota prairie native discovers a ship docked in the Wisconsin woods January 26, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:48 AM
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I GREW UP on the southwestern Minnesota prairie, a mostly flat land vertically-interrupted only by small-town grain elevators and water towers, by silos and groves of trees hugging farm sites.

I never felt hemmed in. How could I feel confined under an endless sky in a land that stretches into forever, nearly unbroken before your eyes?

Perhaps that will help you understand why I sometimes struggle with trees. I’m not talking a tree here, a tree there, but trees packed so tight that they become a forest. Dense. Black. Blocking views. I need to, have to, see the land spreading wide before me if I’m exposed for too long to miles of thick woods.

Likewise, I prefer my land flat.

All of that said, time and age and exposure to geography beyond the prairie have resolved some of those space and landscape issues for me. I can, within limits, appreciate terrain that rolls and rises, trees that clump into more than a shelter belt around a farmhouse.

I can appreciate, too, geological anomalies like Ship Rock, a natural formation jutting out of seemingly nowhere from the trees that crowd State Highway 21 in Adams County near Coloma in central Wisconsin.

Ship Rock is located next to Wisconsin Highway 21 in the central part of the state.

Whenever I pass by Ship Rock, which has been numerous times since my second daughter moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, in December 2010, I am awestruck by this isolated pinnacle of Cambrian sandstone. Finally, this past summer, my husband, teenaged son and I stopped to climb around the base of the rock cropping and to photograph it (me mostly photographing rather than climbing).

Ship Rock rises from the flat landscape, a surprise in the Wisconsin woods.

My husband walks across the rocks below the looming Ship Rock.

If you can ignore the distracting graffiti, then you can appreciate the nuances of the mottled stone, the ferns that tuck into crevices, the surprise of this Ship Rock docked in the most unexpected of places. The rock formation truly does resemble a ship.

I am surprised by the ferns that grow in the tight spaces between rocks.

Grass sweeps between rocks in this August 2011 image taken at Ship Rock.

A month ago while traveling past Ship Rock, I snapped a photo. The ship seemed forlorn and exposed among the deciduous trees stripped of their summer greenery. Yet she also appeared threatening, a looming presence rising dark and foreboding above the land awash in snow.

I could appreciate her, even if she wasn’t a grain elevator or a water tower, a silo or a cluster of trees breaking a prairie vista.

Ship Rock, photographed from the passenger window of our van at highway speeds in December.

CLICK HERE for more information about Adams County, Wisconsin.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thoughts from a Minnesotan now that winter has arrived January 24, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:54 AM
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Even I'll admit that snow brings a certain beauty to the landscape, including this view of my neighbor's yard.

AS UN-MINNESOTAN as this may sound, I don’t particularly like winter. I’d grown rather fond of the unusual 50-degree temps earlier this month and a landscape free of snow.

Yet I knew better than to get all smug about the weather, realizing that, at any time, the proverbial shoe (or boot) would drop.

No fashion boots for me...I wear practical Northwest Territory boots.

It did, with temperatures plummeting to below and barely above zero followed by two measurable snowfalls within the past several days.

Snow means work, aka shoveling snow.

Snow means walking with trepidation.

I wasn’t always fearful of walking across snowy or icy sidewalks, driveways or parking lots. But then 3 ½ years ago I had total right hip replacement surgery because of severe osteoarthritis.

I would like to keep that expensive ceramic implant intact for another 17 years. So I tread with caution, eyes locked on whatever slick surface I must traverse. I will myself not to fall. Thus far, the strategy has worked to keep me upright and out of the hospital.

Despite my winter worries, I still shovel snow. However, I questioned the sanity of that effort on Monday as I crunched my way across the ice-glazed, snowy yard toward the sidewalk encrusted in snow and ice.

The car my son drives, encased in ice on Monday. Freezing rain fell before the snow. He walked to school.

I didn’t exactly rush my way through snow removal. More like half-skated.

By the time I finished clearing the sidewalk and the end of the driveway, I truly wanted to give up and leave the rest for the husband or the 17-year-old. But winter wasn’t about to defeat me.

I may not like her, but I sure as heck won’t allow her to get the best of me.

A city of Faribault snow plow spreads salt and sand onto the street by my house on Monday.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

How about this balmy January weather in Minnesota then? January 6, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:06 AM
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HEY, ALL YOU MINNESOTA SNOWBIRDS wintering away in Texas, Arizona and Florida. How’s the weather at your winter retreat? As warm as back home?

If you’re detecting a hint of smugness in my inquiry, you are correct.

The temperature reading at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 5, is 28.4 degrees in my backyard. Note that the time is incorrect , so just ignore it.

Let’s step into my backyard and review yesterday’s weather via a series of photos. First, imagine me dressed in a comfy red and black buffalo plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans minus a winter coat. It’s 8:30 a.m.and I’m clipping freshly-laundered flannel sheets onto the clothesline. At 28.4 degrees the cold air nips at my fingers, but I work at a rapid pace.

Notice all of the snow on the ground at 8:30 a.m. when I hang sheets on the clothesline.

Four hours later I step outside to read the temperature; it’s already climbed to 46 degrees.

I scrape the last remnants of snow and ice from the concrete driveway. The snow that had clung to the lawn on the north side of the backyard fence is disappearing in the warmth heat of the day.

By 3:30 p.m., when I visit the backyard again, I read 52.7 degrees on the weather recording station.

My temperature recording device reads a balmy 52.7 degrees @ 3:30 p.m. Again, note that the time is incorrect so you'll just have to trust me on this time and temp.

An hour later I pull the mostly-dry sheets from the line in a backyard nearly free of snow.

How’s that for January 5 in southern Minnesota?

This is my backyard @ 3:30 p.m. See how the snow has all but vanished in the balmy temps.

NOTE: These temperature readings from my Faribault backyard are unofficial.

But officially, Minnesota broke some record temps on Thursday. According to the National Weather Service, temperatures soared into the 60s in southwestern Minnesota.

Reports the NWS: “There has never been a 60 degree temperature recorded in Minnesota during the first week of January…in the modern day record. Click here to read the full NWS summary on Thursday’s record temps.

And for me, personally, this may mark the earliest date I’ve hung laundry on the clothesline in a new year.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thoughts after the season’s first snowfall December 4, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 1:58 PM
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The snowy woods adjoining my backyard in Faribault late Sunday morning following about a five-inch snowfall.

WELCOME TO MY BACKYARD after the first significant snowfall in Faribault this season.

It is a world of mostly black-and-white, like vintage photos in an album.

Branches laden with the first significant snowfall.

I’m trying to be poetic here because, as disloyal Minnesotan as this sounds, I don’t particularly like snow. I dread the resulting icy sidewalks and parking lots.

I realize I possess the attitude of  “an old person” here. No offense meant to any of you who are older than me. But, at age 55 and with an artificial hip implanted in my right side three years ago, snow and ice threaten me. I fear falling, so I inch across ice with trepidation.

Just to clarify, my hip replacement did not result from a fall. I suffered from osteoarthritis and reached the point where surgery was the only option to deal with near immobility and chronic pain.

So here we are, in the season of snow and ice in Minnesota. If I don’t exactly embrace it, now at least you understand why. I suspect it is the reason many Minnesotans flee to Arizona and Florida during the winter months—not only to escape the cold, but to escape the danger.

Yet, even I can see the beauty in a fresh snowfall that layers branches and seed heads and the entire world around me in a surreal sort of peacefulness on a Sunday morning.

That, for me, redeems winter.

The blessing of winter lies in its beauty, seen here in a snippet of time-worn fencing in my backyard.

An unobtrusive patch of color in a mostly black-and-white world Sunday morning: Snow capping a hydrangea.

HOW DO YOU feel about snow and winter in general? The truth, please.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Tough tilling in Minnesota farm fields November 9, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:57 AM
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A farmer works the field recently in this scene shot in southeastern Minnesota.

HAVE YOU TRIED DIGGING into the ground lately? Takes some effort, doesn’t it? This soil in Minnesota rates as rock hard right now given the lack of moisture.

I’m hesitant to admit it, but I don’t think about soil conditions and moisture nearly as much as I once did, when I was not so long-removed from the farm.

But last week when a carpenter, who is also a farmer, was working on a project at my house, we chatted briefly about crops, soil conditions and weather.

Kenny shared how fall tillage has been especially trying this year. Farmers in his area around Owatonna in southeastern Minnesota have been breaking implement parts with all-too-often frequency in the dry, hard earth. He mentioned shanks, which he claims never break.

Some parts are in short supply, Kenny says, meaning farmers sometimes need to wait. That’s not a good thing when you’re trying to finish fall tillage before the snow flies.

Friends of mine who farm near Dundas finally halted all tillage work for the season, leaving some 300 acres, of 700, untilled. The rock hard dry soil proved too difficult to work and too tough on their equipment.

IN SOUTHWESTERN MINNESOTA, my brother Doug Kletscher, the parts manager at Westbrook Ag Power in Westbrook, confirms that tillage is tough there, too, and farmers are going through the parts. “We ran out of ripper points and they have been back-ordered for a good month. I have heard of a few farmers that have pulled their rippers in half,” Doug says. “We have sold at least five years’ worth of chisel plow spikes in one year. Bolts have also been in very high demand.”

On the flip, positive side, farmers haven’t had to deal with mud, Doug reports, and the corn has been very dry with 14 percent or less moisture content (a significant cost savings on corn drying).

However, farmers are facing another issue related to moisture-depleted conditions. “The fertilizer companies are not putting on any anhydrous as it is too dry to hold the anhydrous in the ground,” my brother continues. “Anhydrous needs moisture to adhere to keep it in the ground; also it (the soil) is pulling so hard that they would break their anhydrous bars.”

Doug reports the last rain over a half inch fell on July 14 with .78 inch. Since then any rainfall has been .10 inch or less. That makes for extremely dry soil conditions for farmers trying to prep the soil for next spring’s planting season.

LIKEWISE, IF YOU’RE a gardener, digging vegetables has been anything but easy this autumn. Take my friend Virgil Luehrs, who lives along Cedar Lake west of Faribault. Unearthing potatoes proved tough, he says. But then he got to the carrots:

“First I tried the garden spade, then a round-point shovel and then a tiling shovel. I had to dig a trench beside the rows to loosen the soil around the carrots to get them loose enough to pull out.  Finally I resorted to a pick to loosen the soil and that was easier but still a lot more work than normal.”

Tilling the garden, even with a powerful Troybuilt rear tine tiller, proved equally challenging. “I could not get down deep enough,” Virgil reports. “Hopefully next spring.”

When Virgil talks soil and weather, I listen. He’s not just your average Minnesota gardener. He’s also a retired high school science teacher with a Masters in biology, a former interim and assistant director at River Bend Nature Center in Faribault, and a volunteer rain gauge reader for the Rice County Soil Water Conservation District (SWCD) and the state Climatology Lab.

In other words, he’s a knowledgeable resource.

So then, exactly how much rainfall has Virgil recorded at his Cedar Lake home (where the lake water level is the lowest in 20 years, but not as low as in the drought years of 1988- 1990). Thus far since April, Virgil has taken these rain gauge readings:

April:  3.14”

May:  4.63”

June:  5.26”

August:  1.38”

September:  1.00”

October:  .58”

TOTAL during the past six months: 15.99”

Says Virgil: “This year we had a much wetter spring and that probably helped to carry us through the dry fall. Recall that last fall we had record rainfalls.”

His 2010 readings were as follows:

April:  1.35”

May:  2.75”

June:  4.76”

July:  5.49”

August:  3.91”

September:  9.13”

October:  1.91”

TOTAL during those six months: 29.3”

According to information Virgil passed along from State Climatologist James Zandlo and University of Minnesota Climatology/Meteorology Professor Dr. Mark Seeley, 2010 was the wettest year in Minnesota modern climate record. The 34.10-inch state average precipitation total was roughly 8 inches more than the historical average.

But here we are in November 2011, desperately short of moisture.

What will winter bring here in Minnesota? A continued shortage of precipitation? Or more snow than we care to shovel?

WHAT’S YOUR PREDICITON for snowfall in Minnesota this season? Submit a comment with a forecast and the reasoning behind your prediction.

IF YOU’RE A FARMER, an implement dealer or a gardener, have you faced any special challenges this year due to dry (or other) weather conditions? Submit a comment. I’d like to hear, whether you live in Minnesota or elsewhere.

CLICK HERE to link to climate.umn.edu for detailed statistics and information about Minnesota weather.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling